Theories of Motivation and Their Application in the Modern Workplace

This essay discusses the importance of motivation in an organization and the different theories that can be applied to improve employee performance and engagement. The theories discussed include Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, Herzberg's Two Factor theory, McClelland's Needs Achievement theory, McGregor's X and Y theories, and the Equity theory. The essay also highlights how these theories can be applied in the modern workplace.

Individual Essay

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
THEORIES OF MOTIVATION AND THEIR APPLICATION AT THE MODERN
WORKPLACE.................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
In every organisation, motivation plays an important role in empowering the employees and
driving them towards the achievement of organisational goals. For encouraging and motivating
the employees there are many theories that are formulated to satisfy the needs and wants of
employees through various means for enhancing their job satisfaction. There are three main
theories of motivation that includes process theories, content theories and contemporary theories.
These theories mainly include Herzberg's Motivation theory, McClelland's Needs theory,
Maslow's Hierarchy theory, Alderfer's existence theory, and Growth and Relatedness theory. The
contemporary theories of motivation include general rights such as equality, control and agency
theory, and content and process theories include motivation of employees and job satisfaction.
The report has explained about theories of motivation and their application at the workplace.
THEORIES OF MOTIVATION AND THEIR APPLICATION AT THE
MODERN WORKPLACE
Motivation is described as "a pleasurable or positive emotional state that results from the
appraisal or enhancement of an employee's experiences". Motivation can simply be understood
as cognitive decision making in which the intention is to make the behaviours aimed at achieving
goals through monitoring and initiation. It is very important to provide employee motivation for
improving the performance of employees and enhancing employee engagement within an
organisation for achieving higher profitability. There are many theories of motivation that are
used within an organisation for improving the performance of employees and enhancing their
levels of motivation (Bushi, 2021).
Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory mainly depends on the factor that needs and wants of
people increases gradually through their process of achievements in life. Due to the want to
increase the achievements the employees prioritise their requirements and greater rewards are
expected for motivation. Maslow's hierarchy of needs was developed as per the content theories
of job satisfaction that revolves around the needs of employees and those factors that affect their
level of satisfaction. These needs are related to improving physical, social, and psychological and
belongingness needs of humans. Maslow has delivered a five stage hierarchy that places the
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needs of humans from bottom to top to differently categorise requirements of individuals. The
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs mainly includes physiological needs, safety and security needs,
social needs, esteem needs and self-actualization needs. The physiological needs of an employee
consist of fulfilling the basic needs of a human including food, shelter and clothing (Thomas and
Gupta, 2021). Safety and security needs of an employee are provided by developing a safe and
secure work environment, job security and proper level of safety at the workplace. The social
needs of an employee at the workplace are fulfilled providing a positive work environment, team
collaboration, positive work culture, etc. Esteem needs of an individual consist of achieving
acknowledgement from others for their good work. The esteem needs of an employee at the
workplace are fulfilled by providing recognition to the efforts of employees which encourages
them (Zhao, 2021). Self-actualization needs of an individual are considered as the fulfilment or
accomplishments of desires of an individual where no further growth is possible and individuals
seek for opportunities for self-satisfaction. For providing the self-actualization needs of an
employee at the workplace the opportunities for handling the essential activities, difficult tasks
etc. are provided that provides a level up to an individual.
Herzberg's two factor theory is also known as Motivation Hygiene which helps to determine
the factors that are responsible for improving the motivation of an individual based on their good
and bad feelings arising from their job. Herzberg has identified five features of work that bring
positive motivation among the employees that are type of job, employee recognition,
responsibility, achievement and opportunities for growth. On the other hand, Herzberg identified
institutional politics, the management approach, working-class conditions, and relationships at
the work, pay and supervision, as the causes of employee demotivation. The organisations in
today's world are improving their policies that can help to enhance the level of motivation among
the employees and provide recognition and enrichment along with personal growth opportunities
for them. For this purpose the organisations are promoting their employees after achieving a
