NORTH SOUTH UNIVERSITY

Training and Development

Subject Code – 603

Submission of Term Paper on

“MOTIVATION IN THE WORKPLACE TO IMPROVE THE

EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE”

Prepared For: Dr. Kamal Uddin Ahmed

Department of Management
School of Business and Economics.
North South University
Date of Submission: 05/05/2023

Prepared By
NAME ID

Arman Ibna Anwar 211 5351 060

 LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL

May 5th, 2023.

Dr. Kamal Uddin Ahmed

Department of Management
School of Business and Economics.
North South University.

Subject: Letter of Transmittal for the Term Paper

Dear Sir,

With due respect and humble submission, I am glad to present my assigned term paper on
“Motivation in the Workplace to Improve the Employee Performance”. I have tried my best
to implement the relevant concepts that you have taught in this course.
I sincerely hope that I have been able to fulfill the requirements as per your instructions. I humbly
apologize for any mistakes I might have made in this report and earnestly hope you will point out
any discrepancies henceforth and guide me accordingly.

Yours sincerely,

Arman Ibna Anwar

211 5351 060

 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Completion of any project report is a milestone in the life of every student and the success of a
live project then enhances the self-confidence of the student. The successful completion of any
task is the outcome of the invaluable aggregate contribution of personal efforts in all directions,
explicitly or implicitly.

I would like to express my gratitude towards my respectable faculty Dr. Kamal Uddin Ahmed Sir,
for his continuous support, efforts, and encouragement along with his knowledge and experience
about the industry, enriched me with the conceptual understanding needed to work efficiently for
this project. The project would not have reached its destination without his guidance. His
willingness to make me a part of the organization and share his knowledge with me has helped
me to understand Human Resources in a better and simple way.
 Table of Contents

SL. Topic/Contents Page No.

01 Executive Summary 1

02 Introduction 2

03 Review of Literature 3-4

04 Popular Theories of Workplace Motivation 4-5

05 Organizational Goals, Organizational Performances, and Job 6

Satisfaction

06 Motivation is the key to Performance Improvement 7

07 Employee Motivation so Important for Performance 8

08 Intrinsic Versus Extrinsic Motivation 9

09 Techniques of Employee Motivation 10-11

10 Conclusion 12

11 Recommendation 12

12 References 13
 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Any organization's heart is its workforce. Employee cooperation is a necessary component for any
organization to run efficiently and without interruption. It is of the utmost importance for
employees of a company to maintain warm relationships with their coworkers in addition to
having a positive relationship with the upper management of the organization. Most workers need
motivation to feel good about their work and perform at their best. While some workers are
motivated by money, others are personally motivated by recognition and incentives. The level of
motivation at work directly affects how productive employees are. Employees who are motivated
and enthusiastic about their work perform their duties to the best of their abilities, which results
in higher output rates. For managers and leaders, employee motivation has always been an
important issue. Employees that lack motivation are more likely to put little to no effort into their
work, stay away from the office as much as possible, leave the company if given the chance, and
produce poor performance. Employees who are motivated, on the other hand, are more likely to
be persistent, innovative, and productive, producing high-quality work that they willingly take on.
A number of researchers have conducted a lot of research on motivation. Employers must get to
know their staff members well in order to encourage them individually based on their unique
wants and needs.

In this paper, I would like to emphasize the importance of motivation in the workplace to improve
employee performance and productivity. Even I would like to present the theories and techniques
of motivation in the workplace. No system functions properly without motivation, and no
organization is able to achieve its goals without it.

This study aims to look into the significance of motivation in the management of people at work.
The following study is a self-conducted study of how employee motivation affects performance
for improvement. The study also emphasized factors that lower employee motivation and have a
negative impact on performance.

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 INTRODUCTION

Motivation results from the interaction of both conscious and unconscious factors such as the
intensity of desire or need, incentive or reward value of the goal, and expectations of the individual
and of his or her peers. These elements serve as justifications for one's behavior. A student who
spends additional time studying for a test in order to get a better grade in the class serves as an
example. A person's desire and energy to be consistently engaged in and engaged to work, career,
or subject, or to make an attempt to achieve a goal, are stimulated by external as well as internal
factors. To feel good about their work and perform at their best, the majority of employees need
motivation. The primary source of the driving power is inside; therefore, we will refer to this part
of motivation as internal motivation. The organization uses external incentives as the second
factor. This is due to the fact that employees are driven to identify with a business in order to
satisfy their wide range of requirements and preferences. They won't stop hindering the efficient
operation of the organizations until they have been identified and properly addressed. How to
make workers engaged in their work and give their best effort toward the achievement of the
organization's goals is one of the main challenges facing managers in organizations. What
motivates people to behave in the ways that they do? It provides answers to issues like why
employees and managers report to work and perform well. This makes an attempt to explain why
individuals behave in certain ways, with a particular emphasis on the workplace. The manager's
major responsibility is to create and maintain an atmosphere that allows individuals to perform
effectively and successfully achieve the organization's goals. A sense of fulfillment and
accomplishment for some employees comes from achieving their personal and professional goals.
Many employees have strong self-control and drive. Employees who feel driven only when they
are secure in their talents and personally identify with their function within the organization
respond little to incentives and rewards. These people work hard because they enjoy the personal
challenge that their jobs offer. Employers may increase employee motivation and productivity in
a number of ways. An employer might, for instance, adopt a daily "spiff" that rewards workers
immediately in cash if they reach short-term production goals in order to incentivize those who
are motivated by money. Lack of motivation is a reason why employees leave an organization.
Some people are unwilling to quit because they are receiving benefits from promotions, which
result in increases in pay, bonuses, and other incentives.

