Motivating Employees: Basic Principles of Management

Faculty of Management and Finance
Department of Marketing
University of Colombo
Subject : DM 142 Basic Principles of Management
Topic : Motivating Employees
Facilitator : Dr. K. Kajendra, Senior Lecturer
(Ph.D., M.B.A., M.Com., B.Com.(Special)
Faculty of Management and Finance
Department of Marketing,
University of Colombo

❖ Motivation – the arousal of enthusiasm and
persistence to pursue a course of action
❖ Forces either intrinsic or extrinsic to a person
that arouse enthusiasm and persistence
❖ Employee motivation affects productivity
❖ A manager’s job is to channel motivation
toward the accomplishment of goals
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If managers understand employees’ needs,
they can design appropriate reward systems
▪ Needs motivate people
▪ Needs translate into an internal drive
that motivates behavior
▪ People have a variety of needs
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Defines Motivation
Motivation represents an unsatisfied need which
creates a state of tension or disequilibrium,
causing the individual to move in a goal directed
pattern towards restoring a state of equilibrium, by
satisfying the need.

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The Basic Motivation Process
Unsatisfied Need
Tension or Disequilibrium
Action, Movement, or
Behaviour
Goal Equilibrium
Feedback, possible
Modification of
Unsatisfied need

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The Concepts of Motivation has 3 Basic
Characteristics
Effort
Persistence
Direction
Effort
The amount of effort put into the activity
identifies the strength of the person’s work
related behaviour.
Hard work usually reflects high motivation.

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Persistence
– Motivation is a permanent and an integral
part of a human being.
– Motivation is continuously goal directed
so that once a goal is achieved, a higher
goal is selected and efforts are exercised
towards this higher goal.

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Direction
– Direction determines the quality of the
anticipated output.
– All efforts are to be directed towards the
organizational goal.
e.g. a quality control inspector is consistently
expected to direct his efforts in discovering defects
in the produced items so that the organizational goal
of high quality out put is met.