Understanding why people work: The various factors that motivate employees and strategies to cope with negative factors

Motivation of employees is the main factor that drives the organization towards its goals and objectives. This report covers the various factors that motivate employees to work, positive and negative experiences of specific job roles, and strategies to cope with negative factors. The report also discusses Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory and the types of motivation - extrinsic and intrinsic.

BSc (Hons) Business Management with
Foundation
BMP3004
World of Work
Understanding why people work
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Contents
Introduction 1
What does Motivation Mean? 1
The various factors which motivate employees to work
3
The positive factors employees experience as a result of their
job roles 3
The negative factors employees experience as a result of their
job roles 4
Strategies to cope with negative factors employees
experience as a result of their job roles 5
Conclusion 6
References 7

Introduction
Motivation of employees is the main factor that drives the organization towards its
goals and objectives. Motivated employees are the prime assets of the company and
their motivation is directly proportional to the growth of organization. Without proper
motivation employees are not able to work as per their capabilities and this will result to
decline in productivity and lower output. This report will help to answer what motivates an
employee to do work and the positive and the negative experience of specific job role. In
addition to this, this report will also cover the strategies to minimize the negative factors
associated with a job role.
What does Motivation Mean?
Motivation is a stimulated and inspirational process that initiates and guides
an employee/individual to achieve desired course of action and to perform their best.
Motivation is a psychological term, it comes out of an individual / employee from their
own willingness to accomplish the work and achieve the desired goals (Reizer,
Brender-Ilan and Sheaffer, 2019). It pushes an individual towards goal and allows
them to gain valued outcomes such as improved performance, enhanced well-being,
personal growth, sense of purpose etc.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory is considered as one of the most important and
popular motivational theory. It is a psychology theory which derives that humans show
high motivation while fulfilling their needs that follows a hierarchical order (Fallatah and
Syed, 2018). This theory is formed on assumption that there is Hierarchy of five need in
every human. These five needs are explained below:
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1. Psychological Needs: These needs include the vital factors that are needed to
human survival. It consists needs like water, food, breathing, shelter, clothing,
reproduction etc.
2. Security and Safety Needs: The second level of this theory includes needs that
provides a sense of security like protection from crime, emotional stability, health
and wellness, financial security etc.
3. Social Needs: The social need in this theory involves needs that drives human
behavior like friendships, love and affection, family bonds, religious beliefs, etc.
4. Esteem Needs: These needs concern with inner self; it includes desire to be
recognized, feelings of achievement, gain respect and value, to be a person with
power, etc.
5. Self-Actualization Needs: These needs are at top in hierarchy of this theory. This
level relates to the understanding of an individual’s full potential. At this level,
individuals attempt to become proficient and best in their work. It involves
obtaining new skills, pursuing dreams, education etc.
The motivation is categorized in two types:
 Extrinsic Motivation: Extrinsic motivation refers to doing something for external
rewards. These rewards can be both tangible or intangible like money, grades,
praise, respect, fame etc. (Locke, and Schattke, 2019). An extrinsically motivated
people can work even if he/she is not enjoying that in order to earn wage or other
rewards.
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Figure 1 Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

