Department of Construction Management and Engineering

CE3HRM - Human Resource Management

Work motivation

Dr Florence Phua
Email: f.phua@reading.ac.uk
 Aims of the session
 Define work motivation and explain why it is important to
organizational success.

 Discuss how managers can use Maslow’s need hierarchy

and ERG theory to motivate employees.

 Describe how need for achievement, need for affiliation,

job enrichment and need for security relate to work
performance and motivation.

 Discuss ways to incorporate motivational incentives into

organisational HRM system within the construction
industry

Department of Construction Management and Engineering

 Consider…

• Why do people work?

• What motivates them?

• Why do some people work harder than others?

• Are people’s actions driven by their needs or directed

towards achieving goals?

Department of Construction Management and Engineering

 Defining motivation
• Willful direction, intensity, and persistence of the person’s
efforts

• Achieving specific goals not due to

– Ability
– Environmental demands

• Person’s level of performance is largely a function (f) of

both ability and motivation:
Performance = f (Ability x Motivation)

Department of Construction Management and Engineering

 Basic ideas on motivation
• Rational-economic (utilitarian)
Assumptions: based on self-interest; economic motivation; people are passive agents to be
motivated, manipulated and controlled.

• Social/Humanistic
Assumptions: based on social needs; people influenced by peers rather than by
management incentives; response depends on management meeting their social
needs

• Self-actualising
Assumptions: treating people as mature individuals; people seek satisfaction of higher
level needs

• Complex
Assumptions: motivation change with the environment/organisation in which the person is
currently working; motivation incorporates the nature of task, the ability and
experience of individuals, nature of other people

Department of Construction Management and Engineering

 Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

Step 5: Self-actualisation (e.g. career,

challenging job, recognition)

Step 4: Self-esteem (e.g. job HIGHER

title; responsibility)
LEVEL
Step 3: Social NEEDS
(e.g. relationship with peers)
LOWER
LEVEL Step 2: Security
(e.g. job security)
NEEDS
Step 1:
Physiological
(e.g. food,
work)

***Lower level needs must be satisfied before a person

can be motivated by higher level needs***
 ERG Theory

Self-
Actualization Growth Needs
cy
ten

Esteem Needs
po
pre

Social and Relatedness

of

Belongingness Needs Needs

er
ord

Security Needs
Existence Needs
Physiological Needs
Alderfer’s ERG
Theory
Maslow’s Need Hierarchy
 Compare and contrast: Maslow’s and Alderfer’s
theories
• Notion of prepotency is not fixed in ERG theory
• May become concerned about a higher order need
before lower order need is satisfied
• May still have strong desire to satisfy lower order
need, even when the higher order need seems
most important

• Even when a need is satisfied, it may remain as the

dominant motivator if the next need in the hierarchy
cannot be satisfied (frustration-regression process)

Department of Construction Management and Engineering

OK, so what does this mean to the manager?
• Employees with strong need for: Achievement

– Prefer to set their own goals

– Set goals of moderate difficulty, but that are achievable
– Like to solve problems rather than leave the results to
chance
– Prefer situations in which they receive regular,
concrete feedback on their performance
– Take a strong personal responsibility for their work

Department of Construction Management and Engineering

Employees with strong need for: Security

• Prefer routine/stability
• Might forgo more salary in a less stable
firm/environment
• View risk on a job as a situation to be
avoided at all costs
• Regard a safe and reliable income as more
important than job satisfaction

Department of Construction Management and Engineering

 McGregor’s theory on motivation
• Theory X – average worker inherently dislike work and will avoid it
as much as possible
• Hence they must be coerced, controlled, threatened and punished
to get them to work
• Average worker prefers to be directed, wishes to avoid
responsibility, wants security above all else.

• Theory Y – work is as natural as play or rest

• work may be a source of satisfaction – contribute to individual’s
self-actualising needs
• Self-control and self-direction when people are committed
• People don’t just accept responsibility, they seek responsibility
• Job enrichment, psychological growth

Department of Construction Management and Engineering

 What is expectancy theory?

• To increase motivation
– Heighten expectancy by increasing employees’
beliefs that exerting effort will lead to higher
levels of performance (training, support)

– Increase instrumentalities by clearly linking

high performance to outcomes (pay for
performance)

– Increase valence [expected satisfaction with

each outcome] by providing outcomes that are
highly valued (provide rewards employees
desire)
Department of Construction Management and Engineering
What could de-motivate employees?
• Motivation is based on a person’s
assessment of the ratio of the outcomes or
rewards received for input on the job
compared with the same ratio for a
comparison other

My Outcomes Other’s Outcomes

My inputs vs. Other’s Inputs

Department of Construction Management and Engineering

 So,
My Outcomes Other’s Outcomes
IF ==/
My inputs Other’s Inputs

Employees may
– Increase or decrease inputs
– Change their outcomes
– Distort their perceptions of inputs and/or outcomes
– Distort perceptions of other’s inputs and/or outcomes
– Change the referent others
– Leave the organization

Department of Construction Management and Engineering

 What have you learned?
• Tie individual rewards to individual needs
– Individuals differ on what they find “rewarding”
– Tailor individual rewards to individual needs
– Do not overemphasize extrinsic rewards

• Tie rewards to performance

– Performance is difficult to measure
– Managers may lack flexibility in determining rewards
– Intrinsic rewards may work when extrinsic rewards are
unavailable

Department of Construction Management and Engineering

 What have you learned? (cont’d)
• Redesign jobs

– Job enlargement: add tasks of equal complexity to increase

variety and use of skills

– Job enrichment: make jobs more motivating by increasing

responsibility
• Skill variety
• Task identity
• Task significance
• Autonomy
• Feedback
– In conjunction with goals
– Repeat at regular intervals
– Provide information as to how performance can be improved
– Come from a credible source
– Focus on the performance, not the person

Department of Construction Management and Engineering

 Suggested Reading
• Rynes et al (2004), The importance of pay in employee
motivation: discrepancies between what people say and
what they do, Human Resource Management, 43(4), 381-394

• Beer, M. And Katz N. (2003), Do incentives work? The

perceptions of a worldwide sample of executives, Human
Resource Planning, 26, 30-44

• Kerr, J., and Slocum, J.W. Jr., (2005), Managing corporate

culture through reward systems, Academy of Management
Executive, 19(4), 130-138