Motivation: from concepts to application

by
Mr. Tšo Sechaba
WELCOME
TO
Application of motivation theories
session
 Objectives
1. Identify the four ingredients common to MBO programs.
2. Explain why managers might want to use employee
involvement programs.
3. Contrast participative management with employee
involvement.
4. Define quality circles.
5. Explain how ESOPs can increase employee motivation.
 Objectives cont.
6. Contrast gain-sharing and profit-sharing.
7. Describe the link between skill-based pay plans and
motivation theories.
8. Explain how flexible benefits turn benefits into motivators.
9. Contrast the challenges of motivating professional employees
versus low-skilled employees.
 What is Management By Objective (MBO)?
• Management by objectives:
– A program that encompasses specific goals, participatively set, for an
explicit time period, with feedback on goal progress.
• Key elements of MBO:
1. Goal specificity: goals should be concise statements of expected
accomplishments. E.g it is not adequate to merely state a desire to cut costs,
improve service or increase quality. Such desires have to be converted into
tangible objectives that can be measured. That is, to cut departmental costs by
7 per cent, to improve service by ensuring that all telephone orders are
processed within 24 hours of receipt, or to increase quality by keeping returns
to less than 1 per cent of sales are examples of specific objectives.
What is Management By Objective (MBO)?
2. Participative decision making: goals are not unilaterally set by the boss
and then assigned to employees. But the manager and employee jointly
choose the goals and agree on how they will be measured.
3. An explicit time period: each goal/objective has a specific time period in
which it is to be completed such as three months, six months and so on. So
managers and employees have specific objectives and stipulated time
periods in which to accomplish them.
4. Performance feedback: there should be continuous feedback on progress
toward goals. This is accomplished be giving ongoing feedback to
individuals so they can monitor and correct their own actions. This is
supplemented by periodic managerial evaluations, when progress is
reviewed.
 Why MBO’s Fail
• Unrealistic expectations about MBO results
• Lack of commitment by top management
• Failure to allocate reward properly
• Cultural incompatibilities
Cascading of Objectives
 Employee Recognition Programs
• Employee recognition programs
– Cover a range of activities that range from a spontaneous and private ‘thank you’ on up
to widely publicized formal programs in which specific types of behaviour are
encouraged.
– Types of employee recognition programs
• Personal attention
• Expressing interest
• Approval
• Appreciation for a job well done
– Benefits of employee recognition programs
• Fulfills employees’ desire for recognition.
• Encourages repetition of desired behaviors.
• Enhances group/team cohesiveness and motivation.
• Encourages employee suggestions for improving processes and cutting costs.
 What is Employee Involvement?
• Employee involvement program
– A participative process that uses the entire capacity of employees
and is designed to encourage increased commitment to the
organization’s success.
• Four forms of employee involvement
1. Participative management
2. Representative participation
3. Quality cycles
4. Employee stock ownership plans
Examples of Employee Involvement Programs
• Participative management:
– A process in which subordinates share a significant degree of
decision-making power with their immediate superiors.
• Participative management is not appropriate for every organization or
every work unit.
• For it to work, the issues in which employees get involved must be
relevant to their interests so they will be motivated, they must have
competence and knowledge to make a useful contribution and there
must be trust and confidence between all parties involved
Examples of Employee Involvement Programs cont.
• Representative participation:
– Workers participate in organizational decision making through a small
group of representative employees.
• Two forms of representative participation:
1. Work councils: groups of nominated or elected employees who
must be consulted when management makes decisions involving
personnel.
2. Board representative: employees sit on a company’s board of
directors and represent the interests of the firm’s employees.
Examples of Employee Involvement Programs cont.
• Quality circle
– A work group of employees who meet regularly to discuss their
quality problems, investigate causes, recommend solutions and take
corrective actions.
How a Typical Quality Circle Operates
Examples of Employee Involvement Programs cont.
• Employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs):
– Company-established benefit plans in which employees acquire stock
as part of their benefits.
 Job redesign and scheduling programs
• Job rotation:
– The periodic shifting of an employee from one task to another.
