Understanding Why People Work: Factors of Motivation, Positive and Negative Factors Experienced by Employees, and Strategies to Cope Up with Negative Factors

This article discusses the various factors that motivate employees to work, positive and negative factors experienced by employees, and strategies to cope up with negative factors. It also includes Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and types of motivation.

Understanding Why People
Work

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Motivation........................................................................................................................................3
Factors of Motivation.......................................................................................................................6
Positive Factors employee experienced...........................................................................................7
Negative Factors employee experienced.........................................................................................8
Strategies to Cope up with Negative Factors ..................................................................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Employees are the group of people who collectively work together in order to achieve the
business goals and objectives. Generally they work in Organisation for increasing their
professional growth and generating money. They contribute their best in accomplishing the
assigned target and make the business successful. The Companies also need staff so that they can
run the functioning and business activities successfully (McCoach and Flake, 2018). The people
work in the Organisation for enjoying various benefits and receiving perks and incentives which
is provided by the Firm. The Staff performs different roles and responsibility in Firm which is
provided by employer so that they can give their productive outcomes. It is the responsibility of
employer to ensure that their staff must give best performance and work effectively in order to
accomplish the target (Strombach and et. al., 2016). The Employer must boost the morale and
motivation level of employees so that they can give their best output in improving the brand
image and value of business. The project is based on understanding why people work in business
which includes motivation and its factors that helps in motivating the employees. The report also
consist the negative as well as positive factors of motivation which Staff may experienced in
their job roles including the strategies to cope up with negative factors.
Motivation
Motivation is a concept of encouraging, guiding and maintaining the goal oriented
behaviours of Staff in order to improve their efficiency and encourage the people towards health
oriented behaviours. It is an important factor which improves the well being and happiness of
employees so that they feel more in control of their lives. Motivation defines the reason of
individual to do something or achieve something. It is necessary for employer to increase the
motivation level of employees as it develop competencies, set goals, boost engagement,
encourage creativity and develop talents. The manager must have motivation skills so that they
can encourage others to achieve the workplace goals (Taylor, 2015). In simple words motivation
is a planned efforts which helps in accomplishing the target. There are various factors which
helps in stimulating the employees behaviours in work such as desire for money, recognition,
team work, success and job satisfaction. The role of manager is to increase the performance and
efficiency of staff by motivating and encouraging them in their jobs. There are three stages in the
process of motivation which includes the need, stimulus in which need arise and the time period

when need is satisfied. Through motivation an individual can accomplish their personal as well
as professional goal in efficient and effective manner. There are different types of motivation
such as Extrinsic and intrinsic motivation.
Extrinsic Motivation:
Extrinsic motivation arises from outside which means an individual is motivated by
external rewards. The rewards are in tangible and intangible in nature which includes money,
fame, grades and praise. The Extrinsic motivation helps in encouraging the employees through
outside rewards. For example, performing task that is not enjoyable but it gives wages and
rewards. It is important in Organisation as it helps in stimulating the interest of staff even when
they are not interested to perform. Through extrinsic motivation employees can learn new skills
and knowledge and contribute their best efforts in accomplishing the particular work. But it also
creates an impact on the performance of staff if company fails to give reward as they work for
earning wages and incentives (Fernandes, 2018). The Extrinsic motivation can be increased by
creating awareness among staff so that they can contribute their best output and work with
positive attitude in Organisation. Generally, it come in the form of salary, promotion, bonus and
company car.
Intrinsic Motivation:
Intrinsic motivation occurs within an individual they perform the task without any
external rewards. The employees perform their task actively as they enjoy the work and also it
makes them satisfying to do task. The main motive of staff is to fulfil their psychological needs
for competence and autonomous. It is important for the employees to get intrinsically motivated
as it helps to get promoted in their work. The manager motivates intrinsic employees by
evaluating their performance and providing them career advice so that they can learn something
new and improve their skills (Flannery, 2017). Intrinsic motivation helps in increasing the
engagement level of employees and also encourage them to stay in Company for long run.
To understand the concept of motivation in more detailed manner, Maslow Hierarchy
theory is developed by psychologist Abraham Maslow in which he explains the hierarchy of
needs of people.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Maslow Hierarchy reflects the needs of an individual in a pyramid which starts from the
lower level to top. The pyramid consist the five needs which employees wants to fulfil in its life

