Employee Motivation: Theories and Application in the Workplace

Running head: EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION
EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION
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1EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION
Introduction
Motivation can be described as the reason behind the actions of the people, their needs as
well as their desires. Motivation acts as a direction to a specific behavior in an individual. This
direction may be triggered by an individual or other such events which may be classified as an
extrinsic motivation or it may come from within an individual which may be known as an
intrinsic motivation (Abbah 2014). The motivation which is provided to a person may be
considered to be a crucial reason why a person is inspired to move forward. However, motivation
is a wide topic and cannot be limited to one work domain or a sector. For this reason, the focus
of this essay will primarily lie on the concept of employee motivation whereby the tool of
motivation in the workplace and the manner in which it is used to influence the different
employees will be analyzed. The essay will critically analyze three theories of work place
motivation and relate them to practical examples.
Concept of Employee motivation
Employee motivation can be rightfully described as a set of factors which can influence
an employee at a workplace to pursue certain goals and objectives. It causes an employee to act
in a particular manner. According to Ahmad et al. (2014), the concepts of extrinsic motivation
and intrinsic motivation are used by the employers to motivate their employers. On one hand
extrinsic motivation is primarily based on punishments and rewards whereas the intrinsic
motivation is based on the motivation of an employee which comes from within an individual
and motivates them to perform well and enjoy their work. In order to understand the concept of
employee motivation in the workplace in a better manner, the following section will be
discussing three theories related to the concept of motivation at the workplace and equate it with
relevant examples and concepts (Facer Jr et al. 2014).

2EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION
Theories of Employee Motivation
Expectancy theory of motivation
The expectancy theory of Vroom is a motivational theory which is based on the
assumption that the behavior of an individual tends to result from the conscious choices which
are made among the alternatives. The primary motivate of these alternatives are to maximize the
pleasure at the workplace and to minimize the pain. According to Vroom, the performance of an
employee is largely based on the skills, personality and abilities of the different employees and
that to increase the performance of the employees the variables of expectancy, instrumentality
and Valence can be rightfully used.
Expectancy
The expectancy can be described as a belief that an increased effort shall lead to a better
performance. According to Ganta (2014), his effort may be from the side of the employee or
from the side of an employer. However, there are various factors which have an impact on the
expectancy which are the resources will are available in the organization, the right kind of skills
as present to conduct the job tactfully and the organizational support. Kuranchie-Mensah and
Amponsah-Tawiah (2016) state that the expectancy can work well if the environment is
conducive.
Instrumentality
The instrumentality can be rightfully described as a belief which states that in cases
where the employee tends to work well the outcome of the organization will be good. This
simply leads to a direction that the degree to which a first outcome is reached will lead to a
second outcome (Shields et al. 2015). This is affected by the factors that the relationship between