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 REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Numerous academics have done a great deal of research on motivation. Only a few of the
motivation-related research topics include the following: theories of motivation, Measures of
motivation, motivational principles, and strategies for making your company more engaging are
all ways to boost employee motivation. How to inspire your workforce, What Strategic
Performance Is Missing Salary no longer serves as an incentive, how to motivate staff members,
Applying Motivation Theory in Real Life Employee motivation, self-theories, and motivational
measures. Herzberg's (1966) motivator-hygiene hypothesis has been one of the most influential in
recent decades among the many theories of job motivation. The theory basically separates
motivating elements into two groups: Hygiene factors, which have something to do with the
environment, and Motivator factors, which have something to do with the actual task. According
to Maslow, psychotherapists who treat patients have taught us the majority of what we know about
human motivation. He says that because they represent a poor sample of the population, these
patients are both a significant source of mistake and of relevant data. It is inappropriate to use
neurotic patients' motivational lives as a model for healthy motivation. Any theory of motivation
must consider the highest potentials of the strong and healthy man. Employee motivation to meet
their esteem, physiological safety, social safety, psychological, and self-actualization levels is
always a direct influence on them. As motivating factors for employees, Herzberg [1] described
job satisfaction as acknowledgment, accountability, and potential for progress. He defined the
dissatisfiers as hygienic elements that affect health, comfort, and social wellbeing after separating
the satisfiers from the dissatisfiers. Employee unhappiness will result from the removal of these
variables. Organizational policies, interpersonal relationships, working conditions, pay, and job
security are examples of hygiene considerations [2]. According to Hackman and Oldham's (1976)
model of job enrichment, jobs can be made more motivating by enhancing the following factors:
skill variety (number of different skills required by the job), task identity (degree to which the job
produces something meaningful), task significance (importance of the work), autonomy (degree
to which the individual has freedom in deciding how to perform the job), and feedback (degree to
which the individual obtains on-the-job feedback). According to one psychological theory, people
who exhibit extremely high levels of intrinsic motivation have such intense engagement and
interest in their work, as well as a task complexity that is perfectly matched to their level of skill

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(Csikszentmihalyi 1975), that they feel in a state of psychological "flow," or a sense of merging
with what they are doing. According to the dominant psychological theory, extrinsic motivation
competes with intrinsic motivation (Deci 1975; Deci & Ryan 1985). When people are motivated
by anything other than the task itself, such as incentives or promises of rewards, this is known as
extrinsic motivation. These theorists generally contend that when powerful extrinsic motivators
are utilized, the intrinsic drive will decrease.

POPULAR THEORIES OF WORKPLACE MOTIVATION

Motivation is a strategy used to inspire, and boost strength, and work ability by mentally
reconciling individuals or workers to their tasks or job in an organization. In a nutshell, motivation
is what motivates someone to work willingly. Motivation is the internal condition that stimulates,
channels and supports human conduct. "Motivation refers to the degree of readiness of an
individual to pursue some designed goal and implies the determination of the nature and locus of
forces inducing the degree of readiness," according to the Encyclopedia of Management.
Motivation is the process through which needs prompt conduct toward the objectives that can
satisfy those wants [4].

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Human activity has a purpose. Behavior with goals is influenced by motivation. Motivation
enables requirements to be managed and purposefully addressed. According to Maslow's
Hierarchy, needs were divided into 5 types/levels, going from the most basic to the most complex.
Before addressing higher-order requirements, people must first address lower-order needs. Needs
that have been met will no longer motivate. Knowing where a person fits in the hierarchy is
essential for motivating them.

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 Figure 1: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Herzberg's Two-Factor Model

Different job factors contribute to both job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction. They are:

a. Motivators, such as success, acclaim, the work itself, accountability, advancement, and growth.

b. Workplace conditions, company policies, supervisor relationships, and supervision Salary level,
security, peer relationships, subordinate position, etc.

