Impact of Motivation on Employee Performance

This essay argues that the performance of employees at Walmart, USA is something that has been considerably enhanced by the sense of motivation instilled in them by the company’s administration through its rewards and incentives system.

Running Head: IMPACT OF MOTIVATION ON EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE
Impact of Motivation on Employee Performance
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1IMPACT OF MOTIVATION ON EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE
Motivation is a force that initiates and directs people in persisting in their efforts in
order to achieve their goals. Walmart, one of the largest retail companies in the world, has
been quite successful in getting its employees to feel motivated. It has fostered motivation
among its workforce using extrinsic and intrinsic rewards (Caillier, 2014). This essay argues
that the performance of employees at Walmart, USA is something that has been considerably
enhanced by the sense of motivation instilled in them by the company’s administration
through its rewards and incentives system. The essay concludes that motivation plays a vital
role in getting employees to perform well at the workplace, and that similar companies
should take the cue from Walmart and focus on motivating its employees well enough to get
them to do their best for the company and generate high revenue growth.
Walmart is a renowned multinational retail corporation that is headquartered in
Arkansas, USA and which operates an entire chain of discount department stores, grocery
stores and hypermarkets across the globe. The company came into existence in the year 1962,
and was established by a man by the name of Sam Walton. Today, Walmart owns
approximately 12,000 clubs and stores in as many as 28 countries and operates under at least
59 different names. It is the largest revenue generating company in the world and is also the
world’s largest private employer, being serviced by 2.3 employees globally (Logan, 2014).
Additionally, Walmart is the single largest grocery retailer in the USA, earning several billion
dollars from its operations in the country (Ton, 2014).
In the last couple of years, Walmart made some heavy investments by giving the
workers at its US stores, bonuses and raises. It did so in the hope of motivating its employees
sufficiently enough to improve the long and lagging customer scores. For instance, Walmart
is believed to have spent as much as 2.7 billion dollars simply on raising the initial or starting
salaries of thousands of its employees across the USA (Caraway, 2016). It also provides its
employees with a number of health care and financial benefits, so that they feel secure and

2IMPACT OF MOTIVATION ON EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE
protected by the company and work to potential during service hours. All of Walmart USA’s
associations and their immediate family members benefit from health care insurance schemes
at exceedingly low prices, schemes that not only entail pharmacy bills, but also primary
doctor visits and dental appointments. As far as financial benefits are concerned, Walmart
employees are given the scope of purchasing Walmart goods and services at lower or
discounted prices. At times, employees are even given incentives like additional income,
depending of course on how well the company performs (Lazaroiu, 2015). Walmart has also
focused on motivating its employees by giving them challenging tasks instead of easy ones.
Competition is something that is greatly encouraged among Walmart associates and every
effort is made on the part of the Walmart USA administration to keep the company’s
employees on their toes at all times, working as hard as possible. A term known as cross-
pollinated has also been advocated by Walmart whereby all the managers of its different
departments get to swipe jobs with one another, with the sole purpose of this being to remain
challenged when working for the company. In doing so, the Walmart employees feel well
respected as they are given the impression that they have the ability to accomplish
challenging tasks while doing a good job of this at the same time (Dobre, 2013).
The initiative taken by Walmart USA to reward its employees well enough so that
they feel motivated to perform as best as they can at work is an initiative that appears to be
reaping good returns for the company. In the opinion of Walmart executives, the customer
scores for Walmart’s products in the USA are fast, friendly and clean and have been rising
steadily over a period of seventy nine weeks. This is quite an improvement given how low
this retail company would rank in comparison to its peers, in numerous customer surveys
(Lee & Raschke, 2016). The internal studies at Walmart measure satisfaction levels for
hundreds and thousands of customers every single month and take a look at factors such as
store cleanliness, check-out speed, helpfulness of store workers and whether or not store

3IMPACT OF MOTIVATION ON EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE
items are always in stock. Important things like paying attention to details, greeting
customers in a friendly manner on the sales floor enabling them to understand promotional
offers on the Walmart app are key and something Walmart has been able to carry off only
with the help of a hugely motivated staff (Eisenberger et al., 2016). Walmart is aware of how
competitive the retail industry in the USA is and knows that customers can deflect quite
easily to rival companies like Dollar General, Aldi and Target, if they are disappointed by the
products that are sold at Walmart. It therefore intends on keeping its employees as motivated
as possible to perform efficiently and effectively at the work front and has even taken upon
itself to sufficiently train its associates in sales and operations, with the training programs
usually lasting for a period of two weeks (Koca-Helvaci, 2015).
That motivation is necessary to ensure the adequate performance of employees at a
work place is not an argument that is easily disputed. Counter arguments on how motivation
could fail to generate good employee performance are next to none. It is widely accepted that
all companies and organizations around the world need to motivate their employees
sufficiently by introducing rewards, incentives and other performance based accolades to give
them every reason to do as well as they can when they report to work every single day
(Shahzadi et al., 2014). It is important and necessary for employees to feel valued and
wanted at the place where they carry out their service, if their potential is to be realized at an
individual and general level. They should not be intimidated or made to feel unworthy or
discouraged as this can hamper their performance considerably and make them want to leave
the company that has hired them rather than feel motivated enough to work for the company
for as long as possible (Shields et al., 2015). It is difficult to argue that motivation has little or
no role to play where employee performance is concerned therefore. All companies and
organizations need to undertake efforts to keep their employees motivated well enough, so
that they can be serviced by a positive and highly determined workforce. Such a workforce

4IMPACT OF MOTIVATION ON EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE
will be willing to put in several hours of work in the day in order to take the company’s
business goals forward.
Thus, it is clear from the case of Walmart USA’s rewards and incentives program for
employees, that if employees are adequately compensated and rewarded on the work front
they will feel motivated enough to perform well for the company. This is turn will lead to
higher revenue generation for the company, enabling it to take its business to great heights.
Motivation is therefore imperative for enhancing employee performance at the workplace. It
is only when employees feel the desire to do their maximum for the company that has
employed them can they actually be made to do valuable work. Without motivation,
employees at any company or organization will end up operating like robots and their
dissatisfaction or indifference to the work that they do, will soon get highlighted in the
quality of the service they render as well as in the manner in which customers perceive or
respond to the goods and services for the company.

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References
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