Understanding Why People Work

This report provides an understanding of why people work and the impacts that work can have on people. It covers the various factors through which employees get motivated to work and the positive and negative factors which an individual experiences as a result of their job roles.

BSc (Hons) Business Management with Foundation
BMP3004
World of Work
Understanding Why People
Work

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........................................5
Strategies to cope with negative factors employees experience as a result of their job roles..........6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
The report provides an understanding of why people work and also explain the impacts that
work can have on people. This report covers the various factors through which employees get
motivated to work and the positive and negative factors which an individual experiences as a
result of their job roles.
What does Motivation Mean?
Motivation is a factor which helps in encouraging, guiding and initiating the person to give
its best performance in achieving the goals and objectives of Organisation. An individual who is
highly motivated towards their work can contribute best in accomplishing target whereas
unmotivated person cannot give their best effort in making the target achieved. Motivation is
inbuilt process which generates within people (Park and Shin, 2020). An individual feel lack of
certain requirements and needs for which they work more so that it can be fulfilled. To
accomplish the needs and requirements, person get motivate to do better work than normal days.
Motivation helps in increasing the efficiency of an individual so that they can achieve the goals
effectively and efficiently, it also helps them to take action which makes them successful in their
life. With the help of motivation, person well being and happiness get improved. There are two
types of motivation they are extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation
arises from outside of the people and also called reward driven motivation. The employees get
reward, praise, money and fame to motivate them for specific activities. The Example of
Extrinsic motivation is being paid to perform job activities, completing work for money, buy one
get one free sales and frequent flyer rewards (Palma, Trimi and Hong, 2019). Intrinsic
Motivation means when an individual performs task with its internal forces such as personal
growth and desire to get success. The Person get motivated within them, there is no need of
external reward. The Example of Intrinsic motivation is participating in any activities of
Organisation as the person like to enjoy and explore the new things, pride in work, getting
respect form seniors, etc. There are various theories of motivation but one the famous theory of
Motivation is Maslow’s Hierarchy Theory. The Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory explains
the human motivation which is based on different levels of needs. The Maslow theory depicts
that human’s are motivated to accomplish their needs according to the pyramid. There are five
levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs.

(Figure 1: Maslow's Hierarchy Needs of Motivation, 2020)
Physiological needs is the lowest needs of in Maslow’s Hierarchy Theory, it includes basic
needs such as food, shelter, water, rest, warmth and health (Larsson, Eriksson and Pesämaa,
2018). An individual must fulfil these needs in order to pursue intrinsic satisfaction on higher
demand.
Safety Needs is the second level of Maslow’s Theory in which employees are concern about
their safety in Organisation. They must feel safe and secure in Workplace and Life. Employees
get motivated when they are protected from unpredictable and dangerous condition, accident and
injury, health and wellness.
Social Needs is the other level of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs which includes love,
belongings and acceptance. The Employees wants to accomplish their social needs they want
need for family, love, intimacy and Friendship (Ainsworth, 2020). The individual wants to fulfil
this need in order to avoid the problems such as depression, anxiety and loneliness.
Esteem needs stands on Fourth level of pyramid; it includes the need of respect and
appreciation in Workplace. The employees want to gain the appreciation and respect of other
people. To fulfil the esteem need an individual must participate in professional activities and
work in a team.

Self actualisation needs is the final level of Maslow’s Hierarchy Theory in which
employees have desire to achieve everything which one can and become the best Self
actualisation needs outlines partner acquisition, parenting, utilising and developing talents and
pursuing goals (Hebbecker, Förster and Souvignier, 2019).
The various factors which motivate employees to work
There are various factors which help in motivating the employees and make them to
accomplish the task effectively and efficiently. These factors encourage and motivate individuals
to give their best efforts in achieving the goals and objectives of Organisation.
Salary: Salary is one of the factor which helps in motivating employees to work. If an
individual’s not get paid for the job they cannot contribute their efforts in achieving the task
successfully. So, salary plays an important role in achieving the target with effectively and
efficiently (Filak and Nicolini, 2018). Salary packages influences the level of engagement of
employees, if Organisation provides high salary package, individuals feel satisfied with their job
whereas if salary package is not up to mark it can reduces the efforts and performance of
employees which results in poor outcomes and contribution.
Promotion: Promotion also plays an important role in making employees motivated towards
their work. If an individual get promoted for any higher position it includes more authority and
responsibility which increase the motivation among the employees to accomplish the task with
more efforts and dedication. The employee promotion increases the rank, benefits, salary,
responsibilities and status which make them highly motivated.
Work Environment: The Work environment of Company also plays a significant role in
motivating the employees for Work (Babaeinesami, 2019). If there is positive work environment
in Organisation it encourages and motivate employees to contribute their best in making business
successful. The Healthy working environment increases productivity and decreases the costs
related to medical claims, turnover, absenteeism and worker’s compensation.
The positive factors employees experience as a result of their job roles
The Employees gain positive experiences on their job roles due to the working environment,
connecting with employers and colleagues and by learning and developing opportunities.
Employees avail positive experience when they give their best efforts in learning and adopting
changes that make them successful in Career (Alzahrani, Johnson and Altamimi, 2018). They

