Employee Motivation and Absenteeism Study

The assignment provides an analysis of the inter-relationship between motivation, job satisfaction, and absenteeism. It discusses how high levels of incentives, pay, and salary lead to motivation and job satisfaction among employees. However, if these factors are not properly addressed, it can result in absenteeism. The study concludes that implementing strategies to enhance job satisfaction and motivation is crucial for removing absenteeism and achieving better productivity and efficiency.

Understanding Employee
Motivation

Table of Contents
Literature review..............................................................................................................................3
Definition of Motivation.........................................................................................................3
Types of motivation: ..............................................................................................................3
Definition of Absenteeism .....................................................................................................4
Primary reason for the absenteeism........................................................................................5
Reducing the absenteeism in an organisation ........................................................................6
The relationship between motivation and absenteeism..........................................................6
Definition of Job Satisfaction and examples..........................................................................7
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................8

Literature review
Definition of Motivation
According to the Dawis, motivation refers to the degree of readiness of an organism to
pursue some designated goals and implies the determination of the nature and forces.
According to Robert Dubin, Motivation is considered as the complex set of forces and
action to start and keeping the particular person or an individual at work in an organisation. It is
important to motivate an employee or an individual to enhance their inspirational and confidence
level to achieve desired objectives of the company. Motivation is of two types: employee
motivation as well as work motivation. It is a kind of driven force which initiate an individual to
convert their behaviour into the final outcomes. For proper understanding of employee being as
motivated, it is required to understand the importance of an employee to an organisation. An
employee have several characteristics such as personality to inspire others, motivate their junior
as well as seniors also(Malik, 2010).
Employee being motivated: It is considered as parental of the concept of motivation. It is
the process through which an employee when not performing his/her best, then their well-
wishers/superior recommend them to get motivated through various sources such as motivating
them through personal stories, lesson as well as real life. It is a way to enhance and motivate, but
it depends on an employee how they perceives such things. Importance of employee being
motivated is that if an individual has performed more than his/her efficiency, it means that
person or an employee have performed more than the other's expectation. If an employee is well-
motivated and enhanced, so it is crucial and important for an organisation to get the best
utilization of him. Employee is considered as major asset of every organisation for the
achievement of company's long term goals and objectives (Oldham, 2016).
Types of motivation:
To understand the motivation knowledge, M&S(2016-17) is the perfect example of the
motivation concept. In the recent past time, M&S has taken several for the developments of their
employee as well as workers. For such motivation, they have adopted the need hierarchical of the
motivation seriously. They have implemented several training session such as classroom, real life
situations, simulation etc. to increase the will power of their employee at the greater level.

For the purpose of understanding motivation, it is required to understand it in detailed,
but due to the shortage of words, there will be discussion regarding the types of motivation:
Intrinsic: It refers to the kind of behaviour that is driven/motivated by the internal
rewards to an employee in context for the medium sized enterprise in South Africa. In simple
words, motivation is driven in the behaviour of an individual when that person is intrinsically
rewarded(Hackman, 2013).
In context with medium sized enterprise in South Africa, Weinberg & Gould’s theory
involves two basic types of intrinsic motivation:
 Knowledge: Specific learner has genuine and real thirst for more knowledge. If a
particular learner adapting new things or information, somewhere it would create the
motivation in mind of an employee to perform better and better. Accomplishment: Learner feels motivated by their achievements and accomplishments.
Learner are generally motivated when they accomplished something after their overall
learning process(Velthouse, 2015).
Extrinsic: It refers to the kind of behaviour that is driven by an external rewards such as
money, fame, financial praise etc. this kind of motivation arrive from outside of an individuals
who opposed to intrinsic motivation which originates in an individuals. There are different kind
of extrinsic motivation in context with medium sized enterprise in South Africa.
 Completion rewards: This rewards is basically giving for the completion of task or work.
 Performance rewards: This kind of motivation is giving for the best performance in an
organisation.
 Unexpected rewards: Rewards given apart from the performance and completion of tasks.
Definition of Absenteeism
According to the McDowel, absenteeism is the way the person not show his/her response
to particular work/task, which may lead to any loss or harm to any individual or entity. It is
defined as the habitual and routine of any individual employee at his or her job work. If habitual
non-presence extends the normal time of away from the job is regarded as the casual leave or
illness case. There are various possible causes of absenteeism such as dissatisfaction from the
job, medical causes and other personal issues etc. (Ramlall, 2014).
Impact of Absenteeism