 Intrinsic Motivation: Intrinsic Motivation refers to behavior driven by desire to get
inherent satisfaction. It involves engaging in a work that is personally rewarding
and the person is enjoying doing that without any desire to earn any external
rewards. This type of motivation can arise because of fun, challenge, satisfaction,
etc. associated with a particular work.
The various factors which motivate employees to work
Salary: Salary play a major role in motivation of employee, a well paid employee is
usually more motivated as compared to a low earning employee. A low figure of salary
can lead to dissatisfaction and disengagement among employees (Aqeel, 2020).
Compensation affects the employees positively in maintaining their job satisfaction,
retention, performance and work productivity and in prospective recruitment.
Promotion: Promotions helps the organization in motivating its employees by
engaging with their sense of ambition. Promotion help the employees in improving their
on-the-job experience and cementing their position within the organization. Promotion
comes with raise in salary, increase in power and authority, job security and other
benefits. This will influence the motivation level of employees and in turn the productivity
will also increase.
Work Environment: Employees spend around one third of a day in their workplace.
So, it is essential for organization to provide a positive and enjoyable work environment
and culture in order to maintain motivation of employees (Munro and Hope, 2020). An
unfavorable and dull workplace environment will lead to increasing the stress among
employees, under-utilization of employees’ capabilities and dissatisfaction among
employees.
The positive factors employees experience as a result of their
job roles
 Growth and Appraisal: Appropriate growth in position and timely appraisal
is one of the positive factor than an employee experience in an organization
(Burke, 2018). Growth and development empowers the employees to drive
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better result and productivity. Hike in compensation encourages employees
to be more productive for organization.
 Performance Rewards: Another positive factor that an employee experience
is getting rewards for his/her extraordinary performance. If an employee is
producing the desired result, it is essential for organization to praise it by
giving rewards like bonus, gifts, holiday packages, etc.
 Open and Clear Communication: Sharing ideas and opinions freely is a
part of positive work environment (Mazzei, Butera and Quaratino, 2019).
Encouraging employees to share their ideas and involving them in decision
making process will help to create a feeling in employees that they are
connected and a part of business.
 Respect and Understanding: Getting respect at workplace and
understanding with peer would be a satisfactory experience an employee
could get. Employees can go the extra mile when they are treated well and
get the deserved respect.
The negative factors employees experience as a result of their
job roles
 Work Life Imbalance: Working in an environment that prefers the work over
the welfare of employees can be a negative experience for employees as they
need time to re-energize themselves and also to spend some quality time with
family or friends (Poulose and Sudarsan, 2018). Such environment can cause
fatigue and stress among employees and can also lead to physical problems
like weight gain or loss.
 Zero Growth Opportunity: Employees prefers such work culture where they
get chance to prove themselves and supports their personal desire to grow
and achieve their goals. Working environment of an organization which
focuses on only profit earning neglecting the needs of its employees can be
very negative experience for its employees.
 Toxic Workplace Behavior: Another negative experience for employees at
their workplace can be the toxicity in its work culture. There are various toxic
employees who don’t take their work seriously and disturb other employees.
Such behavior can demotivate and affects the productivity of other
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employees. Bullying, rumor-mongering, procrastinations are some example of
toxic behavior.
 Communication Gaps between Employees and Management: Lack of
communication or having too much communication can hinder the growth of
organization. If goals and messages are not delivered correctly to employees,
there will be a lack of direction for them, which can result in productivity loss.
Strategies to cope with negative factors employees
experience as a result of their job roles
 To promote a healthy and positive work-life balance, an organization can
organize workshops and session of stress management and managing work.
Management should use tools like Time Doctor to keep a watch on time that
employees are spending on work and ensuring that employees are not spending
too much time on office work. Encouraging employees to work only in office hours
and improving the workplace flexibility by permitting employees to work from home
can also help in promoting work-life balance.
 To create a growth culture in organization, management can organize skill
development and training programs, and allow employees to try new and
innovative approaches to accomplish a task. Management can challenge
employees by assigning complex tasks and projects, and rewarding them by
promotion and career growth.
 To deal with toxicity in work environment, management should focus on
minimizing the causes of employees’ negative behavior and identifying those
employees who are misbehaving with others. After identifying them, management
can take steps like warning them, giving them notice, monitoring their behaviors
and even terminating such employees.
 To bridge the communication gap, organization should communicate the yearly
or monthly objectives and goals of the company with employees. Defining a
communication channel like emails, slack, etc. to each employee and encouraging
the employees to share idea, thought and giving feedback to senior can also help
in minimizing the communication gap.
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Conclusion
After considering the above details, the report concludes that motivation plays
a critical role in employees’ behavior towards a work. Motivated employees will give
their best to increase the performance and productivity of an organization. Whereas,
unmotivated employees will consider the work as formality and will try to avoid it.
This will result to decrease in output and the desired objectives will not be
accomplished. There are various factors like salary, career growth, rewards etc.
which motivates employees to work. The role of healthy work environment is also
very critical as it is the major factor that affects the motivation level of employees. An
unhealthy or toxic environment will lead to dissatisfaction and a sense of uneasiness
among employees leading a decline in organization’s overall performance. Thus, it is
essential for management to create strategies to combat with negative factors that
can lead to demotivating the employees.
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References
Books and Journals
Aqeel, S., 2020. Study on most impactful motivating and demotivating factors of
employees.
Burke, W.W., 2018. The rise and fall of the growth of organization development:
What now? Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 70(3),
p.186.
Fallatah, R.H.M. and Syed, J., 2018. A critical review of Maslow’s hierarchy of
needs. Employee Motivation in Saudi Arabia, pp.19-59.
Locke, E.A. and Schattke, K., 2019. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation: Time for
expansion and clarification. Motivation Science, 5(4), p.277.
Mazzei, A., Butera, A. and Quaratino, L., 2019. Employee communication for
engaging workplaces. Journal of Business Strategy.
Munro, C.L. and Hope, A.A., 2020. Healthy work environment: resolutions for
2020. American Journal of Critical Care, 29(1), pp.4-6.
Poulose, S. and Sudarsan, N., 2018. Work life balance: A conceptual
review. International Journal of Advances in Agriculture Sciences.
Reizer, A., Brender-Ilan, Y. and Sheaffer, Z., 2019. Employee motivation, emotions,
and performance: a longitudinal diary study. Journal of Managerial
Psychology.
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