Business Motivation: Mark & Spencer Case Study Essay

This essay delves into the crucial role of motivation in a business environment, using Mark & Spencer as a case study to illustrate key concepts. It defines motivation as the driving force behind individual actions within an organization, emphasizing its impact on employee commitment and goal achievement. The essay explores the application of motivational theories, particularly Maslow's hierarchy of needs, to understand and influence employee behavior. It examines how Mark & Spencer can implement these theories to address employees' physiological, safety, social, esteem, and self-actualization needs, providing practical examples such as competitive wages, workplace safety measures, team-building activities, recognition programs, and opportunities for professional development. The conclusion reinforces the significance of motivation for enhancing employee efficiency, productivity, and overall organizational success.

Individual essay

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................4

INTRODUCTION
Motivation is defined as need, wants, desire or drive which forces an individual to
perform a particular action. It plays a crucial role within an organisation as motivation help in
influencing employees to put efforts toward accomplishment of organisation goal (Eijdenberg,
Paas and Masurel, 2015). In current essay the chosen topic is “Importance of motivation in
business setting” and company taken for this is Mark & Spencer. In this report there is a detail
description about an understanding and application of motivational theory.
MAIN BODY
The internal as well as external factor which stimulate desire and energy among people to
make them continually interested toward a particular job. Motivation is considered as one of the
most crucial factor which contribute toward business setting and its success. This is because
employee’s motivation help in increasing employee commitment toward their work and they put
more efforts toward the accomplishment of task assigned to them. The role of motivation at work
place is very crucial as it help in keeping employee satisfied and efficient in their operations. The
role of motivation can be better understood using Maslow's hierarchy theory of need which
contains a five-tier model human need which state that an individual gets only motivate to
perform certain action when there is an urge to achieve its certain need. These needs of
individual which motivate them are presented in this model in hierarchical manner which is
explained below:
Physiological need consists of several needs which are vital for a person's survival which
includes food, water, shelter, home etc. Maslow state that these are the basic and more intrinsic
need as which make all the other needs secondary until an individual be able to satisfied them.
Safety need stands second over the hierarchy which state that fulfilling the basic physiological
need, people get motivate to work toward satisfying their safety need. It includes needs like job
security, safe environment, health, shelter etc.
Love and belongingness need is also refers to as a social need which require advancing
the tribal nature (Ennen, Stark and Lassiter, 2015). Social need include love, belongingness,
affection as well as relationship with friends, family etc. These need are get accomplished
through pleasing and having relationship with others. After satisfying their physiological and
security need, people started seeking for maintaining relationship with others as they can't
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survive without interacting with others. Once basic needs get satisfied, people stated seeking for
fulfilling their Esteem need which is related with higher position within a particular group and
act to foster pride throughout their job (Herzberg, 2017). These needs are basically include
respect, self-esteem, achievement, recognitions, accomplishment etc.
Self-actualization need:- This need stands at highest level within the hierarchy need
model which pertains to person's full potential and realising that potential. Maslow state about
this as a desire within an individual to become everything for which one is capable of becoming.
It includes self-fulfilment, pursue talent, peak experience, creativity, personal growth etc.
Application of Maslow's hierarchical theory help Mark & Spencer to keep motivated
toward the actions performed by its employee. This is because motivation among employees help
in keeping them aligned and concern toward the accomplishment of their target at workplace.
This is because motivation creates an inner urge or motive within an individual which in turn
provide direction to actions performed by an individual (Hennessey, 2015). Maslow's hierarchy
theory suggest that in order to keep employees satisfied and motivate toward their job role,
management of M&S must focuses toward determining and then satisfying their employees need
for creating value among them and create a motive to perform well within organisation. Mark &
Spencer can apply the motivational theory within their organisation in following manner:
Physiological needs are consider as basic need of an individual which make them
motivate toward particular job. Hence in order to keep its employees motivated toward their
work Mark & Spencer must try to provide them compensation over its employee's effort up to an
extend that they would be able to fulfil their basic need of food, shelter etc. For this Mark &
Spencer must focuses toward complying with Minimum Wage Act which state that there must be
£7.38 per hour wage for workers who stand under the age of over 25 and £5.90 per hour for
workers aged between 18 to 20. Safety need help in keeping employees satisfied with their job,
management of Mark & Spencer must focuses toward ensuring its employees regarding their
workplace security regarding their health as well as job security to them. This is because an
employee having fear of getting harmed or fired from job will not be able to give their total
efforts. In order to ensure them, Mark & Spencer can implement workplace health and safety law
for providing employees feeling of security.
After fulfilling of their physiological and security need, employees seeking to have their
Love and belongingness need at workplace to feel happy to work. For this Mark & Spencer
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always try to organise meetings, parties for its employees so that they can interact with others
and make friends (Pinder, 2014). On other side for new employees, company organise induction
program where they get familiar with organisation and feel motivate to get join with them and
work together. Esteem need support in retaining its employees for longer period of time, Mark
& Spencer must focuses toward keeping them motivating by providing rewards or promotion in
term of positional as well as monetary. This in turn help employees to work more effectively to
achieve target and get more rewards.
Self-actualization need help in improving the productivity of organisation, it is very
essential for Mark & Spencer to maintain its high skills and competent workforce that help in
dealing with complexity at workplace. After satisfaction of esteem need, employees no more get
motivated with reward (Ramdianee, 2014). So, at this stage Mark & Spencer must focuses
toward identifying their employees expectation and them promote them as per their capability
and talent to keep them motivated.
CONCLUSION
From the above given description it can be summarized that motivation is crucial for
improving the efficiency as well as productivity of employees by keeping them focused toward
accomplishment of organisational goals. Hence a company must focuses toward implementing
the motivational theory at their workplace such as Maslow hierarchy theory of motivation which
help in guiding step by step way of keeping employees motivated.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Eijdenberg, E. L., Paas, L. J. and Masurel, E., 2015. Entrepreneurial motivation and small
business growth in Rwanda.Journal of Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies. 7(3),
pp.212-240.
Ennen, N. L., Stark, E. and Lassiter, A., 2015. The importance of trust for satisfaction,
motivation, and academic performance in student learning groups. Social Psychology of
education. 18(3). pp.615-633.
Hennessey, B. A., 2015. Creative behavior, motivation, environment and culture: The building of
a systems model. The Journal of Creative Behavior. 49(3). pp.194-210.
Herzberg, F., 2017. Motivation to work. Routledge.
Pinder, C. C., 2014. Work motivation in organizational behavior. Psychology Press.
Ramdianee, M., 2014. Motivation of volunteers: The join-stay-leave model. Third Sector Review.
20(1). p.23.
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