Chapter 8 Motivation: From Concepts to Applications Page
i.
II. Using Benefits to Motivate Employees
A. Flexible Benefits: Developing a Benefits Package
1. Flexible benefits individualize rewards by allowing each employee to choose
situation.
3. Today, almost all major corporations in the United States offer flexible
benefits.
a. They’re becoming the norm in other countries too.
4. But are flexible benefits more motivating than traditional plans? It’s difficult
to tell.
a. Some organizations that have moved to flexible plans report an increased
employee retention, job satisfaction, and productivity. However flexible
benefits may not substitute for higher salaries when it comes to
motivation.
b. Furthermore, as more organizations worldwide adopt flexible benefits, the
individual motivation they produce will decrease (the plans will be seen as
a standard work provision).
III. Using Intrinsic Rewards to Motivate Employees
A. Employee Recognition Programs
1. Organizations are increasingly recognizing that important work rewards can
be both intrinsic and extrinsic.
a. Rewards are intrinsic in the form of employee recognition programs and
extrinsic in the form of compensation systems.
recognition are clearly identified.
ii. Some research suggests financial incentives may be more motivating
in the short term, but in the long run, it’s nonfinancial incentives.
iii. An obvious advantage of recognition programs is that they are
inexpensive, since praise is free!
management.
i. When applied to jobs for which performance factors are relatively
objective, such as sales, recognition programs are likely to be
perceived by employees as fair.
ii. However, in most jobs, the criteria for good performance aren’t
recognize their favorites.
iii. Abuse can undermine the value of recognition programs and
demoralize employees.
IV. Summary and Implications for Managers
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performance.
B. Employees whose differences are recognized, who feel valued, and who canwork
in jobs that are tailored to their strengths and interests will be motivated to
perform at the highest levels.
C. Employee participation can also increase employee productivity, commitment to
work goals, motivation, and job satisfaction.
influencing motivation.
E. Pay, benefits, and intrinsic rewards must be carefully and thoughtfully designed to
enhance employee motivation toward positive organizational outcomes. Specific
implications for managers are below:
1. Recognize individual differences. Spend the time necessary to understand
and maximize their motivation potential.
3. Allow employees to participate in decisions that affect them. Employees can
solving productivity and quality problems.
5. Check the system for equity. Employees should perceive that experience,
skills, abilities, effort, and other obvious inputs explain differences in
performance and hence in pay, job assignments, and other obvious rewards.
Myth or Science?
“Money Can’t Buy Happiness”
This exercise contributes to:
motivation
Learning Outcome: Describe the major theories of motivation and relate them to organizational
performance
AASCB: Ethical understanding and reasoning; Reflective thinking
Along with this clichéd statement, you’ve probably heard that money does buy happiness.
above that amount to his employees.
This is by no means the last word, nor a directive to be unhappy until you make $75,000
and no happier afterward. More recent research worldwide indicates the exact opposite:
The more money, the better. The authors said, “If there is a satiation point, we are yet to
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From research, we know:
• Giving money away makes people happier than spending it on themselves. In one study,
students were given money and told to either give it away or spend it on themselves.
Then the study asked people to give away their own money. Either way, people were
happier giving away the money, even if the givers were relatively poor. What seems to
others.
• People are happier when they spend money on experiences rather than products.
Research professor Thomas Gilovich says we think to ourselves, “I have a limited
amount of money, and I can either go there, or I can have this. If I go there, it’ll be great,
but it’ll be over in no time. If I buy this thing, at least I’ll always have it. That is factually
good,” says researcher Elizabeth Dunn.
Saying that money brings more happiness when spent on our experiences (and the time to
do them) may seem counterintuitive until we think about it closely. What did you think of
your cell phone when you bought it compared to what you think of it now? Chances are
you were interested and engaged when you bought it, but now it is an everyday object.
Monitor on Psychology (July/August 2012): 24–26.
Class Exercise
1. Divide the class into groups of three to five students.
2. Ask students to make a list of what factors bring happiness.
3. Then, ask students to read the article found at:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jennagoudreau/2011/03/14/why-money-does-equal-h
appiness/
4. Ask students to compare their list to the discussion in the article.
money and happiness?