certain level of growth in their profession (Mardanov, 2020). Moreover, the employees are
shown recognition at the workplace for achieving exceptional tasks. The employees are
motivated by precisely understanding their physical, psychological and esteem needs and it helps
to improve the performance of employees. With the help of motivation the employees at the
workplace work with passion and show desire to produce better results. With the help of
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Maslow's hierarchy of needs and Herzberg's two factors theory an organisation has better
chances to retain its work force and develop a sense of belongingness and loyalty among the
employees. With the highly motivated workforce the organisation is also able to achieve its goals
and objectives effectively and efficiently (Gagné, Deci and Ryan, 2018).
In context to the concept of Theory X and Theory Y, it was basically developed by the social
Psychologist Douglas McGregor. It basically involves two contrasting sets of the assumptions
that basically are made by the managers about the employees. In reference to Theory X it
basically depicts the people who dislike their work, unwilling to take responsibility and have
little ambition. In reference to workplace, the theory X works very well for the operations in the
large scale production and for the work which comprises of the unskilled workers. In reference to
Theory Y, it is well suited for the knowledge workers where the continuous improvement and
knowledge sharing is basically encouraged ( Ruan, Kang and Song, 2020).
McClelland’s Human Motivation Theory basically states that every individual has one of the
three main driving motivators which involve power, the needs for achievement and affiliation.
All these motivators are not inherent; all these are basically develop through life experiences and
culture. In reference to achievers, they like to achieve goals and solve problems. In context to
organisation, the McClelland’s Need Theory of Motivation basically supports the managers and
provides them a way to determine the various factors which helps in motivating each of their
team members. The Team leaders and manages can use this information for the purpose to
interact with each team member in different ways most likely to motivate them. In context to
employees, who are strongly achievement motivated are basically driven by the desire for
mastery, they basically works on tasks of the moderate difficulty in which outcomes are the
results of their effort rather than luck and they value receiving feedback on their work. With the
help of these theories, it helps in motivating the employees in the most effective manner possible.
In context to the Equity theory, it usually pay emphasis on the resources and their
distribution. In reference to this theory, it basically depicts that what the individual receives for
their work has a direct impact or influence on the motivation level. In context to the application
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of the theory to the workplace, it usually depicts that a person basically focuses on the creation
of the balance among what they get from the organisation and what they give to the organisation.
In addition to that, this theory also suggest that the employee motivation when it comes to
workplace is usually driven by the fairness in the organisation and also creates a mental ledge of
the outcomes and inputs of their job. ( Louick and Muenks, 2022).
CONCLUSION
It has been concluded from the above report that motivation plays an important role within
an organisation for improving the productiveness, management and engagement activities of
employees. It has been discussed that various theories like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs,
Herzberg's Two Factor theory, McClelland's Needs Achievement theory, McGregor's X and Y
theories, etc. are used for improving motivation. Finally the essay has described various theories
and how it can be applied at the modern workplace for improving the employee performance.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bushi, F., 2021. An Overview of Motivation Theories: The Impact of Employee Motivation on
Achieving Organizational Goals. Quality-Access to Success, 22(183).
Gagné, M., Deci, E.L. and Ryan, R.M., 2018. Self-determination theory applied to work
motivation and organizational behavior.
Louick, R. and Muenks, K., 2022. Leveraging motivation theory for research and practice with
students with learning disabilities. Theory Into Practice, 61(1), pp.102-112.
Mardanov, I., 2020, November. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, organizational context,
employee contentment, job satisfaction, performance and intention to stay. In Evidence-
based HRM: a Global Forum for Empirical Scholarship. Emerald Publishing Limited.
Ruan, W., Kang, S. and Song, H., 2020. Applying protection motivation theory to understand
international tourists’ behavioural intentions under the threat of air pollution: A case of
Beijing, China. Current Issues in Tourism, 23(16), pp.2027-2041.
Thomas, A. and Gupta, V., 2021. The role of motivation theories in knowledge sharing: an
integrative theoretical reviews and future research agenda. Kybernetes.
Zhao, N., 2021. Analysis and improvement of employee motivation system: the case of a private
educational institution: annotation to master's thesis.
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