Motivation in the Business Organization

Introduction

Motivation is a process that depends on urging individuals to work for achieving specific goals, targets and aims through guiding them to following goal oriented behaviors. It is the factor that orients people to do effective actions through activating their different behaviors by social, biological, emotional and cognitive forces. The employee who is well motivated works hard due to the feeling of belonging to the organization and due to the feelings of appreciation and respect resulting from proper motivating techniques. Motivation is very important in business as it is considered a catalyst needed for employees in addition to owners of business because it helps them reach the business goals and reach the sought competitive advantage. Motivation is also necessary for attaining goals and setting  main purposes of the business and reach them. The main role motivation plays in business is influencing the human resources’ reactions towards raising benefits ratio for the business as it works on the physical and emotional sides of people to make them efficient in performing the tasks required for the business effectively and this returns to the business with high revenues, profits and increased productivity. Low motivation can result in slowing the work, reduced productivity, more costs and reduced profits.

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Major Components of Motivation

Motivation has three major components which are activation, intensity and persistence. Activation is important as it is the tool that initiates behaviors needed for the work, intensity is a factor that pursues goals set by managers and owners of the business and persistence is the effort exerted continuously to achieve those goals in spite of facing any obstacles as its main purpose is fighting those obstacles and reducing costs that they may cause. 

Types of Motivation

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation

Intrinsic motivation is a type of motivation which reflects the inner motivation stimuli that an individual has and that they come from inside and from his desires to achieve the better for the work, the employee whose motivation is intrinsic has beliefs in achieving the best for the business.  
Extrinsic motivation means that the stimuli of the person’s motivation comes from outside as the employee whose motivation is intrinsic has main targets from working hard such as having a reward, promotion or bonus but the enjoyment with the work itself is not included within this type of motivation.

Incentive

Incentive motivation is including monetary and non monetary rewards and recognition. When incentive motivation is applied in business organizations, employees find it more interesting to provide the business with all what it needs of goal achievement as bonuses and promotion systems work as goals to be reached by employees themselves.

Fear Motivation

Consequences and results are the main bases that fear motivation is based on as when the business organization fails in motivating its employees, fear motivation is used as when employees fear punishment and negative consequences when work is not properly done, they work harder to avoid such punishment and potential penalties. (Olsson, 2008)

Characteristics of Motivation

1. Motivation is a psychological concept

Motivating employees or any other individuals depend on the fact that anybody has main needs and there should be psychological; factors in meeting these needs such as motivation which should come from the inner of the individuals. Motivation includes two main desiring factors which are the fundamental needs which are represented in main needs of food, clothing, housing and so on in addition to the needs of self satisfaction such as respect, esteem, appreciation, recognition, development and promotion so motivation should be built on meeting all these needs and satisfying the individual physically and psychologically in order to reach the main goals.

2. Motivation affects the whole individual

Motivation deals with individuals as everyone represents a specific whole unit so motivating the person should target all the needs of the person and not just one need, for example, monetary recognition cannot be satisfying if applied alone without other types of non monetary recognition which proved being successful in making individuals perform better and provide their best for the place they are working in.

3. Motivation is not an ending process

Human beings are social creatures so they have continuous needs and every new day may bear new needs for the individual so motivation depends on this fact as if a specific need is well satisfied in the person, motivation should look for other needs to motivate the person towards achieving them.

4. Motivation doesn’t neglect basic needs

Motivating a person should begin with looking for the needs a person requires more than other needs because if an employee for example is in need for money, an honor certificate will not be motivating for him but on the contrary, it could frustrate him and delay his work so motivation is based on seeking the person’s basic needs and satisfying them.

5. Goals are motivators

Motivation cannot separate goals from motivators as any business has goals and employees also have their own goals that they work to achieve so motivation should be based on recognizing individuals’ own goals and the setting the work goals to achieve them as individuals’ stop being motivated after goal achievement so goals should be recognized, planned for and achieved in stages and phases.

6. Motivation is a complex phenomenon

Motivation has direct and indirect sides which could be hidden in the person’s inner soul and to motivate persons well, inner motivators should be monitored or at least sought in order to know ways to activate and motivate persons according to what is shown and hidden of motivators.

Importance of Motivation

1. Putting human resources into action

Motivation enables management of businesses to use its human resources effectively and get the best of what they can provide to the other business physical and financial resources so it turns human resources to be on action of bringing more benefits for other business resources.

2. Increasing efficiency and outputs

By making a relationship between outputs and general efficiency in work motivation  urges  individuals to be more enthusiastic to work  in order to provide better outputs  by raising the effectiveness of performance and by urging employees to be more efficient when asked to do specific tasks.

