Analyzing Motivation in the Workplace: MAN204 Assignment Report

This essay delves into the critical role of motivation in organizational behavior, emphasizing its impact on employee productivity and confidence. It explores prominent motivational theories, including Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Herzberg's Two-Factor Theory, analyzing their application in the workplace. The essay provides real-world examples, such as Google's motivational strategies, to illustrate how managers can effectively motivate employees through hygiene factors and motivators. Furthermore, it differentiates between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, offering practical examples to highlight their distinct characteristics and influence on individual behavior. The essay concludes by advocating for a balanced approach that incorporates both financial incentives and intrinsic motivators to foster employee satisfaction and engagement.

ORGANIZATIONAL
BEHAVIOUR

Motivation and its components
Motivation is the foremost element of any organisation to boost productivity confidence
within individual all employees of any organization. All the aspects related to any individuals at
workplace depend on the level of motivation and its extent of suitability provided to them
(Kanfer & Chen, 2016). Motivation is a component that directly drives employees’ interest
towards organisation and their level of productivity. This report tends to focus on some
motivational theories and its application at workplace with the description to forms of
motivation.
One of the renowned theories is the Maslow's theory of motivation which has a great
extent of suitability to any organisation or workplace. As per the theory, the organisational need
of an employee for individual varies in a certain format or hierarchy. In the year 1940, Maslow
presented a triangular of needs that have different stages required by an individual throughout his
work life (Acevedo, 2018). First stage is the psychological needs which comprises of all the
basic components that highly required by an employee such as food, shelter, clothes etc. The
next stage comes in the form of safety needs which includes all type of securities that are
required by an individual in terms of any physical and emotional harm (Hennessey et.al. 2015).
The hierarchy further proceeds with social needs which comprises of affection,
acceptance, belongingness and similar components. Completion and provision of social needs
highly influence that level of motivation and make an individual feels involved (Bammens,
2016). After this, the pyramid ranges to “esteem” which relates with immediate personal and
external factors such as self respect, achievements and status, attention, recognition. The last
stage is self actualization, the highest order needs concluding the needs hierarchy with the aspect
of self fulfilment and achieving life goals etc. (Kacprzak-Biernacka, et.al. 2015). Hence, these
components of hierarchy needs must be fulfilled in a certain time period to provide adequate
motivation at a particular workplace.

Figure 1: Maslow's Hierarchy of needs
(Source: Maslow’s Hierarchy Theory, 2019)
Another important theory of motivation is the Herzberg two factor theory, which states
that there are two certain elements that determine the level of motivation in any organisation.
First element is the hygiene factor which comprises of working condition, organisational
behaviour, job securities and all the influencing policies of a company (Cook & Artino, 2016).
The second element is the motivator, which includes factors such as level of participation,
recognition, respect among subordinates etc. According to the theory, an individual can be
effectively motivated by the provision of motivators at workplace such as promotional and
personal growth opportunities, providing them responsibility and suitable amount of recognition
will certainly be helpful in attaining highest level of motivation among employees or an
individual (Hur, 2018). Therefore, as per the theory providing sufficient amount of motivators to
employees or individual imparts a great effect on motivation level of employees or workforce or
an individual.
One of the considerable examples of motivation can be taken from Google, which has
been proved as best motivator for its employees. In the year 2014, fortune defined Google as the
standardized place to work because of the fact that it mainly focuses on hygiene and motivator
factors to thrive motivation of employees. The workplace included considerable hygiene factors
such as development of suitable culture and working environment. Inclusion of effective perks
such as financial, health and vacation packages for employees turn to be the most influential

factors of motivation within the company (Mohrman & Lawler, 2017). The company also
provide financial help if an employee want to adopt a child, p availability of Google Plex
facilitate employees to enjoy free fitness which other supporting facility success laundry service
and on-site physicians. In this way Google is providing adequate basic and additional facilities to
its employees for delivering them highest level of motivation (Kuvaas et.al. 2017).
Motivation at workplace can be classified into two categories, first is intrinsic motivation
and the second is extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation comes from within without the
application of any external motivator (Gerhart & Fang, 2015). Such motivation depends on the
interest of any individual in a certain activity and the enjoyment he or she feels while performing
a particular task. For example, learning new skills or language of interest, develops an intrinsic
motivation towards it. On the contrary to it, extrinsic motivation required some type of force or
motivating component to make an individual feels and stay motivated (Howard, 2016). For
example, preparing any type of project to be praised by senior or manager is a type of extrinsic
motivation. Intrinsic motivation can be directly relates with the self urge of participants that
motivates people to get involved into tasks. Whereas, extrinsic motivation is not self accelerated
but need some inspiration for achieving goals and objectives (Barrick et.al. 2015).
Therefore from the above content, it can be summarised that motivation is a necessary element
and can be further developed by applying theories of Maslow and Herzberg. The focus must be
imparted to intrinsic motivators to make an individual feel self sufficient and satisfied at
workplace (Hui & Yang, 2017). With financial components and other hygiene factors, there must
be an inclusion of intrinsic motivators to increase satisfaction among individuals and workforce.
Organizations must promote employees’ participation and recognition among subordinates, this
type of actions imparts a positive influence on them.

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