Motivation in the Workplace: Understanding Why People Work

This report discusses the Maslow motivation theory and intrinsic and extrinsic motivation theory. It also highlights the factors that motivate employees to work and strategies to cope with negative factors. The subject is Business Management with Foundation, course code BMP3004, and the college/university is not mentioned.

Business Management with Foundation
BMP3004
World of Work
Understanding why people work
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
What does Motivation Mean? ...................................................................................................3
The various factors which motivate employees to work...........................................................5
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.................................6
Strategies to cope with negative factors employees experience as a result of their job roles. 6
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................7
References .........................................................................................................................7

Introduction
Motivation is a process of guiding, initiating and maintaining the goal oriented
behaviors in the employees. It involves biological, social and emotional forces that activate the
behavior. In this report will highlight the Maslow motivation theory and their intrinsic and extrinsic
motivation theory. Moreover, John wants a report that discuss the employee attitude towards
workplace.
What does Motivation Mean?
Motivation is defined an important factor that encourages people to give the best performance
and also help in achieving organizations goal (Asaari, Desa and Subramaniam, 2019). A positive
motivation enables to increase the output of employees. Besides, negative motivation reduces the
performance status. In addition to this, Maslow’s Hierarchy Theory is a motivational theory which
comprising five-tier of human needs. It is a popular framework to identify the basic needs of the
employees. Such as survival, freedom, belonging, power and fun. According to Maslow motivation
theory categorized as in five levels which are defined. Likewise, self-actualization, esteem, love and
belonging, safety needs and physiological needs.
* Physiological needs- This is a basic need that required for survival such as water, air,
shelter, food, clothing etc. If the necessity not met, the employees cannot continue to perform.
* Safety needs- Once physiological wants are satisfied, on that time employee jump into
next precedence that is security and safety needs. Such as, financial, personal, health, etc.
* Love and Belonging needs- After safety and physiological, the next level of human
being is involves feeling of love and belonging. It refers to emotion of human in order to

affiliate, interpersonal relationship and stay connected etc. There are several examples of
belonging are intimacy, friendship, acceptance and trust, giving and receiving love and affection.
* Esteem- The fourth level of Maslow's hierarchy includes self-worth, respect and
accomplishment. It is categorized in two ways first one is esteem for self in order to mastery,
dignity, independence and achievement (Dohlman and et.al., 2019). The second one is desire of
respect reputation in terms of prestige, status etc.* Self-actualization- The highest level in this theory is self-actualization that is realization
human's potential, seeking growth of personality, self-fulfillment and seek experiences.
Individual should focus specially on this because it can express athletically, economically and
academically.
John should consider these factors to motivate employees in order to fulfill their need
and wants on time.
There are two categories of motivation which each company follows likewise, intrinsic
and extrinsic.
Extrinsic Motivations occurs when someone does because of their external stimuli.
Such as rewards in terms of job promotion, a sticker, money etc. In this behavior employee
engaged with avoidance of punishment in order to enjoy and satisfying the value of return. Like,
a student study hard because they want to get good marks in exam. Employees going to office or
work because of earn money and going on office trips because of orders by boss or get appraisal.
From these examples the motivation can be different according to personality of a person.
Extrinsic motivation involves internal or external rewards and it can be tangible and intangible.
There are several factors of it i.e, Employee can get financial rewards at workplace in terms of
compensation, recognition praise given by seniors. There are four types of extrinsic motivation
such as, integrated, external, identification and introjected regulation.
Intrinsic Motivations occurs when a person doing any action without expecting any
external rewards. It can be done for own enjoyment and interest rather than outside pressure and
incentive. Such motivation refers to changing and adopting behavior of person for satisfaction
and fulfillment. It engages with a person's behavior to completing the task that perform by itself.
For example, someone decided to eat sweets on that time their motivation is to enjoy the sweets
before it finished (Putra, Cho and Liu, 2017). There will be no expectence of external rewards.
In an organization, intrinsic motivation is important element because it gets productivity from

employees. Nowadays any company look for those potential workers who have the strong sense
of intrinsic motivation. There are several factors such as knowledge, accomplishment,
recognition and responsibility.
The various factors which motivate employees to work
Salary: When a person earns good according to their work, it helps to stay motivated. The
average improvement in performance of employee is based on money and allow them not to switch
with other job role. If a person earns high salary it feels motivated to do a good job, also pleased their
employer to retain the position. Salary brings feeling of security and also allow feeling accomplished
with high status in society.
Promotion: It motivates employees by providing an opportunity for increasing the
compensation. It not only includes increased wages but also make workers to earn other benefits like,
expense accounts, paid time off, health insurance, etc. This motivates employee to stay trust worthy
and maintains high position in an organization. Through this, employee gain more options for growth
that helps to maintain long term relationship. Employee can start the mentor-ship programs for their
subordinates. John can motivate their employees to provide them promotion and increment in salary.
Work Environment: A motivating environment at workplace provides clear direction that
helps employees to know what rewards can be expected from them (Stankovska and et.al., 2017).
This influences worker to remain more productive in the present working environment. It motivates
employees to attain goal and also help them to understand the strategic framework. Healthy
environment reduces the cost of absenteeism, worker's compensation, turnover and medical claims.
The positive factors employees experience as a result of their job
roles
Healthy work environment provides employees to get benefits in term of salary,
promotion, rewards and compensation. Positive factors that may influences employees such as
manage the time according to lunch, work hours and break. In this type of organization workers
learn about the start valuing punctuality and how deadline affect other employees. Positive
factors like increment in salary provides major benefit to employees in terms of developing new
skill and motivate other subordinate to get increment in salary. Promotion helps to improve
communication and interpersonal skills according to the designation of employees. It also builds