6. Ask the teams to make a presentation to the class regarding their findings.
Teaching Notes
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This exercise is applicable to face-to-face classes or synchronous online classes such as
BlackBoard 9.1, Breeze, WIMBA, and Second Life Virtual Classrooms. See
(http://www.wimba.com/solutions/higher-education/wimba_classroom_for_higher_education),
(http://go.secondlife.com/landing/education/) and
(http://docplayer.net/19442732-Effective-use-of-collaboration-tools-for-online-learning-jennifer-pontano-k
e-anna-skipwith-drexel-university-e-learning-2-0-conference-march-2011.html) for more information.
MyLab Management
Watch It!
Zappos: Motivating Employees Through Company
Culture
If your instructor has assigned this activity, go to www.pearson.com/mylab/management
to complete the video exercise.
MyLab Management
Personal Inventory Assessments
Diagnosing Poor Performance and Enhancing
Motivation
We might be tempted to think that assembling a group for a project is team building, but
intentional team building is much different. Take this PIA to find out how to diagnose the
need for planned team building.
MyLab Management
Try It!
Motivation: From Concepts to Applications
If your instructor has assigned this activity, go to www.pearson.com/mylab/management
to complete the video exercise.
Career OBjectives
How can I get flextime?
This exercise contributes to:
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Learning Objective: Demonstrate how the different types of variable-pay programs can increase employee
motivation
Learning Outcome: Describe the major theories of motivation and relate them to organizational
performance
AASCB: Ethical understanding and reasoning; Reflective thinking
My job is great, but I can’t understand why management won’t allow flextime. After all, I
often work on a laptop in the office! I could just as easily be working on the same laptop
at home without interruptions from my colleagues. I know I’d be more productive. How
can I convince them to let me? —Sophia
Dear Sophia:
We can’t help but wonder two things: 1) is the ban on working from home a company
policy, or your manager’s policy; and 2) do you want flextime, or telecommuting? If you
work for Yahoo!, for instance, you may not be able to convince anyone to let you work
from home after CEO Marissa Mayer’s very public decree against the policy. If the ban is
your manager’s policy—or even your division’s policy—in an organization open to
alternative work arrangements, you just may be able to get your way.
That leads us to the second question, about flextime versus telecommuting. If you want
result of a company policy). Employees are also more likely to gain acceptance for partial
than for full telecommuting (either flextime or by alternating days). It helps if you have a
legitimate need to be home and if you do knowledge-based work. Jared Dalton, for
instance, telecommutes 2 days a week as a manager for accounting firm Ernst & Young,
their infant.
If it sounds like flextime depends on favoritism, you might be right. It’s also, however, a
reflection of the state of telecommuting: only 38 percent of U.S. organizations permit
some of their employees to regularly work from home. To be one of the lucky few:
• Check your organization’s flexible options policies.
manager can retain oversight of you.
• Assemble evidence on your productivity. Have you worked from home before? If so,
show how much you achieved. You stated you would be more productive at home:
How much more?
• Outline your reasons for working from home. Do you need to help care for an aging
could use for work?
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• Address management’s concerns. Research indicates the biggest ones are the
Sources: “The 2015 Workplace Flexibility Study,” WorkplaceTrends.com, February 3, 2015,
https://workplacetrends.com/the-2015-workplace-flexibility-study/; T. S. Bernard, “For Workers, Less Flexible Companies, ” The New
York Times, May 20, 2014, B1, B7; and C. C. Miller and L. Alderman, “The Flexibility Gap,” The New York Times, December 14,
2014, 1, 5.
An Ethical Choice
Sweatshops and Worker Safety
This exercise contributes to:
motivation
Learning Outcome: Describe the major theories of motivation and relate them to organizational
performance
AASCB: Ethical understanding and reasoning; Reflective thinking
Industrialized countries have come a long way in terms of worker safety and
opportunities or unions to represent them. Unregulated and even unsafe working
conditions are common, especially in the garment industry. However, three recent
accidents in Bangladesh are raising questions about the ethics of tolerating and
supporting such conditions. In November 2012, a fire at the Tazreen Fashion factory that
work.
