Understanding Why People Work: Factors that Motivate Employees and Coping Strategies

This report discusses the concept of motivation, Maslow's hierarchy theory, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and various factors like salary, promotion, and work conditions that motivate employees to work. It also highlights the positive and negative impacts of job roles and provides recommendations to cope with the negative factors.

BMP3004
World of Work
Understanding why people work
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Contents
Introduction 3
What does Motivation Mean? 3
The various factors which motivate employees to work
4
The positive factors employees experience as a result of their job
roles 5
The negative factors employees experience as a result of their job
roles 5
Strategies to cope with negative factors employees experience as a
result of their job roles 6
Conclusion 6
References 8

Introduction
World of work is basically a concept that states that the work is performed in the various
markets and sectors that involves various efforts from the employees. The world of work consists
of various employees and various factors that have an impact over the performance of the
employees as well as the organization. The report is produced in order to discuss the employee
attitude towards the work of the organization. The report aims to highlight various factors such as
negative and positive factors that motivate the employees in accordance with their job roles
(Farley, Coyne and D’Cruz, 2021).
What does Motivation Mean?
Motivation is referred to the process that aims to initiate, guide and maintain the goal
oriented behaviors. Motivation is considered as a process that comprises of emotional, biological,
cognitive and social forces that activate behavior of a person. Motivation is referred to the desire
to achieve a goal.
Maslow's hierarchy theory
Maslow's hierarchy theory was introduced by Maslow which states that motivation is
required in order to achieve some specific needs of an individual while some of the needs take
precedence over the others. The theory has identified the needs into five basic categories. The
categories are discussed below-
 Physiological needs- Physiological needs is referred to the basic necessities that are to be
fulfilled in order to survive. The basic needs that comprise of physiological needs are food,
water, shelter and clothing (Gomez, Newell and Vannini, 2020).

 Safety needs- Safety needs are the security needs that occur after the basic physiological
needs are satisfied. These needs are mostly fulfilled by family and society which include
emotional and financial security, health and social stability.
 Social needs- The social needs arise after the fulfillment of safety needs. The social needs
comprise of love and belonging needs. The social needs are basically the emotional needs
such as affiliation, interpersonal needs, etc.
 Self esteem needs- Self esteem needs fall at the fourth level of Maslow's theory. The self
esteem needs comprise of accomplishment, respect and self worth. It is noticed that it is
very important for a person to have respect and reputation. Psychological needs- The psychological needs is basically the self actualization needs
wherein the person realizes its potential and self fulfillment seeking personal growth
(Gorkovenko and Taylor, 2017).
Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation
Extrinsic motivation is referred to the level of motivation that involves completion of a
task that is exhibited through the behavior that is caused due to the external factors that include
punishments or rewards. Intrinsic motivation is referred to the motivation for doing work with an
intention it is going to benefit an individual personally.
The various factors which motivate employees to work
Salary: Salary is considered as a motivator only in the conditions where an employee is not able
to make enough money to fulfill the basic needs. The base compensation or salary must be on the
basis of the performance of the employee.
Promotion: Promotion is a factor for motivation as it helps in enhancement of the job position of
an employee. Promotion is basically providing with the better career advancement opportunities to
the employees. A better advancement opportunity is more likely to motivate individuals in order to
indulge in a task.
Work Environment: Work environment also plays a vital role in the motivation of employees at
work. A healthy work environment is more likely to motivate employees for better job
performance that leads to better productivity of the business as well as the business. A healthy and
safe work environment is more likely to retain employees at the work place and further the
employee turnover ratio also decreases (Kang and et.al., 2017).

The positive factors employees experience as a result of their job
roles
Employment opportunities help the employees or individuals to have various positive impacts
rather than just the financial incentives. The various positive factors that are experienced by the
employees at the workplace are discussed below-
 Fostering social responsibilities- The job opportunities or job roles help people in
providing various opportunities to meet and connect with various people. The interaction
with various colleagues at the workplace is likely to have a positive impact upon the well
being of the employees along with trust and social support.
 Individual engagement- There is a direct relation between employee engagement and the
productivity of the employees that impact the productivity of the organization as well. It is
suggested that employee engagement has a positive impact upon the performance of the
organization.
 Sense of achievement- The positive impact of job performance is that it develops a sense
of achievement among the employees. The reason behind the sense of achievement are
various psycho social characteristics. The various psycho social characteristics include job
demands, job control, job satisfaction, efforts, rewards as well as subjective measures like
general health and mental well being (Lim and Fussell, 2017).
The negative factors employees experience as a result of their job
roles
The employment opportunities also come with certain drawbacks. The negative impacts faced by
The employees during the jobs are discussed below-
 Burn out- Burnout is referred to a psychological condition that has a negative impact upon
the condition of an employee. The burnout can be caused as a result of stress that is an
impact of work place conditions. The situation is mostly faced by the people who are
incapable of dealing with the exhaustion and detachment of work. In worse situation, it has
been noticed that burnout can worsen to become depression.
 Health problems- In various industries it has been noticed that the employees are
constantly under threat. Some activities or jobs are prone to accidents. Further some job
roles can lead to a life long or long term diseases in terms of health (Maio And et.al.,
2020).

