Motivation, Performance and Employees

This article discusses the importance of motivation in organizations and its impact on employee performance. It analyzes the case of Starbucks and its strategies for employee motivation. The article also explores theories like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Herzberg's Two-Factor Theory. It provides insights into how Starbucks prioritizes employee needs and creates a motivating work environment. The article concludes by highlighting the relationship between motivation and performance.

Motivation
Case of Starbucks

Motivation, Performance and Employees
Motivation is an important tool for the organization to survive in the fiercely competitive market
where human resource is also subjected to intense competition. Cost cutting is an important
organizational operation and here a high rate of turnover is going to add to the cost. Hence, it is
quite evident that when organizations fail to keep the employees motivated, it is going to incur
more cost in the form of recruitment and training expenditure.
Here, the case of Starbucks is taken in order to analyze the concept of organizational motivation.
It is important that a real life case study is taken up for research study so that the findings are not
hypothetical and have real implications (Nold and Michel, 2016).
Another area which must be taken seriously is the use and application of theories and relevant
literatures. Based on these, research gains validity. In this blog posting essay, evidences have
been provided so as to validate the points made.
The organization taken here is Starbucks. The company owns 4000 outlets throughout the world
and has become the largest retail coffee shop, globally.
Need Hierarchy Theory by Maslow and Starbucks
‘Need Hierarchy Theory’ was introduced by Abraham H. Maslow who was an American Social
Scientist. According to this theory, the motivations of the employees are based on the hierarchy
of needs and how far those needs are met.

Source: (Tikson, 2018).
As it can be seen from the digarm above that there are five stages in which the needs are placed
in order of importance. The five stages play a vital role in motivating the employees and it is the
duty of managers to make sure that these needs are fuliled. However, it is not possible to fulfill
all the needs as some of the needs and its satisfaction fall on the personal side of life. Yet, this
theory helps in understsnding motivation and meeting the needs of the employees on the
professional forefront (Liu and Zhang, 2019).
At Starbucks, the employees are taken well care of and their self-esteem is given ample
importance by keeping the priorities of the staff members ahead of the organizations. The
managers make sure that the employees are treated equally and the employees are called
‘partners’.
The workers are given importance by the managers. The managers plan out the work working
hours of the employees based on the update that they receive from the employees. If any
employee has an important errand to run for, then they are given the full of liberty of being
flexible (Noe et al, 2017).
This is going to work well for the ‘esteem’ hierarchy of the Maslow model and theory.
Frederick Herzberg’s Two Factors or Motivation-Hygiene Theory and
Starbucks
Frederick Herzberg’s Two Factors or Motivation-Hygiene Theory is another important theory
that has helped in managing employees and making sure that the employees are well motivated
with their needs being fulfilled.
The first thing is the hygiene factor that includes a number of points. A few to mention are:
 Policy and administration
 Relationship that exists between the managers and the subordinates
 Salary
 Working conditions
 Security

 Employee Benefits and a few more.
There are medical insurance and commodities discount that are given to the employees of the
Starbucks. Apart from this, they are also given the benefits of working more than 20 hours per
week and also a vacation (Miao, 2019).
The company also is active in allocating stock dividends to all the employees. This ensures that
the employees feel connected to the organization and also contribute to in terms of efforts in
boosting up the sales.
The employees function in team and in the front line there are maximum 4-6 employees so that
the circle is close-knit and they get to know each other well. This helps in functioning as a
family. Thus, it is functioning as motivating factor.
The policies of the organization are revised from time to time and the employees are also asked
to participate in the policy revision.
As far as other factors are concerned, it is
 Achievement
 Responsibility
 Recognition
 Growth and development
These play an important role in determining the motivation level of the employees. Recognition
is important as the employees feel rewarded for the effort that they put in. Suggestions and
complaints that are made by the employees are given equal importance (Huang, 2016).
Frederick Herzberg’s Two Factors or Motivation-Hygiene Theory also lays emphasis on the
growth and development that is being offered to the employees at the work place.
Performance and Motivation
Performance and motivation are the two inter-related terms and they are directly proportional. It
is important that performances are measured so that motivation strategies employed by the
management can also be evaluated. When the motivation strategies show no positive effect on