Figure 2: Herzberg's Two-Factor Model

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 ORGANIZATIONAL GOALS, ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCES, AND JOB
SATISFACTION

Achieving organizational goals, a degree of performance set up in terms of several criteria, is the
primary motivation for carrying out tasks for every organization. The main factor in achieving
such objectives is organizational performance. Some people think it just comes down to how
satisfied someone is with their job, or whether they enjoy it or specific facets of it, like the type
of work they do or the supervision they receive. Having achieved personal goals, an employee
feels good about themselves and is more inspired to keep working. Motivation helps in enhancing
competency and employee connection, which boost performance and aid in accomplishing
organizational objectives. Motivation acts as a psychological mediator that changes the spirit into
an embodied thing. The degree to which an organization is effective depends on how well it uses
its resources and how little pressure it places on its employees to achieve its objectives.
Additionally, it aids in ensuring the effective use of human resources, employee satisfaction,
interdependent consistency, and workforce durability, all of which are crucial for achieving
organizational goals, enhancing organizational performance, and eventually encouraging job
satisfaction. Multiple research studies have shown a strong relationship between organizational
commitment, job satisfaction, and fluctuation (Porter et al., 1974). They have also shown that
people who are more committed to an organization are less likely to leave their jobs. As it deals
with an employee's positive attitude toward the organization rather than her own job,
organizational commitment can be seen as an extension of job satisfaction. Organizational
commitment, on the other hand, is marked by the employee's attachment to the company and
willingness to make sacrifices for the company, and the emotions are considerably stronger in this
situation.

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 MOTIVATION IS THE KEY TO PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT

A popular proverb states that while you can lead a horse to water, you cannot force it to drink;
instead, humans will only do so when they are actually thirsty. They will act in accordance with
their desires or other strong motivations. They must be inspired or driven to it, either by internal
or external stimuli, in order to succeed, whether it is on the shop floor or in the "ivory tower." Are
they driven or motivated by themselves from birth? No, and yes. If the answer is no, they can be
motivated because it is a skill that can and must be learned. Any business that wants to succeed
and survive must have this. Ability and motivation are considered to play a role in performance.

In turn, ability is influenced by training, education, and experience, and it takes time and patience
to enhance aptitude. However, motivation can be quickly increased. A manager who is unfamiliar
with the possibilities might not even know where to begin. As a general rule, there are seven
motivational tactics.

• Positive reinforcement / high expectations

• Effective discipline and punishment
• Treating people fairly
• Satisfying employees needs
• Setting work-related goals
• Restructuring jobs
• Base rewards on job performance

These are the fundamental tactics, though the final "recipe" will vary depending on the
employment setting. In essence, a manager seeks to close the gap between an individual's actual
state and some ideal state. In essence, motivation is a way to close and control this difference. It
involves influencing people in a particular way toward clearly defined goals by the motivator.
Naturally, both these objectives and the system for motivating employees must comply with the
organization's corporate policy. The organization and the situation must be taken into account
when designing the motivational system.

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 EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION SO IMPORTANAT FOR PERFORMANCE

The quality of the work is driven by employee motivation, which increases performance within
an organization. Employers who maintain employee motivation can ensure uninterrupted
production. As a result, organizations create tremendous harmony throughout the entire workflow,
which positively affects productivity.

 Motivated Employees are More Productive

When employees are giving their all at work, workflow is always more effective. As a
result, businesses are better able to deliver high-quality work.
 Meet Personal Goals and Help an Employee Stay Motivated
An individual's self-development and ability to achieve personal goals can both be aided
by motivation. When a worker achieves some initial objectives, they become aware of the
obvious connection between effort and outcomes, which further encourages them to keep
working hard.
 Greater Employee Satisfaction
Every business should prioritize employee satisfaction because it is the single most critical
factor in determining whether an organization advances or declines. Without an incentive
scheme, employees won't be prepared to achieve their goals.
 Raising Employee Efficiency
Efficiency is not just a function of a person's skills and qualifications. Employee ability
and willingness must be perfectly balanced in order to provide the finest results. Only via
motivation can one reach such balance, which can enhance productivity, decrease
operating expenses, and improve efficiency all around.
 A Higher Chance of Meeting the Company’s Goals

Any enterprise has its goals, which can be achieved only when the following factors are
met:

– There is a proper resource management

– All employees are directed by their objectives

– Goals can be reached if cooperation and coordination are fulfilled at once

through motivation.

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 INTRINSIC VERSUS EXTRINSIC MOTIVATION

Many frameworks, models, and theories have been developed with employee motivation in mind.
Below is a brief summary of a few of the most typical. They all have a solid scientific foundation
and some degree of universal applicability, but none of them is the final word on motivation. In
actuality, hardly many motivational ideas are universal. There are extrinsic and intrinsic
motivating variables, though, and this is a concept that all frameworks that deal with motivation
acknowledge.