High cost: Absenteeism leads to huge cost to an organisation. Because companies is used
to spend huge money on the training and welfare of an employee and most commonly giving
salary and remuneration but still if an employee perform like this, in such case, it is completed
intolerable(Shapiro, 2014).
Team performance: Due to the absenteeism, it is possible that team performance would
be decreased as a result of non-presence of an individual team members. Absence of one
teammates could lead whole team effecting their work and performance.
Profitability: If one employee is completely out of the reach, it would affect an entire
organisation and its goals or purpose. HR manager is context with enterprise in South Africa can
stop such kind of improper practice with the working culture of an organisation by taking strict
actions against an individual employee by planting penalties, fines, other monetary punishments
etc. to their employee. There is the possibility that such absenteeism could be stopped and
prevent(Thomas, 2017).
Primary reason for the absenteeism
In context with medium size enterprise in South Africa, it is necessary to identify and
understand the primary and major reasons for absenteeism in an organisation. Effective and
proper step and procedures need to be taken care to avoid the non-presence of an individual as
well as group of individuals.
Illness or injuries: It is the common for every absenteeism of an individual in S.A. at
their workplace. If an individual employee is not good or feel unwell, definitely, it would be
difficult to work and perform duties and responsibilities.
Bullying: It is the major and point full reason for the absenteeism in an organisation. If
an individual is facing any kind of harassment or coercion and unfair treatment, it is highly
possible that it would create the fear and any wrong feeling in the mind of an employee to face it
again. In such cases, HR professional of an organisation needs to look over this matter and take
necessary steps in the perfect solution of this (Steers, 2018).
Low workplace morale: In context with South African organisation, no employee wants
to work in the environment where culture is rife and harsh. Such environment is simply a reason
for the decreasing the morale of an employee. If low morale is there, it would affect the morale
of an individual as well as team work and their performance also.

Stress: Now-a-days, everyone is suffering with this issues in their personal life,
workplace and even handling their profession or business and venture. It is important to handle
and manage stress along with working anywhere. A person cannot leave his/her work the
removal of stress and depression. Exercise, mental practice and stress removal work is the best
way to remove stress and mental pressure(Mowday, 2016).
Reducing the absenteeism in an organisation
In medium sized enterprise in South Africa, it is required and mandatory to implement
and formulate various strict strategies and procedures to reduce the possibilities of an
absenteeism in the organisation.
There are various strategies through which any kind of absence can be removed. It is
required to analyse the detailed understanding of the strategies and method for the removal of the
absenteeism. The detailed strategies are as follows:
Clear attendance policy: For the purpose to reduce cases of the absenteeism, it is crucial
and necessary to start taking the attendance policy seriously in an organisation. The benefits is
that, it will record of presence and absence of every employee. If an employee breaks the
attendance policy, in sense, exceed the limit of taking leaves, enterprises can take strict action
against them such as penalized or possible action them, but prior to the reasons(Judge, 2013).
Support to employees: If an employee is continuously showing his/her non-presence,
termination or penalty is not only the final step to be considered, it is important to understand
their issues and problems to know why that employee is taking leave or showing the
absenteeism. There should be proper understanding between an employee and HR professional
of an organisation.
Think before providing long leave: In context with HR professional, it is necessary for
the HR manager to offer leave to their employees. Organisation should have proper policy, like
Company can provide 30 paid leaves to their employees, if an employee exceeds the number of
30 that employee would penalized by cutting down of at least 2 percent of amount from their
salary. In my opinion, it is best suitable and important method to avoid absenteeism in an
organisation(Bono, 2016).
The relationship between motivation and absenteeism
In context with Medium sized enterprise in South Africa, it is necessary to make and
understand the comparison between the motivation and absenteeism. This will showcase the