the performance than that would indicate at reconsidering the motivation activities that the
organization is using at present. Motivated employees tend to function better than the employees
who are not motivated (Lăzăroiu, 2015).
The diagram below is a depiction of the relation between the motivation and the
Source: (Tikson, 2018).
Individual needs, personal preferences and work environment and the three factors that
contribute to the declining or rising performance. Often the performance is stagnant and this
could be taken as positive factor if the organization is at a stable stage or this could be worked up
on if the organization is looking to grow.
Job performance is the outcome of motivation and all theories that have been mentioned above,
after successful application, must culminate into positive performance result from the side of the
employees (Cappelli and Tavis, 2016).
Here is a question that is related to the case study of Starbucks and will also help in summarizing
the whole case study in brief. The answer is also provided so as to have a clear understanding of
motivation within the organization.
Mention three major things that are done, in a continuous fashion, to ensure employee
motivation and performance in Starbucks?

 In planning process, the company makes sure that the employees are made to participate
in the policy revision and they are given equal treatment which makes them realize that
they are a vital part of the organization (Mohrman and Lawler, 2017).
 The employees are heard well in the organization. The employees are supposed to be an
asset to the organization according to Starbucks and whatever they have to say whether it
is a feedback or complaints is taken seriously and processed in the manner that it is
supposed to.
 Welfare measures that are taken by Starbucks are to promote well-being of the employees
by making them entitles to benefits like dividends allocation, vacation, overtime benefits
and health facilities (Ahmed et al, 2016).

References
Lăzăroiu, G., 2015. Employee motivation and job performance. Linguistic and Philosophical
Investigations, (14), pp.97-102.
Mohrman, A.M. and Lawler, E.E., 2017. Motivation and performance-appraisal behavior. In
Performance measurement and theory (pp. 173-194). Routledge.
Huang, C.S., Yang, S.J., Chiang, T.H. and Su, A.Y., 2016. Effects of situated mobile learning
approach on learning motivation and performance of EFL students. Journal of Educational
Technology & Society, 19(1), pp.263-276.
Miao, Q., Eva, N., Newman, A. and Schwarz, G., 2019. Public service motivation and
performance: The role of organizational identification. Public Money & Management, 39(2),
pp.77-85.
Liu, Y. and Zhang, J., 2019, May. The Influence of Employees’ Motivation Management on
Teamwork: Taking Starbucks as an Example. In 2019 International Conference on Management,
Education Technology and Economics (ICMETE 2019). Atlantis Press.
Tikson, S.D.S., 2018. Human Resource Policies and Work Culture: A Case of Starbucks. Jurnal
Bisnis, Manajemen, dan Informatika, 15(1), pp.1-12.
Noe, R.A., Hollenbeck, J.R., Gerhart, B. and Wright, P.M., 2017. Human resource management:
Gaining a competitive advantage. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.
Ahmed, T.M., Bezemer, C.P., Chen, T.H., Hassan, A.E. and Shang, W., 2016, May. Studying the
effectiveness of application performance management (APM) tools for detecting performance
regressions for web applications: an experience report. In Proceedings of the 13th International
Conference on Mining Software Repositories (pp. 1-12). ACM.
Cappelli, P. and Tavis, A., 2016. The performance management revolution. Harvard Business
Review, 94(10), pp.58-67.
Nold, H. and Michel, L., 2016. The performance triangle: a model for corporate agility.
Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 37(3), pp.341-356.

Appendix
Case Study
Prepared By
Rossi Norman Dias.
MBA
BRAC University.
Date: 19 November 2013
Starbucks Corporation: Case Study in
Motivation
Because of rapid globalization over recent years, competition around the world
becomes more intense, especially for the service industry with similar products.
The most critical point for business to achieve success is not only the quality of
products they supply, but the atmosphere of cooperating and the amount
yielded from teamwork in retail sales. Therefore, it turns out to be essential for
companies to motivate, reward and train their employees to be the best quality
personnel.
Starbucks Corporation, the most famous chain of retail coffee shops in the
world, mainly benefits from roasting and selling special coffee beans, and other
various kinds of coffee or tea drinks. It owns about 4000 branches in the whole
world. Moreover, it has been one of the most rapid growing corporations in
America as well. The reasons why Starbucks is popular worldwide are not only
the quality of coffee, but also its customer service and cosy environment.
Starbucks establishes comfortable surroundings for people to socialize with a