they are physiological needs, safety need, love or belongings need, esteem and self actualisation
need.
Physiological Need:
It is the basic need of an individual which must be fulfilled in order to survive in the
World. The physiological meed includes the things which are related to survival such as food,
shelter, clothing and breathing. Employees achieve physiological need in order to gain higher
level of intrinsic satisfaction in future.
Safety need:
Safety need is another Maslow Hierarchy need in which employees want control and
order in their lives, they want safety and security in their job role so that they can work with their
best efforts. The safety need includes personal security, financial security, well being and
emotional security (Kim, Brady and Wolters, 2018). The Organisation must provide job security
to their staff by protecting them from insurance policies, unilateral authority and disability
accommodation.
Love and Belongings need:
It is the third need which includes the feeling of love and belongingness. The employees
have a need for emotional relationship which can be gained by human behaviour. Love and
(Illustration 1: Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, 2020)

belongingness needs includes friendship, family, social groups, community groups and intimacy.
The need helps in reducing depression, social anxiety and loneliness which helps in creating
strong bond between the employees.
Esteem Need:
It includes the need for respect and appreciation from others which helps in increasing the
motivation and morale of Staff. The employees want to get recognised in the Organisation for
their performance and work. Esteem need can be fulfilled by participating in professional
activities, active team participation and academic accomplishments.
Self-Actualisation need:
Self actualisation need is the last need of Maslow Hierarchy Theory which determines the
potential level of employees. In self actualisation need an individual shows their full potential,
talents and capabilities so that they can do their best in accomplishing the work. It includes
partner acquisition, parenting, pursuing goals and developing talents and abilities.
Factors of Motivation
There are various factors which helps in increasing the motivation of staff in
Organisation so that they can perform well in Organisation.
Salary:
Salary is one of the factor which motivates the employees and generate interest among
them to accomplish the work. It is an important factors that helps in encouraging the staff and
increases their performance. Salary is a regular payment which is provided by the employer to
staff in respect of their work (Gîlmeanu, 2015). It is paid monthly to employees in return of
work performed in Company. It helps in increasing the morale of employees and also allow them
to plan their own finances.
Promotion:
Promotion is an activity of transferring the employee to new job position which helps in
gaining higher pay, status and privileges in Organisation. Promotion is also a factor of
motivation boost the motivation level of staff that results in higher productivity and prevents firm
from loosing its potential and talented employees.
Work Environment:
Work environment is another factor which helps in motivating the staff, the firm must
ensure that the working environment must be positive as it includes the physical conditions and

social features in which employee perform their task. It is the responsibility of Organisation to
create positive working environment for their people so that they can work with effective and
efficient manner.
Positive Factors employee experienced
The positive factors helps in enhancing the self discipline among employees so that they
reach their goal and enhance professional growth. There are various positive factors which staff
may experienced in their job role they are as follows:
Increase Job performance:
It is one of the positive factors which employee may experienced while working in
Organisation. The motivated staff give their high standard performance as compare to
unmotivated person. Due to performing well in Company, the performance and efficiency of
employee increases which also helps in enhancing the productivity level of staff. They provide
outstanding service and improves the customer experience (Nakamura, Dwight and Shankland,
2019).
Productive atmosphere:
Productive atmosphere is another factors which staff may experienced in their job role. It
is necessary for Organisation to ensure that the employee must enjoy and acknowledge the
working environment of company so that they can perform better and contribute their best
results. The firm must focus on eliminating fear, sexual harassment, bullying, intimidation and
sexual harassment in order to create healthy and positive working environment in Company.
Productive atmosphere encourages innovation and creativity which helps in generating new
ideas.
Recognition and reward:
Recognition and reward is another factors which helps in enhancing the motivation level
of employee. It is one of the important factor that appreciate the efforts of employees in a fair
and appropriate manner. The reward and recognition leads to greater Staff engagement that
creates positive workplace and increases the retention level of employee. It helps in making
workers more desirable to ambitious job hunters.

Negative Factors employee experienced
The employees also face negative factors which could affect their efficiency and
performance even staff can fail to meet their responsibilities and duties in accomplishing the
task. The negative factors which an individual can face while performing their job role are:
Workplace Conflicts:
Workplace conflicts is one of the negative factors which employees may face in
Organisation while performing their duties. The Manager must ensure that there must be no
workplace conflicts as it reduces the productivity of staff and increases the absenteeism.
Workplace conflicts arise when the ideas and action of workers are in opposition or when they
doesn't get along (Dörnyei, 2019). It creates negativity in Organisation which affects the
performance and reduce the growth rate of firm. It is the responsibility of manager to ensure that
there must be no workplace conflicts in firm so that the people can work in productive
atmosphere.
Bad Management:
Bad management is also a negative factor that may be faced by an individual while
performing their job role. The bad management leads to lower employee morale which also
affects the productivity of staff. Employees also faces problem of bad manager as they avoid the
workplace conflicts and leave them out of the conversation. The bad management can create an
impact on the organisation's budget, profit and leads to employee turnover. So, the manager must
provide better management facilities to employees so that thy can give effective performance.
Downgrading in Job position:
It is another negative factor that can be faced by employee in Organisation, usually it
occurs when employee is not able to perform their best in Organisation which results in lower
pay grade. The reasons behind the downgrading in job position are poor performance,
elimination of position or promotion that doesn't work. It reduces the morale of employees due to
which they give poor performance.
Loss of Benefits:
Loss of benefits is also a negative factor which may be faced by staff while working in
firm. In an Organisation there are various benefits which is enjoyed by employee and increases
their motivation level (Yan and Halpenny, 2019). The benefits which can be gain by staff are
financial wellness, flexible working arrangements, health insurance benefits and professional