In response, some companies such as PVH, owner of Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein,
as well as Tchibo, a German retailer, have signed the legally binding “IndustriALL”
proposal, which requires overseas manufacturers to conduct building and fire-safety
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conditions that wouldn’t be approved of in the United States, but . . . are perfectly legal in
the situation where they are [produced]?” There is clearly not an easy solution.
Sources: B. Kennedy, “The Bangladesh Factory Collapse One Year Later,” CBS, April 23, 2014,
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/thebangladesh-factory-collapse-one-year-later/; J. Kenny and A. Matthews, “Bangladesh Cuts Power
Class Exercise
1. Divide the class into groups of three to five students each.
2. Assign each group to act as a stakeholder in a debate on sweatshop labor. Teams
should include sweatshop workers, management, stockholders, consumers, and
workers in the home country.
companies.
Teaching Notes
This exercise is applicable to face-to-face classes or synchronous online classes such as
BlackBoard 9.1, Breeze, WIMBA, and Second Life Virtual Classrooms. See
(http://www.wimba.com/solutions/higher-education/wimba_classroom_for_higher_education),
(http://go.secondlife.com/landing/education/) and
(http://docplayer.net/19442732-Effective-use-of-collaboration-tools-for-online-learning-jennifer-pontano-k
e-anna-skipwith-drexel-university-e-learning-2-0-conference-march-2011.html) for more information.
Point/Counterpoint
“Face-Time” Matters
This exercise contributes to:
motivation
Learning Outcome: Describe the major theories of motivation and relate them to organizational
performance
AASCB: Reflective thinking
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Point
The bigger problem is the lack of face-to-face interaction between employees. Studies
have shown that great ideas are born through interdependence, not independence. It’s
during those informal interactions around the water cooler or during coffee breaks that
some of the most creative ideas arise. If you take that away, you stifle the organization’s
creative potential.
So think twice the next time you either want to leave the office early or not bother
coming in at all, to “work from home.”
Counterpoint
Please. So-called “face-time” is overrated. If all managers do is reward employees who
as being efficient.
Besides, there are all sorts of benefits for employees and employers who take advantage
of telecommuting practices. For one, it’s seen as an attractive perk companies can offer.
With so many dual-career earners, the flexibility to work from home on some days can go
a long way toward achieving a better balance between work and family. That translates
“face-time” counterparts by 13 percent.
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You say all these earth-shattering ideas would pour forth if people interacted. I say,
far outweigh the drawbacks.
Sources: J. Surowiecki, “Face Time,” The New Yorker (March 18, 2013), downloaded from www.newyorker.com on May 17, 2013;
and L. Taskin and F. Bridoux, “Telework: A Challenge to Knowledge Transfer in Organizations,” International Journal of Human
Resource Management 21, no. 13 (2010), pp. 2503–2520.
Class Exercise
1. Ask students to read the following articles:
Telecommunicating:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobmorgan/2015/05/04/5-things-you-need-to-k
now-about-telecommuting/
Go to Forbes’ website and search for The Problem with Yahoos Work at Home
Ban:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/nextavenue/2013/03/01/the-problem-with-yahoos
-work-at-home-ban/
Work for You:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/work-in-progress/2013/11/26/four-ways-to-make-
working-from-home-work-for-you/
Go to Forbes’ website and search for Big Data Streamlines the Workplace and
May End Telecommuting:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2013/03/08/big-data-streamlines-the-workpla
ce-and-may-end-telecommuting/
working on-site.
3. Finally, conduct an informal poll asking students about the value they place on
face-time.
4. Are the results what you expected?
Teaching Notes
(http://docplayer.net/19442732-Effective-use-of-collaboration-tools-for-online-learning-jennifer-pontano-k
e-anna-skipwith-drexel-university-e-learning-2-0-conference-march-2011.html) for more information.
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