1. Extrinsic Motivation

Extrinsic motivation is motivation that comes from things or factors that are outside
the individual. For example, being motivated to work hard at the office because you
are looking for a promotion is a type of extrinsic motivation. Social recognition,
money, fame, competition or material achievements are all examples of extrinsic
motivation.

2. Intrinsic Motivation

Intrinsic motivation is motivation that comes from within. It comes from the
personal enjoyment and educational achievement that we derive from doing that
particular thing. For example for people who love music, their motivation to
practice the instrument, attend classes etc, is intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic
motivation is crucial in today's work environment. Research shows that it is a key
factor in performance and innovation. At a personal level, intrinsic motivation
makes your work fulfilling. It's a major reason for deciding to stay on a job. It helps
keep your stress level down.

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 TECHNIQUES OF EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION

You want to make sure they stay after you hire them. Money and rewards are crucial, of course,
but a study revealed that they aren't the main drivers of motivation. Instead, peer motivation (20%)
and a sense of support and approval (13%) were some of the most crucial elements. [5]

Here are some essential strategies to keep your staff motivated, whether you're trying to convince
them to stick around for the long run or to work for you again the following year.

 Job Enlargement:
Job enlargement involves assigning an employee new responsibility that are similar to the
work they already do. This might enable them to finish the entire task rather than just a
portion of it, like manufacturing and packaging the products. By removing the
repetitiveness from duties and enabling individuals to complete the entire process, this
procedure ideally takes the boring out of the job and increases their responsibility.

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 Job Enrichment:
The goal of job enrichment is to offer employees more authority over their work and
responsibility for its planning, execution, and results. The employee takes over some of
the duties that were previously performed by his or her direct supervisor or by other
employees.

 Job Rotation:
Each employee learns numerous production activities and rotates through them all over
the course of a predetermined amount of time. Job rotation has significant effects on
business learning. Employee rotation gives the business information about the caliber of
various positions and employee matching, on the one hand. Without rotation, however, the
firm only receives direct information about one match, but the information it does receive
is extremely trustworthy.
 Recognize Employees Achievements
Employees occasionally want nothing but praise for a job well done. Don't be afraid to
give an employee compliment if they have been working really hard on a project or if they
went above and above to assist a colleague. Not only is the act of acknowledgment
important but also the fundamental idea that people would work more if they feel their
efforts are acknowledged. Employees whose accomplishments were acknowledged have
also stated that they love their work more as a result.

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 CONCLUSION

Motivation is a crucial component of organizational psychology. To be able to push these buttons

at their discretion, managers need to understand why their staff members act in the ways that they
do. When initially seen, the relationship between employee motivation and performance appears
to be extremely clear. That's because we always behave with a high degree of dedication and
excitement to see a task through to completion when we consider it to be essential and meaningful
to us. The connection between these two things is actually a lot more intricate. In light of this,
managers must come up with innovative strategies for continually maintaining the highest levels
of employee motivation. Motivation is very important for every company to improve the employee
performance and productivity of the organization.

RECOMMENDATION

The outcomes of this theoretical study will certainly be applied very successfully to enhance the
current motivational environment across several industries. It will make it easier to get a better
handle on employee psychology in addition to organizational behavior. There is more to
motivating your staff than giving them an annual review or adding a few words to their personnel
file. It is a delicate and deliberate challenge. Based on the aforementioned research and poll, the
following can be recommended. The following can be suggested based on the research-

• The study can also be used to clarify how various theories of motivation can be applied in
real-life situations.
• To assess the degree to which employee expectations have been met by incentive.
• To motivate these industries to use more motivational techniques in order to be more
successful.

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 REFERENCES

1. Herzberg F (2003) One more time: How do you motivate your employees?
Harvard Business 81: 87-96.
2. Brown JF, Ballard BJ, Cress MM (1982) Employee motivation and productivity.
Montana State Library, USA
3. Ćulibrk, J. et al. (2018) Job satisfaction, organizational commitment and job involvement:
The mediating role of job involvement, Frontiers. Frontiers. Available at:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00132/full#:~:text=Organization
al%20commitment%20can%20be%20thought,job%2C%20but%20toward%20the%20or
ganization. (Accessed: May 3, 2023).
4. Mullins LJ (2005) Management and Organizational Behavior. 7 th Edn, Pearson
Education, UK

5. 10 scientifically proven ways to motivate employees (2023) The Bottom Line by Square.
Available at: https://squareup.com/us/en/the-bottom-line/growing-your-team/how-to-
motivate-your-employees (Accessed: May 5, 2023).

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