should be responsible towards the organisation and contributes their best efforts in making
business goals achievable. If Employees indulge in group activities, participate in events and
programs, give innovative and creative ideas and take part in group activities, they can increase
their experience in job roles. The positive factors which helps in increasing worker’s experience
are including in decision making process, appreciating them for their performance and efforts,
give challenging work through which they can show their creative side, develop long term career
paths for employees so that they can know what they have to do in future and offering a
meaningful benefits and advantages to employees in order to increase in their performance and
efficiency (Fernandes, 2018). The positive performance of staff members can improve the
Organisation growth and profitability.
The negative factors employees experience as a result of their job roles
There are various negative factors that could affect the employee’s experience as a result of
their job roles. It includes leadership, workplace culture, incentives and recognition,
opportunities, right tools, office inefficiency, no attention paid to new ideas, no recognition and
not enough freedom for personal development (Van Twembeke and Goeman, 2018). These are
the factors which can create negative performance of employees. If Staff members and employer
have no communication or insufficient communication than employees may face problem and
cannot accomplish their work efficiently and effectively due to which they cannot give their best
performance and face negative experience in Organisation. When employees get low wages even
they are giving their best in making the target achieve, their morale and motivation get low due
to which they face negative experience in their job roles. It is important to get recognition for
achievement if employees get for their performance and efforts as if they are not recognised for
their achievement they feel demotivated which affects their performance and contribution for the
Company. The Employees also face negative experience when Organisation doesn’t provide the
freedom for personal development (Ozmen, 2019). The Employer must look both the goals,
Organisational goals as well as personal goal of employees as both the goals are important for
the Success of Business. If the goals of the workers are achieved, they automatically contribute
their efforts in making the organisational goal accomplished.

Strategies to cope with negative factors employees experience as a result of
their job roles
To cope with the negative factors of employee’s experience it is important for the
Organisation to assess their needs and requirements in order to make them happy with their job
roles. It is the responsibility of the employer to involve the workers in decision making process
and ask them for a feedback to make any necessary changes if required. The employees can also
make a strategy to cope with negative factors, they should start communicating with their
superiors and share the problems which they are facing in the Organisation, and it helps in
building the strong relationship between employer and employee (Ferraro and et. al., 2018).
CONCLUSION
From the above information it is being concluded that it is important to keep the employee’s
happy with their job role as it helps in making business successful and achieve the goals and
objectives of the Organisation. If the employees are highly satisfied with their work they can
give their best efforts in making the target accomplished. The Organisation is responsible to
provide positive experience to employees in their job roles as negative experience can affect the
business growth and productivity.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Ainsworth, J., 2020. Feelings of ownership and volunteering: Examining psychological
ownership as a volunteering motivation for nonprofit service organisations. Journal of
Retailing and Consumer Services. 52. p.101931.
Alzahrani, A., Johnson, C. and Altamimi, S., 2018, May. Information security policy
compliance: Investigating the role of intrinsic motivation towards policy compliance in
the organisation. In 2018 4th International Conference on Information Management
(ICIM) (pp. 125-132). IEEE.
Babaeinesami, A., 2019. The investigation of effective factors on employee motivation: a case
study. EuroMed Journal of Management. 3(2). pp.155-169.
Fernandes, A. A. R., 2018. The effect of organization culture and technology on motivation,
knowledge asset and knowledge management. International journal of Law and
Management.
Ferraro, T and et. al., 2018. Decent work, work motivation and psychological capital: An
empirical research. Work. 60(2). pp.339-354.
Filak, V. F. and Nicolini, K. M., 2018. Differentiations in motivation and need satisfaction based
on course modality: a self-determination theory perspective. Educational
Psychology, 38(6), pp.772-784.
Hebbecker, K., Förster, N. and Souvignier, E., 2019. Reciprocal effects between reading
achievement and intrinsic and extrinsic reading motivation. Scientific Studies of
Reading. 23(5). pp.419-436.
Larsson, J., Eriksson, P. E. and Pesämaa, O., 2018. The importance of hard project management
and team motivation for construction project performance. International Journal of
Managing Projects in Business.
Ozmen, Y. S., 2018. How employees define organisational trust: analysing employee trust in
organisation. Journal of Global Responsibility.
Palma, F. C., Trimi, S. and Hong, S. G., 2019. Motivation triggers for customer participation in
value co-creation. Service Business. 13(3). pp.557-580.
Park, J. and Shin, M., 2020. The Impact of Information Ownership and Psychological Context on
Employee Information Sharing Motivation. Journal of Information & Knowledge
Management. 19(03). p.2050002.
Van Twembeke, E. and Goeman, K., 2018. Motivation gets you going and habit gets you
there. Educational Research. 60(1). pp.62-79.