Foundations of Employee

Motivation
Employee Engagement
 The employee’s
emotional and cognitive
motivation, self efficacy
to perform the job,
perceived clarity of the
organization's vision and
his or her specific role
in that vision and belief
that he or she has the
resources to get the job
done.
Employee Engagement Model
Employee Drives & Needs

To create a more motivated workforce,

we first need to understand employee
drives and needs, and how these concept
relate to individual goals and behaviour.
Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy
GE (General Electric) Strike
ERG Theory
Maslow’s Theory Vs. ERG Theory
 ERG Theory allows for an individual to seek satisfaction of higher-level
needs before lower-level needs are satisfied.
 ERG Theory accounts for differences in need preferences between
cultures; therefore, the order of needs can be different for different
people
For example, it can explain Mother Teresa’s behaviour of placing spiritual
needs above existence needs
 The most important aspect of the ERG Theory, is the frustration-
regression principle. When a barrier prevents an individual from
obtaining a higher-level need, a person may “regress” to a lower-level
need ( or vice versa) to achieve satisfaction.
 Characteristics of Self-
Actualizing People
Drives & Needs
 Needs
 Goal-directed forces that people experience
 Drive-generated emotions directed toward goals
 Goals formed by self-concept, social norms, and experience

Self-concept, social norms,

and past experience

Drives Decisions and

(primary needs) Needs
behaviour
and emotions
Four Drive Theory

Drive to Social Personal Past

acquire norms values experience

Drive to
bond
Mental
Mental skill
skill set
set resolves
resolves Goal-directed
Goal-directed
competing
competing drive
drive demands
demands choice
choice and
and effort
effort
Drive to
learn

Drive to
defend
 Four drive theory

 four drive theory- A motivation theory that is based on the innate drives to acquire, bond,
learn and defend, and that incorporates both emotions and rationality.

 the idea that emotions play a significant role in employee motivation is supported heavily by
neuroscientific research, but is predominantly absent from contemporary OB motivation
theories.

 The Drives

 The emerging knowledge of interplay between motivation and emotional drive is supported
by the four-drive theory. having been
developed by Harvard professors Paul Lawrence and Nitin Nohria, four drive theory states
that everyone has the drive to acquire,
bond, learn and defend.
 The drive to acquire- this is the drive that humans have to seek control and gain ascendancy
over others in society. four drive theory states the drive to acquire is insatiable because
the purpose of human motivation is to achieve a higher position than others, not just to fill
one's physiological needs.
Drives
 The drive to bond- This is the drive people feel to form meaningful and caring social
relationships with others. This explains how people form social identities in alignment with
the social groups they conform with. The drive to bond is in direct correlation with
successful organisations due to the fact that people are more inclined to cooperate when
they are striving to bond with one another.

 The drive to learn- This is the drive to satisfy pour curiosity, and realise more about
ourselves and our environment. Studies have shown that when people have been removed
from any novel information will crave even boring information, such is the brains need and
drive for continued learning.

 The drive to defend- The drive to protect ourselves physically and socially. This 'fight or
flight' style goes beyond protecting oneself but also includes defending our relationships,
our acquisitions and our belief systems.
How the drives will cause emotion
in the employee
 The four 'drives' are universally innate, all humans from all walks of life will express these
characteristics in one way or another.
 The drives are neither dependant on one another nor are each of them superior or more
important than the other.

 Another key factor in the theory is that all of the theories are proactive with the
exception of driving to defend, which is reactive.

 The four drive theory draws current neuroscience knowledge to explain how drives
translate into goal-directed effort. According to the four drives theory, emotions are
immediately drawn from a particular drive.

 For example, if you come to work one day to see a man sitting in your office char, you might
feel worried or curious, or both. These emotions are automatically created by one or more
of your four drives.

 These emotions drawn from the drives cause us to act in the work place.
Evaluation of four drive theory.
 The four drive theory is heavily based on emotional intelligence, therefore gives a deeper
and more holistic understanding of emotional intelligence.