creativity to expand the knowledge and come up with new ideas. Positive environment helps to
share opinion with other and also pushes them to come together for brainstorm (Negative impact
on Employee, 2021). Happy work environment encourages employees to support each other and
afraid risk-taking. In this type of situation employees afraid to make mistake and inspire others
towards creativity and make them successful in life. Positive workplace enables to improve
customer services and reduces stress, it also builds mutual respect for all (Zafar, Karim and
Abbas, 2017). There will be transparency and open communication within employees and it
promotes healthy attitude towards all level of people whether there is top-level manager or labor
of production house.
The negative factors employees experience as a result of their job
roles
There are several negative factors that affect the job role of an employee. Sometimes
extrinsic motivation enables to get external rewards such as promotion, increment in salary,
bonus etc. On other hand, there are many employees work in one organization together, someone
gets reward in terms of promotion but that is not enough because if the salary not increases with
promotion, on that time the work load increases according to the designation of an employee.
Subordinate feels demotivated when their college get promoted and left were not (Bangwal and
Tiwari, 2018). In this situation John should promote their employees according to the effort of
particular person that how deliberately they worked with extra working hours or workload.
However, remuneration also plays critical role in any organization because it demotivates
sometimes by increment in salary also increases the work hours. Low wages demotivate
employees in term of anger, stress, low morale etc. As a result, motivation level of employee
drops when employees become a part of hire and fire policy. Worker may believe that putting
effort and good job not worked when it comes to compensation. Thus, John can provide extra
leave to those who work in extra hours also provide them appreciation card for workers.
Strategies to cope with negative factors employees experience as a
result of their job roles
To overcome these negative factors John should focus on avoiding hire and fire policy at
workplace. It can organise programs regarding open communication and transparency that can
help employees to make positive flow of communication between seniors and junior

subordinates. Expose the opportunities that can utilized by employees that helps to motivate
employees towards their work. To improve the performance of them entity should make the
strategies for rewarding them as per their work. Provides job security policies that can guarantee
employer and also develop their leadership skills (Ryan and Deci, 2020). Use fair consistent
treatment that can avoid the favoritism at workplace and applying same accountability standards
in terms of rewards. Company should not target the rules for punishment of employees. Provide
appropriate strategic and leadership framework. To develop appropriate recognition and rewards
so employees feel their values. The positive workplace remarkable by appropriate rewards, these
are the most powerful tools to sustain morale of employees. Seniors should use positive and
sympathize language to mentoring the employees and encourage them to promote opportunity
and future communication. Also motivate other by sharing stories of success in terms of
celebration and activities.
Conclusion
From this report, it has been concluded that motivation plays important role in an organization.
There are two types of motivation such as intrinsic and extrinsic motivation which can be used
by organization in order to motivate employees. Further, study also summarized the factors that
affecting the employees including salary, promotion and positive workplace environment.
References
Asaari, M. H. A. H., Desa, N. M. and Subramaniam, L., 2019. Influence of salary, promotion,
and recognition toward work motivation among government trade agency employees.
International Journal of Business and Management. 14(4). pp.48-59.
Bangwal, D. and Tiwari, P., 2018. Workplace environment, employee satisfaction and intent to
stay. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management. 81. p.101860.
Dohlman, L. and et.al., 2019. Global Brain Drain: How Can the Maslow Theory of Motivation
Improve Our Understanding of Physician Migration?. International journal of
environmental research and public health. 16(7). p.1182.
Putra, E. D., Cho, S. and Liu, J., 2017. Extrinsic and intrinsic motivation on work engagement
in the hospitality industry: Test of motivation crowding theory.Tourism and Hospitality
Research. 17(2). pp.228-241.
Ryan, R. M. and Deci, E. L., 2020. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation from a self-determination
theory perspective: Definitions, theory, practices, and future directions. Contemporary
Educational Psychology. 61. p.101860.
Stankovska, G. and et.al., 2017. Job Motivation and Job Satisfaction among Academic Staff in
Higher Education. Bulgarian Comparative Education Society.1(4). pp.48-59.

Suyono, J. and Mudjanarko, S., 2017. Motivation engineering to employee by employees
Abraham Maslow theory. Journal of Education, Teaching and Learning. 2(1). pp.27-33.
Zafar, M., Karim, E. and Abbas, O., 2017. “Factors of Workplace Environment that Affects
Employee Performance in an Organization”: A study on Greenwich University of
Karachi. 2(1). pp.27-33.
Online
Negative impact on Employee. 2021. [Online]. Available through: <https://clearrock.com/5-
strategies-minimize-negative-impact-employee-separations/>