Strategies to cope with negative factors employees experience as a
result of their job roles
The strategies that can be used by an organization in order to cope with the negative factors that
are experienced by the employees are discussed below-
 Stability- The employees are very much capable of identifying the sense of instability in
the business organization. The instability that can be sensed by the employees are in terms
of job eliminations and restructuring. It is important for the business to have transparent
and open communication that will facilitate trust between employees and leadership
(McNeil and et.al., 2020).
 Engagement- It is important for the business to engage the employees through the
conversation as soon as possible. The focus of the organization must be upon more
authentic, frequent and informal communication as these are important in order to enhance
the performance of the employees. An effective communication will help in improving
performance through a better discussion of strategies.
 Notice consideration- A notice in aspect of work helps the organization to conduct a
smooth flow and transition for the employee as well as employee. It enhances trust and
respect from both the extents. This can be facilitated by a smooth and effective
communication between the employees, manager and Human Resource.
 Create a learning culture- It is considered that even the most successful organizations
can not guarantee job security to their employees but developing or establishing a learning
culture at the work place will help the employees to cope with challenges. A learning
culture will also help in enhancement of the skills of the employees that will help in
growth and success of the employees.
 Provide career transition support- The most successful, talented and confident
employees can face a rough time due to unexpected job loss. Hence, the working career
consultants provides an opportunity to the individuals on the basis of their strengths, goals
and further development of strategies in order to provide them with job opportunities
(Sousa And et.al., 2020).
Conclusion
It can be concluded from the study that it is very important to understand why people
work. It can be considered that motivation is the most important factor that influences an
individual to work with proper efforts. Motivation is a process that initiates, guides and maintains

the goal oriented behaviors. The report highlights the concept of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation
along with the Maslow's hierarchy theory. The theory describes five categories of needs namely
physiological, Safety needs, Social needs, Self esteem needs and psychological needs. The study
further highlights various factors like salary, promotion and work conditions that motivate
employees to work. The report highlights various positive and negative impacts of the job roles
along with recommendations to cope with the negative factors.

References
Books and Journals
Farley, S., Coyne, I. and D’Cruz, P., 2021. Cyberbullying at work: Understanding the influence of
technology. Concepts, Approaches and Methods, pp.233-263.
Gomez, R., Newell, B. C. and Vannini, S., 2020. Empathic humanitarianism: Understanding the
motivations behind humanitarian work with migrants at the US–Mexico border. Journal
on Migration and Human Security, 8(1), pp.1-13.
Gorkovenko, K. and Taylor, N., 2017. Understanding how people use Twitter during election
debates. In HCI 2017: Digital Make Believe. BCS Learning and Development Ltd.
Kang, J. and et.al., 2017, August. Understanding how people use natural language to ask for
recommendations. In Proceedings of the Eleventh ACM Conference on Recommender
Systems (pp. 229-237).
Lim, H. and Fussell, S., 2017, May. Understanding how people attend to and engage with foreign
language posts in multilingual newsfeeds. In Proceedings of the International AAAI
Conference on Web and Social Media (Vol. 11, No. 1).
Maio, G. R. And et.al., 2020. Setting the foundations for theoretical progress toward
understanding the role of values in organisational behaviour: Commentary on “Values at
work: The impact of personal values in organisations” by Arieli, Sagiv, and
Roccas. Applied Psychology, 69(2), pp.284-290.
McNeil, R. and et.al., 2020. Understanding concurrent stimulant use among people on methadone:
A qualitative study. Drug and alcohol review, 39(3), pp.209-215.
Sousa, C. A. And et.al., 2020. Understanding the curricular needs and practice contexts of macro
social work: A community-based process. Journal of Social Work Education, 56(3),
pp.533-547.