Employee Productivity; Better pay or Employee Happiness

Running head: Employee Productivity; Better pay or Employee Happiness
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Employee Productivity; Better pay or Employee Happiness
Student’s Name
University

Employee Productivity; Better pay or Employee Happiness
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Employee Productivity; Better Pay or Employee Happiness
Employee productivity is one of the issues that managers struggle with in a way to
increase business outputs. It is measured in terms of the level of output from individual
employees relative to what the average employee does. Productivity is seen as a factor that
comes from employee who enjoy their work and are satisfied working with the organization
(Nemeckova, 2017). Different Scholars have tried to explain factors that increase employee
productivity in the context of the organization. This is seen in the value that employees produce
as the reason for the pay that they received from the organization (Miner, 2015). This element of
work is influenced by different factors some which can be controlled by the organization while
some cannot. In an attempt to determine the factors that affect employee productivity and
developing strategies to address them, Scholars have worked on different theories of motivation
stating several factors that affect workforce productivity. Some of these factors are better pay
and making employees happy. According to Saks (2017) theories of motivation offer differing
and similar stand points on these two-factors. This essay uses motivation theories to explain the
two-factors of better and creating conditions for happiness in meeting the needs of employees.
Better pay is an approach that focuses on offering material incentives to employees to
meet their needs as a way of achieving productivity. From the social contract perspective,
employees give up their rights to the organization so that they can belong there and be part of the
team. This approach is built around extrinsic factor through the use of carrot and stick to
motivate employee (Pink, 2009).Such employees have traded part of their rights including their
skills and efforts to the organization for economic, social and psychological benefits. Jones &

Employee Productivity; Better pay or Employee Happiness
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George (2008) suggests that economic benefits gained from such processes include the salary
that they received at the end of the month which they use to meet their personal needs. In the
society, money is a medium of exchange that one must have to survive and live a happy life.
Therefore, employees work in the organization because they are sure of being paid something at
the end of the month. This means that people are always looking to put themselves in better
positions financially. This marks the reason why some employees will go for a job that offers
better perks than others. This is seen where employees feel valued, thus making them better and
improving company morale. Theories of motivation have focused on meeting of physiological
needs of employees and use of rewards as a way of increasing employee productivity. According
to Pink (2009) this approach works well where there is a simple set of rules and a clear
destination to go to. These theories are Vroom’s expectancy theory, Urwick’s Theory Z. and
Skinner’s reinforcement theory.
Sridevi (2010) states that Urwick’s Theory Z offers two propositions that can be used to
explain the role of better pay in motivating employees. The first proposition is that each within
the organization should know the goals of the business and their contributions towards meeting
these goals. Then the second proposition is that the employee should understand the relation that
the goals have to satisfy their needs positively. This theory implies that employee needs and
organizational needs are related in a way that the organization uses the employee to meet its
business needs while the employee receives benefits that enable meeting of personal needs (Soo
Jung Jang, 2010). Since most needs are met by different resources and money can be used to buy
almost everything, employees expect a reasonable salary from the organization at the end of the
month or work period. This is the reason why some organizational offer different types of