• Advantages of job rotation:
– It reduces boredom and increases motivation through diversifying the employee’s
activities.
• Disadvantages of job rotation:
– Training costs are increased and also creates disruptions
– Productivity is reduced by moving a worker into a new position just when his/her
efficiency at the prior job is creating organizational economies.
– Members of the work group have to adjust to the new employee.
– Supervisors may also have to spend more time answering questions and monitoring the
work of recently rotated employees.
 Job redesign and scheduling programs cont.
• Job enlargement:
– Increasing the number and variety of tasks that an individual
performs results in jobs with more diversity.
• Job enrichment:
– The vertical expansion of jobs, increasing the degree to which the
worker controls the planning, execution and evaluation of his/her
work.
• Flexitime:
– Giving employees flexible work hours.
 Job redesign and scheduling programs cont.
• Job sharing:
– An arrangement that allows two or more individuals to split a traditional 40-
hour-a-week job. E.g one employee works from 8am to noon, while the other
perform the same job from 1pm to 5pm or the two could work full but alternate
days.
– It increases flexibility hence increase motivation and satisfaction.
– But the drawback is that the managers may find difficult to find compatible pairs
of employees who can successfully coordinate the intricacies of one job.
• Telecommuting:
– Refers to employees who do their work at home at least two days a week on a
computer that is linked to their office
 Variable Pay Programs
• Variable-pay programs:
– A portion of an employee’s pay is based on some individual and/or
organizational measure of performance.
• Forms of variable –pay programs:
1. Piece-rate pay plans
2. Wage incentives
3. Profit sharing
4. Bonuses
5. Gainsharing
 Variable Pay Programs cont.
• Piece-rate pay plans:
– Workers are paid a fixed sum of each unit of production completed.
• Profit-sharing plans:
– Organizationwide programs that distribute compensation based on
some established formula designed around a company’s profitability.
• Gain sharing:
– an incentive plan in which improvements in group productivity
determine the total amount of money that is allocated.
 Variable Pay Programs cont.
• Is gainsharing the same thing as profit sharing?
– They are similar but not the same thing
– Gainsharing focuses on productivity gains rather than on profits.
– Gainsharing rewards specific behaviours that less influenced by
external factors.
– Employees in a gainsharing plan can receive incentive awards even
when the organization is not profitable.
 Skill-Based Pay Plans
• Skill-based pay plans:
– Pay levels are based on how many skills employees have or how
many jobs they can do.
• Benefits of Skill-based Pay Plans:
1. Provides staffing flexibility.
2. Facilitates communication across the organization.
3. Lessens “protection of territory” behaviors.
4. Meets the needs of employees for advancement (without promotion).
5. Leads to performance improvements.
 Skill-Based Pay Plans (cont.)
• Drawbacks of Skill-based Pay Plans:
1. Lack of additional learning opportunities that will increase employee
pay.
2. Continuing to pay employees for skills that have become obsolete.
3. Paying for skills which are of no immediate use to the organization.
4. Paying for a skill, not for the level of employee performance for the
particular skill.
 Flexible benefits
• Flexible benefits:
– Employees tailor their benefit program to meet their personal needs
by picking and choosing from a menu of benefit options
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 Special Issues in Motivation
• Motivating Professionals
– Provide challenging projects.
– Allow them the autonomy to be productive.
– Reward with educational opportunities.
– Reward with recognition.
– Express interest in what they are doing.
– Create alternative career paths.
• Motivating Contingent Workers
– Provide opportunity for permanent status.
– Provide opportunities for training.
– Provide equitable pay.
 Special Issues in Motivation (cont’d)
• Motivating the Diversified Workforce
– Provide flexible work, leave, and pay schedules.
– Provide child and elder care benefits.
– Structure working relationships to account for cultural differences and
similarities.
• Motivating Low-Skilled Service Workers
– Recruit widely.
– Increase pay and benefits.
– Make jobs more appealing.
 Special Issues in Motivation (cont’d)
• Motivating People Doing Highly Repetitive Tasks
– Recruit and select employees that fit the job.
– Create a pleasant work environment.
– Mechanize the most distasteful aspects of the job.
THANK YOU

Questions?