HR Case Study: Motivation, Theories, and Strategies for Employees

This case study explores the concept of employee motivation within the realm of human resources, emphasizing its significance in driving organizational success. It delves into various motivational theories, including Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and McGregor's Theory X and Y, and their practical application. The study analyzes how motivation can be enhanced through training and development, employee engagement, and reward systems, using Rolex as a case study to illustrate these strategies. The case study highlights the role of the HR department in managing human capital, improving employee retention, and boosting operational efficiency through effective motivation techniques. It also discusses both positive and negative motivational approaches, and their impact on achieving organizational goals, ultimately aiming to provide insights into creating a motivated workforce and achieving competitive advantage.

HR CASE STUDY

TABLE OF CONTENTS
REFERENCES

Motivation is the technique that can be used to influence the behaviour, actions and
approach of the employees in an organization. It is essential to guide and direct the activities that
are performed by the staff for the achievement of the organizational objectives. The project shall
be highlighting the concept of human resource and what are the roles played by the HR
department in an organization. It shall be reflecting the practice of motivation and its
significance for boosting the morale of the employees. The project shall be discussing the
motivational theories ensuring the performance in a company (Herzberg, 2017). Lastly it shall be
showing the various steps taken to motivate the workforce in a company.
The human resource department is established to manage the human capital of a
company. They are majorly responsible for the recruitment, selection, hiring, training and
development of the workforce. They divide the roles and responsibilities among the employees
based on their capabilities and administers the employee benefit programmes to recognize the
efforts accordingly. The most prominent role-played by them is to motivate, guide and direct the
business operations on the path of organizational success (Papi, 2018). The proper management
of the human resource shall help in reducing the employee turnover ratio and shall develop
operational efficiency in the company.
Motivation is originated from the word “motive” which means the needs, desires and
wants of an individual or the organization. Motivation is the practice that is used for the
fulfilment and satisfaction of the personal and the professional needs. The process helps in
directing the employees to work or behave in a manner that can help in the achievement of the
organizational objective. It is a driving force that is used to boost the morale of the employees for
the accomplishment of the goals.
The motivational activities are of great significance to the company for change
management, employee retention, personnel relationship management and employee satisfaction.
All these activities shall derive competitive advantage for the company and shall help gain the
market share and boost their profitability. Motivation can be both positive and negative and
accordingly impacts the operational efficiency of the company. It can be undertaken by
providing trainings, employee engagement, regular feedbacks and rewards recognizing the
efforts of the employee.

Motivational theories are the discovered patterns which are to be followed by the
organization so that the fulfilment of both personal and organizational goals can be achieved.
The most prominently used motivations theories are:-
 Maslow's need hierarchy theory
The theory specifies that an employee can stay motivated when their personal needs are also
catered in the fulfilment of the organizational objectives. It states that the need hierarchy starts
from the lower to the higher level. Initially the need hierarchy of an individual starts with the
basic physiological needs like the food, clothing and shelter which are necessary for the survival
of a human being. As soon as this need is satisfied the employee's desires move on to the next
level of the hierarchy chain which is the safety and security needs (López and Velasco, 2016).
These needs ensure that proper working conditions, job security and guarantee, work life balance
are being provided. The next level determines the love, care and belongingness attitude towards
the employee. The requirement for emotional support and acceptance in the society is also a keen
desire of a person. Lastly the need hierarchy specifies the desire for esteem and self-
actualization. Since man is greedy if all the previous needs and wants are fulfilled then they shall
want respect and recognition in the organization. If the expectations regarding these needs are
fulfilled then the workforce shall stay motivated and overall boost the operational efficiency.
 McGregor's theory X and theory Y
This is another theory which is postulated by Douglas McGregor who has proposed that the
employees shall be divided into two groups based on their character traits that are inhibited in
them. Based on these groups the motivational techniques that are to be used shall be ascertained.
The theory X shall be containing all those employee who are lazy, not goal oriented and
ambitious and ones who have self- centred approach. Such employees are catered by negative
motivational techniques like the punishment, feedbacks and are to be governed under the strict
control of the management. On the contrary the other labelled group of theory Y have employees
who have positive attributes which are to be further polished through the positive motivational
techniques like rewards and recognition (Kanfer, Frese and Johnson, 2017).
Rolex is a company which was founded in 1905 in London, UK. It is a luxury
manufacturer of watches. It offers premium quality watches to its buyers which serves as a status
symbol and builds the level of customer satisfaction. Each of its creation is unique and specially
crafted by the specialized workforce.

Rolex has been following effective personnel management policies and works hard to motivate
its employees in order to maintain the consistency in its operational efficiency. There are some
major motivational steps that are taken by the company to ensure its success:-
 The most essential reason for the employee motivation is the training and developmental
process that is conducted by the company (Deckers, 2018). It has specialized training
centres, mentorship programmes, high commitment targets etc. This leads to creation of
the highly qualified staff and ultimately the brand image is build in terms of quality of the
product.
 Apart from this employee engagement practice is another factor that contributes to the
highly boosted morale of its employees and their enthusiasm to work for the company.
Rolex involves its employees in the decision-making process, takes feedbacks and also
allows them to take initiatives.
 The rewards and recognition is also a motivational technique that is used by the company
in which it recognizes the efforts of the employees on a regular basis. Financial and non-
financial perks are provided to motivate them and bring the best out of the workforce of
the company (Cook and Artino Jr, 2016).
Overall it can be evaluated that the company generates competitive advantage in the industry
based on its human resource management.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Cook, D. A. and Artino Jr, A. R., 2016. Motivation to learn: an overview of contemporary
theories. Medical education. 50(10). pp.997-1014.
Deckers, L., 2018. Motivation: Biological, psychological, and environmental. Routledge.
Herzberg, F., 2017. Motivation to work. Routledge.
Kanfer, R., Frese, M. and Johnson, R. E., 2017. Motivation related to work: A century of
progress. Journal of Applied Psychology. 102(3). p.338.
López, V. and Velasco, L., 2016. Motivation. In Elastic Optical Networks (pp. 1-5). Springer,
Cham.
Papi, M., 2018. Motivation as quality. Studies in Second Language Acquisition. 40(4). pp.707-
730.