development benefits. So if staff losses these benefits, company may face problem of increasing
number of retention.
Strategies to Cope up with Negative Factors
There are various strategies which helps in overcoming the negative factors and results to
better performance.
Engage Employees:
It is one of the strategy which helps in reducing the negative factors which employee may
experienced as a result of their job role. The Manager must encourage the staff to participate in
all the activities of Organisation so that they can contribute their creative and unique ideas in
decision making process. By engaging employees in business activities makes them feel valuable
and also builds strong connection. When staff is engaged they invest more in their work due to
which they produce higher quality of work.
Supportive conversation:
Supportive conversation is another factor through which manager can overcome the
problem and issues of employees. The manager must conduct an open conversation in which
staff can share their doubts, opinion, issues and challenges which they are facing while working
in a firm. It is important for the company to ensure that there must be supportive conversation
between manager and staff so that problem can be handle with effective and efficient manner.
The manager must listen their staff rather than providing them guidance so that they can speak
freely by expressing their opinion.
Recruit well employees:
It is another factor through which organisation can cope up and reduce the workplace
conflicts. The Company must focus on recruiting the best and talented staff that can share their
creative ideas in order to increase the brand image and reputation. By recruiting the talented
employees in Firm helps in reducing the workplace conflicts as they focus on accomplishing
their work in positive working environment without creating any chaos (De Castro and et. al.,
2016). Organisations demand for the right talent that have an ability to perform better and give
productive outcomes in increasing the growth and profitability of business.
Communicate:
Communication is also a factor that reduces the impact of negative factors and enhances
the performance of employees. It is necessary for the manager to communicate with their staff so

that they can know about the problems and issues which is faced by them. Through effective
communication manager can reduce the negativity between the employees due to which they can
work with high motivation. It also helps in creating good working relationship between the
employer and employee which leads to improve in morale and performance.
CONCLUSION
It is being concluded from the above information that to increase the efficiency and
performance of employee it is important to enhance the motivation level so that they can give
their best output. There are various factors through which an individual can feel motivated and
work effectively in Company such as money, pride, recognition, career advancement opportunity
and interesting work. The highly motivated staff works with their full potential and efficiency
which results in greater output and an unmotivated staff gives poor performance which reduces
the productivity and profitability of business.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
De Castro, M. L. M and et. al., 2016. Values, motivation, commitment, performance and
rewards: Analysis model. Business Process Management Journal.
Dörnyei, Z., 2019. Task motivation. Researching L2 task performance and pedagogy: In honour
of Peter Skehan. 13. p.53.
Fernandes, A. A. R., 2018. The effect of organization culture and technology on motivation,
knowledge asset and knowledge management. International journal of Law and
Management.
Flannery, M., 2017, March. Self-Determination Theory: Intrinsic Motivation and Behavioral
Change. In Oncology nursing forum (Vol. 44, No. 2).
Gîlmeanu, R., 2015. Theoretical considerations on motivation at the work place, job satisfaction
and individual performance. Valahian Journal of economic studies. 6(3). p.69.
Kim, Y. E., Brady, A. C. and Wolters, C. A., 2018. Development and validation of the brief
regulation of motivation scale. Learning and Individual Differences. 67. pp.259-265.
McCoach, D. B. and Flake, J. K., 2018. The role of motivation.
Nakamura, J., Dwight, C. K. and Shankland, S., 2019. The Experience of Intrinsic
Motivation. The Oxford handbook of human motivation, p.169.
Strombach, T and et. al., 2016. Common and distinctive approaches to motivation in different
disciplines. Progress in brain research. 229. pp.3-23.
Taylor, B. M., 2015. The integrated dynamics of motivation and performance in the
workplace. Performance Improvement. 54(5). pp.28-37.
Yan, N. and Halpenny, E., 2019. The role of cultural difference and travel motivation in event
participation: A cross-cultural perspective. International Journal of Event and Festival
Management.