fair price, which attracts all ages of consumers to come into the stores. Besides,
it is also noted for its employee satisfaction. The turnover rate of employees at
Starbucks was 65% and the rate of managers was 25% a year However, the
rates of other national chain retailers are 150% to 400% and 50% respectively.
Compared with them, the turnover rate of Starbucks is much lower than other
industries on average. As a result, Starbucks is one of the optimal business
models for strategies of employee motivation, customer satisfaction and
cooperation of teamwork.
The history of Starbucks:
Starbucks began by three friends, Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl, and Gordon Bowker,
who knew each other at the University of Seattle, in 1971. A sales
representative, Howard Schultz, decided to be a part of Starbucks, as director of
marketing and retail sales, after he realized the atmosphere and environment of
the company. In 1985 Howard Schultz chose to establish a new coffee shop,
named II Giornale, in Seattle. After the next two years, due to the successful
strategy of Schultz, the original three owners of Starbucks decided to sell their
corporation to Schultz. Then Schultz gathered other investors and changed the
name of II Giornale to Starbucks. He sought to pursue his dream to make
everyone taste his coffee, so he focused on the rate of expanding. At that time,
he though that the most efficient way to grow the amount of branches was to
set up new stores in other places. In I987, Starbucks had the first overseas store
in Japan. Until the end of 2002, Starbucks has developed from 17 stores to 5,688
spreading over 30; it has grown over 300 times in these ten years! In Fortune
magazine, Starbucks was ranked the 11th best company to work for in 2005 in
the USA and then rose up in 2006 to 29th. In 2007, it was ranked as the 16th
best. In the same year, Starbucks was also voted as one of the top ten UK
workplaces by the Financial Times.
Motivation:
Motivation is a vital factor for business in the production process. Labourers are
not machines, and can not always do the same task with equal passion. The
chief executive officer of Starbucks corporation, Howard Schultz, considers that
the reason for success in Starbucks is not coffee but employees. He firmly
believes that the spirit of Starbucks is employees and feels honoured about the
value of Starbucks employees. Starbucks offers an interactive structure that
makes personnel throw themselves into their job.
1) Equal treatment: The managers in Starbucks treat each employee equally
and all of the staff are called ‘partners’, even the supervisors of each branch. In
order to narrow the gap between managers and employees, they also cowork
with the basic level staff in the front line. Due to this, they can maintain a good
management system and create a much closer and more familiar atmosphere
than other places. Not only do employees enjoy their job but customers are also
affected by their enthusiasm.

2) Listen to employees: Starbucks has a wellorganized communication channel
for employees. It places great importance on labour. For example, managers
plan the working hours per workers and arrange the schedule of time off,
according to the workers’ wants in order to meet their requirements. There are
interviews weekly to see what employees’ needs are. The partners have the
right to figure out what is the best policy for them, and the directors show a
respect for each suggestion. Starbucks even wants every employee to join in
making and developing plans, then work together in achieving their goals. As a
result, the policies and principles are communicated between all staff, and there
is no limitation in employees’ personal opinions.
3) Good welfare measures: All employees, including informal personnel, are
offered a great deal of welfare policies, for instance, commodities discounts for
employees, medical insurance (including health, vision and dental) and
vacations. Moreover, the partners who work over 20 hours a week are entitled
to benefits.
Starbucks also thinks that debt financing is not the best choice, thus it chooses
to allocate stock dividends to all employees with a free script issue. By this
policy, the employees can get benefits from the dividends of the company.
Because of this, they have the same goal; in other words, they are motivated to
increase the sales to earn more profits. To Starbucks, the employees are the
most important asset.
Teamwork:
1) The strategies to keep good relationships: Starbucks establishes a well
developed system to
keep good relationships between managers and employees. As mentioned, they
use the title “partner” regardless of the level of the worker, which narrows the
gap of bureaucracy. Furthermore, they cowork in the first line to eliminate the
distance between different statuses. Thirdly, the numbers of employees are
usually from three to six. Such a small size helps staff get to know each other
easily and deeply. Suggestions and complaints made by employees are treated
of equal importance. In the same way, they have a right to participate in the
process of revising company policies. In that case, each staff member thinks
that they also play an important role in company operating, and they jointly
work out the direction of Starbucks. All this gives employees respect and a
sense of participation.
2) A goal of public welfare: Starbucks contributes part of its profits to public
service. As a consequence staff have an idea that what they do for Starbucks is
for society as well. With regard to goals, Starbucks set a challenging and specific
goal, and it allows all partners to decide the direction.