 Even with the continuing advances of neuro scientific research though, the theory is far
from complete as many argue that other drives such as personality and social identity play a
larger role in the emotions and proceeding actions of people and employees.

 The most important part in workplaces analysis of the four drive theory is to understand
and ensure that a balanced opportunity to fulfil the drives to acquire, bond, learn and
defend are provided.

 This opportunity comes with two main recommendations, one is that workplaces offer
condition suitable for employees to fulfil all four drives, and the other is that the fulfilment
of these drives is kept in balance, that organisations should avoid too much or to little
opportunity to achieve one of the four drives.
Expectancy Theory
 Behaviour results from conscious choices whose purpose is to
maximise pleasure and minimize pain.

 It is proposed that an employee’s performance is based on

individual factors such a personality, skills knowledge, experience
and abilities.

 Expectancy theory states that individuals have different sets of

goals and can be motivated if they believe that:
Expectancy Theory
 a) There is a positive correlation between efforts and
performance

 b) Favourable performance will result in a desirable

reward

 c) The reward will satisfy an important need

 d) The desire to satisfy the need is strong enough to

make the effort worthwhile.
3 main beliefs of the Expectancy
theory:
 1) Valance- refers to the emotional orientation people
hold with respect to outcomes [rewards]. What sort of
rewards does an employee strive towards:

• Extrinsic: money, promotion, time off, benefits etc..

• Intrinsic: satisfaction from completing the set work

3 main beliefs of the Expectancy
theory:

 2) Expectancy- Employees have different

expectations and levels of confidence about
what they’re capable of doing. (It is the role of
management to discover what resources,
training, or supervision employees need.
3 main beliefs of the Expectancy
theory:

 3) Instrumentality- The perception of

employees whether they will actually get what
they desire even if it has been promised by a
manger. (It is the role of management to fulfil all
rewards and promises and to make employees
aware of it
 The theory states that Expectancy, Instrumentality and valance
interact psychologically to create a motivational force that allows the
employee to act in ways that bring pleasure and which avoid pain.
The force can be calculated via the following formula:

 Motivation = Valance x Expectancy

 This formula can be used to predict/indicate: job satisfaction, one’s

occupational choice, the likelihood of staying in a job/current job and
the effort one might put into his/her work
Expectancy Theory
E-to-P P-to-O Outcomes
expectancy expectancy & valences

Outcome 1
+ or -

Outcome 2
Effort Performance + or -

Outcome 3
+ or -
Ways to maintain & improve employee motivation

 Goal Setting
 Strength-based feedback:
 Focus on the employees’
strength, rather than what’s
wrong with them
 Reward Performance
 Community Involvement
Goal setting and feedback
 Goal setting-
the process of motivating employees and clarifying their role perceptions by establishing
performance objectives.

 Goals setting six characteristics:

 Specific goals
 Relevant goals
 Challenging goals
 Goal commitment
 Goal participation
 Goal feedback

 Balanced Score Card – A goal setting reward system that represents an organisation’s vision
and mission into specific goals.

 Characteristics of Feedback- should be specific, relevant, measurable (5% increase..etc.),

timely, credible and it should be sufficiently frequent!
Feedback
•Sources of feedback
•Non social or social sources

•Without communicating
•Information

• directly communicating
• information

•Choosing feedback sources

Sources of feedback
multisource feedback
executive dashboards
customer surveys
non verbal communication, etc.
•Preferred feedback choice depends on the purpose of
information.
The Equity Theory
 The theory explains how people develop perceptions of fairness in distribution and exchange
of resources.

 The equity principle infers that people should be paid in proportion to their contribution!

 The equity principle is the most common distributive justice rule in organisational settings.

 Inequity and employee motivation

 When treated unequaly people feel de-motivated at work
and performance is altered.
Application of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs in an
extended care facility