Running head: WORKPLACE MOTIVATION PAPER 1

Workplace Motivation Paper

Christopher M Mitchell
PSY/320
May 5th, 2014
Francine Sims PhD, LPC
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Workplace Motivation Paper
Imagine waking up and being excited about going to work, what makes an individual happy or excited
about going to work every day, is it money? According to Arthur C. Brooks of the New York Times,
making lots of money at work is not a sustainable motivation for happiness in going to work. Every job
has basic performance strategies in place, to motivate the workers and to increase revenue. Before I
continue with this article I must reinforce the word revenue and let's not get bent out of shape when
companies seem more occupied with increasing revenue. The company I work for has been around for
years, and there are things that I question about their desire to increase revenue, but if I were the sole
owner of this same company, would I do things different? No, and as a matter of fact, none of us would.
I want to focus on something that has gained a front seat in my automobile of life, and that is motivation
and job performance. One would think because the economy is in bad shape, that it matters not if we
are happy or sad about our work. We have all heard people say "at least you have a job in this economy"
or "be happy with what you got." Those statements do not work anymore and I will explain why, later in
this article.

The company I work for, as I mentioned earlier has been around for a very long time and that means it
deserves respect for tenured growth, and to survive in the industry that my employer is a part of should
also be respected. In my eyes and experience, all of what I mentioned above is thrown out of the
window when people are experienced or intelligent enough to understand the dynamics of workplace
management and motivation. Personalities play a significant role in motivating employees. People's
personalities obviously have an impact on many, many things that they do, if not everything. How
profound the effect of character is on job performance depends of course on the unique facets of an
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individual's personality. Does personality have a high impact on overall productivity in the social
workplace (K. Sinha, 2004), Of course it does and it creates an awareness of who your managing or
supervising. To understand what drives an individual, to work and what motivates that person to
perform at a high level, can increase the production of your team and thats without rubbing people the
wrong way.

The culture errors in my workplace
The job posting was for a technical troubleshooting position, which meant that when you are hired it will
be your job to accept phone calls from customers who are having technical difficulties with their
services. We are trained on every aspect of the equipment that we will be working on, and the training
lasted for 6-9 weeks and that was sufficient for the work we will be doing. I always wondered what
would be the most important gift a job can offer to an employee besides money and benefits upper
level support, the support offered will reinforce the culture and policies of the business.
Don't worry about the account or equipment, because we can fix it We were all told that it does not
matter if we make a mistake while helping a customer because it can be fixed, and that gives birth to
poor work performance for the employee. WOW, imagine anything I break, my company has my back
and will take care of it.
Culture created: We live in a time in which quality jobs are very hard to find and people are working in
jobs that they do not care for and that creates a culture of laziness.


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10 mistakes that can inhibit motivation

1. Treat employees like children: Most organizations (mine) have a mix of older adults and young
adults, and the common mistake is that the manager or supervisor in charge have a difficult
time managing, because they do not understand that the personalities differ, and you cannot
manage one way in these types of business settings.
2. Make rules for the many because of the behavior of a few
3. Focus on mistakes and errors no matter how trivial they are in comparison with successes
4. Apply policies unfairly and inequitably: Inequities are visible to employees who quickly
complain, feel picked on, accuse you of playing favorites, and ultimately sue your employer.
When inconsistent, unreliable actions are taken and perceived capricious decisions are made by
a manager, employees lose faith and confidence. Their motivation at work disappears and
eventually, so do they (S. Heathfield, 2014).
5. Stomp on employee initiative and ideas
6. Tell employees that they are empowered but then review and retain veto power over the
smallest decisions.
7. Hold meetings, coaching sessions, and performance reviews in which the manager does the
majority of talking: This is the way in which the motivation is downsized because the employee
feels that no matter what happens his/her input will not make a difference and because of that
the drive to do well is lowered down to a spectator at the racing trackno drive.
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8. Measure aspect of the business for employee review that the employee cannot control: An
example would be if your receiving phone calls of angry customers, your work at that time is to
somehow calm the customer down by offering help, and then take the time to help the
customer by resolving the issue. The customer is very happy and pretty overjoyed that you
helped them, but they were asked before the call to take a survey on how your experience with
the company was. We (employees) cannot control this aspect of the job because the customer
has been upset with the company and not the employee and will express their angry through
the survey, but it gives the bad grade to the employee that resolved the issues.
9. Set unattainable goals and penalize employees for not meeting them
10. Having decorum rules, but only apply them when the supervisor feels the pressure to apply,
not because it is needed.

What's lacking?
Arousal Theory of Motivation
This theory of motivation suggest that people are driven to perform actions in order to maintain an
optimum level of physiological arousal (K. Cherry, 2014). To be simple most people seek out stimulation
by going out to a club with some friends or anything that provides a release from a long and stressful
workday. One school of thought concerning arousal theory of motivation was brought up by the Yerkes-
Dodson Law. The law states that as the level of arousal increases are performance will improve, this is
missing in the work place and because its missing its causing performance to slack off. In the
workplace we are motivated by our pay check, and by incentives. The levels of performance will remain
low because if incentives are not met, it can cause a person to lose their job. It looks or sounds like this,
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The more incentives you reach, per month it will be extra cash in your pocket, dont you want to make
money? Of course the answer is yes and Im so ready to make more money, since this is an incentive it
should not matter if I dont reach those incentive levels, but my performance takes a hit when Im told
that if I dont meet goal, there would be a disciplinary action, Im no longer motivated to work at this
time.
Instinct Theory of Motivation
William McDougall states that instinct theory of motivation is composed of three key elements:
perception, behavior, and emotion. Instinct Theory also states thea all organisims are born with innate
biological tendencies that help them survive. This theory also suggest that behvaiors are driven by
instincts. Since as individuals we all engage in our own patterns of behaviors in all walks of life, but with
regards to the workplace the different types of behavior presents a challenge. But the challenge is
mostly avoided in the workplace, and this one in particular.
What makes the workplace so interesting are the different types of personalities and behaviors, and to
stay motivated is being able to be yourself in the workplace. The workplace can be a wonderful place to
work if supervisors could understand personalities and how to motivate based on a certain behaviors.





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Conclusion
The information above could be your typical workplace and if it is there are many options available, to
make it a better work environment. Why should anyone study or apply motivation techniques for the
workplace? The benefits of moral value of an altruistic approach to treating colleagues as human beings
and the respect of others is invaluable, and the increase of performance and motivation would be the
residual effects, that makes the company and supervisors look really good.



References:
How Much Does Personality Influence Job Performance?
Kory Sinha Rochester Institute of Technology: http://www.personalityresearch.org/papers/neubert.html
http://www.businessinsider.com/work-makes-people-happy-2013-12
http://humanresources.about.com/od/motivation/a/how-organizations-destroy-motivation.htm