3. Achieving organizational goals

Goal directed behaviors is developed in employees through motivation as it declares the directions employees should work on and sheds the light on the basics that an individual should work for and achieve. Planning and organizing for a business should include goals of the business to achieve and should motivate employees according to these goals.

4. Developing friendly relationships

Because employees’ satisfaction is driven by motivation, an incentive plan for employees’ benefit can be made in order to initiate many things such as opportunities for promoting employees, incentives which can be either monetary or non monetary and penalties for employees who are ineffective. Managers are responsible for using motivation as a tool for building good business relationships among employees and managers and among work mates themselves as this is important in raising the business cooperation atmosphere, brings stability to work, increase levels of productivity and reducing employees’ dissatisfaction with the work.

5. Bringing stability in workforce

Motivation  can raise the sense of belonging in employees by making them feel satisfied with the work and aspiring for more rewards and honors so this reduces employees’ turnover and raises their retention and this in turn raises the stability of the work and of workforce.  (Managementstudyguide.com, 2015)

Theories of Motivation

Motivation theories depend on classifying needs so there are some theories classifying needs such as the following: (Beck, 2004)

1. Maslow

Maslow had classified needs according to his famous needs’ hierarchy that includes five basic needs which are self actualization, esteem, belongingness, safety and the physiological needs such as food, water and sex. Maslow suggests that the satisfaction of needs should begin from the end of the hierarchy as physiological needs must be first satisfied before thinking of satisfying superior needs and then motivation should target these needs at first and then upgrade to superior ones.

2. Alderfer's ERG theory

Alderfer makes a classification for needs to be of three main categories ordered according to a hierarchy as they are the growth needs, relatedness needs and the existence needs. His theory resembles that of Maslow with differences in changing the position of sex from the bottom. Satisfying higher needs are more important in this theory which means that motivation of individuals differs according to the different natures of individuals. 

3. Acquired Needs Theory (mcclellan)

This theory is stating that life experience can lead an individual to have needs acquired via experiences such as the need for having powers, the need to control, the needs for achievement and the need for promotion. Motivation should consider the changes occur in people’s needs and address them.

4. Cognitive Evaluation Theory

Cognitive evaluation theory is based on having two main motivation systems which are the intrinsic and extrinsic systems and that motivation should emerge from them. 

5. Two Factor theory (Herzberg)

This theory suggests that motivation is affected by two factors which are hygiene factors and motivators, hygiene factors refer to things which are found in the work place, for example, and of great importance to employees such as comfort seats, air conditioner and good desks and if they were removed, employees are not satisfied and motivators are things that when are present, they motivate individuals to do better as a result of their satisfaction.

6. Equity Theory

This theory suggests that the rewards should be suitable for the amount and type of work done in order to be satisfactory and there should be equity and fairness in methods used for motivating different people in one place.

7. Reinforcement Theory

This theory depends on using reinforcement in order to control certain behaviors such as positive reinforcement to reward individuals for doing good behaviors and negative reinforcement to take away a good thing as a result of doing bad behaviors. 

8. Expectancy Theory (Vroom).                                                                                                                                             

   This theory is a combination of all the previous theories as it combines equity with behavior control with other motivating elements. (Managementstudyguide.com, 2015)

Conclusion

Motivation is very important in all organizations today especially in business organizations as it is the main factor that urges individuals to work and provide the best for the business they are working in and because motivation can result in adding too much to the business of competitive advantage, profits, good reputation and having a strong human resource asset.  Human resources can be well motivated using many types of motivation such as the intrinsic and extrinsic types. Motivation has many characteristics that should be considered before motivating individuals so as to achieve the utmost benefits from motivation. Motivation is very important because of the good results it leaves on individuals and organizations where it is applied. Motivation is based on many theories such as Maslow theory and many other ones.

Recommendation and personal opinion

Regarding motivation, it is recommended that all organizations study the theories related to motivation well before applying any motivation plan and before setting goals to be achieved in the business so as to measure how far motivation can succeed and can achieve its expected results. Great organizations that use motivation according to scientific bases can achieve the best of their expected organizational goals as they measure everything before applying motivation plans which can result in having great profits and spending the least expenses on motivation plans. My personal opinion is that before beginning motivating individuals, studying their natures, discussing their needs and recognizing their dreams and desires will help too much in choosing the right proper way to motivate them. I think that companies or business entities that neglect motivation face many turnovers and cannot retain their employees who seek other places where they can find appreciation and satisfaction so the most important thing to urge employees to bring success to the organization is motivating them properly and choosing the best ways to motivate employees according to a pre set research about the real needs and desires of those individuals as motivation is a tool for investing in any organization human resource.