actual requirements of manpower and to identify how they deals with all such issues. The
relationship are as follows:
The relationship between motivation and absenteeism is very opposite to each other. The
motivation come from the various types of activities in an organisation. But Absenteeism is a
kind of demotion for self as well as other individual employee working in the medium size
enterprises. If an employee is not motivated, in that case, it would lead to the non-presence of an
employee. So in order to remove the absenteeism, it is necessary to provide the higher level of
motivation and encouragement to them. In context with medium sized organisation, as it is the
growing industry, it is necessary to avoid absenteeism to encourage the performance of an
employee with the help of an adequate and effective motivation or training and development of
an organisation (Judge, 2013).
There was case of absenteeism happened in South Africa airways, in which staff of the
airlines is on unnecessary leaves and absence. The final result was that senior executive's of
airlines 5 out of 10 employee were terminated. Employee has take leaves more than what
mentioned in the policies of an airlines. As such misbehaviour, South African airways has
decided to allow penalties and fines on the excess absence of an employee.(Bono, 2016).
Definition of Job Satisfaction and examples
Job satisfaction: It is a kind of accomplishment which an employee finds or feel out of
his/her job or work. It is generally arise from the appraisal done by the higher executives of an
organisation, it is used to determine at what extent an employee likes his/her job. For the job, it is
required that an employee should be well-satisfied and fulfilled, then job satisfaction meets.
Taking an example of Walmart, employee and staff are very well-satisfied with their job and
work. What satisfy them is attractive salary and remuneration. From last two years, Walmart has
remuneration of their employee by 10 percent which is huge as compared to other industry. As a
result of this, Walmart is the leading retail chain all over the world.
The relationship between motivation, job satisfaction and absenteeism
The inter-relationship among all three is very significant to understand and analysis. Job
satisfaction comes from high level of incentives, pay and salary to the worker. This also leads to
the motivation to an employee to perform good and effective in an organisation. But, there
always a question comes in mind that what if these, job satisfaction and motivation not properly
exists. In that case, it is sure that absenteeism could happen in an organisation. In order to avoid

such consequences, it is important for the medium sized enterprises in South Africa, to
implement and formulate strategies to enable more job satisfaction and motivation to their
employee for avoiding the absenteeism form the organisation for better productivity and
efficiency. Absenteeism needs to be removed in order to get benefits of the satisfaction and
motivation of an employee for achieving the purpose of an organisation.

REFERENCES
Books & Journals
Malik, N., 2010. A study on motivational factors of the faculty members at University of
Baluchistan. Serbian Journal of Management. 5(1). pp.143-149.
Lindner, J. R., 2018. Understanding employee motivation. Journal of extension. 36(3). pp.1-8.
Steers, R. M., Mowday, R. T. and Shapiro, D. L., 2014. The future of work motivation theory.
Academy of Management review. 29(3). pp.379-387.
Ramlall, S., 2014. A review of employee motivation theories and their implications for employee
retention within organizations. Journal of American Academy of Business. 5(1/2). pp.52-
63.
Hackman, J. R., 2015. Work redesign and motivation. Professional Psychology. 11(3). p.445.
Bono, J. E. and Judge, T. A., 2013. Self-concordance at work: Toward understanding the
motivational effects of transformational leaders. Academy of Management Journal.
46(5). pp.554-571.
Thomas, K. W. and Velthouse, B. A., 2015. Cognitive elements of empowerment: An
“interpretive” model of intrinsic task motivation. Academy of management review.
15(4). pp.666-681.
Tietjen, M. A. and Myers, R. M., 2018. Motivation and job satisfaction. Management decision.
36(4). pp.226-231.
Judge, T. A. and Ilies, R., 2012. Relationship of personality to performance motivation: A meta-
analytic review. Journal of applied psychology. 87(4). p.797.
Online
The relationship between job satisfaction and absenteeism. 2018. [Online]. Available through:
<http://etd.uwc.ac.za/xmlui/handle/11394/1476>.