Motivational Strategies in Bank of America: Given that several motivational strategies have a significant effect in the productivity of any workplace, Bank of America understands that the company's success is mainly dependent on employee satisfaction. The Bank and its associates hire and recruit qualified employee regardless of their gender, color, national origin, religion, age, race, citizenship and disability status among other factors. This reveals the management's philosophy and practice of promoting and supporting the idea of equal employment opportunity and positive action. As part of the management's employee motivational strategy, the Bank forbids discrimination on any grounds such as marital status, or medical condition among others. In order to guarantee success of the Bank and employee satisfaction, the Bank of America has a Global Human Resource team which plays an integral role.

Global Human Resource Team:

The Global Human Resource team is an important department to the Bank of America since it enables the Bank to adopt various employee motivational strategies that result in productivity. Given that this team lines up the human resource strategy with the business strategy, the Bank is capable of driving revenue growth by attracting, improving and preserving an outstanding employee base. Notably the Global Human Resource team in Bank of America is not only focused on employee satisfaction but it also focuses on customer relationship. The team advises the Bank's customers regarding a wide range of topics in order to improve the relationship between the Bank and its clients. By focusing on employee satisfaction, the team assists the Bank to provide higher standards of rewards, commitment and satisfaction to the employees. These benefits, commitment and satisfaction of the company's employees are achieved through various strategies that are adopted and implemented by the Bank.

Motivational Strategies:

One of the major responsibilities of the management team in Bank of America is the review of employee performance with the aim of guaranteeing their satisfaction and improving the company's productivity. The review of employee performance enables the managers to identify whether there is employee dissatisfaction within the Bank's workforce. Furthermore, the review also enables the Bank's managers to devise appropriate motivational strategies in order to improve employee satisfaction and performance. The management's philosophy is based on the fact that each employee has the responsibility, liberty and authority to do the right thing for each other and for the Bank's stakeholders. It's upon this philosophy that the company has adopted several strategies that assist in improving employee performance and satisfaction. These strategies include & #8230;

A Comprehensive Code of Ethics:

One of the major strategies that have been adopted by Bank of America is the development of a comprehensive code of ethics that is updated and improved on a regular basis. This code of ethics provides guidance on employees-management, employee-employee and employee-stakeholders relationships. In addition to the idea of equal employment opportunities, the management team has developed a comprehensive code of ethics to ensure that employees do the right thing. The company maintains the employees' integrity and performance through the comprehensive code of ethics that ensures that these employees act in the expected way. Employees who maintain the culture of integrity as stipulated in the Bank's code of ethics are rewarded for their efforts. These rewards and incentives to employees in recognition of their efforts and performance in the company usually provide motivation to them and enable them to improve their performance. As the employees strive to improve on their performance as a result of the rewards and incentives they receive, the company drives revenue growth and maintains productivity.

The code of ethics contains five values that represent what the company believes in both as individuals and as a team. These values determine the aspirations of the company in interactions with its customers, shareholders, employees and the society ("Code of Ethics," n.d.). These five values in the Bank's code of ethics are leadership, winning, doing the right thing, trust and teamwork as well as inclusive meritocracy. The joint commitment in upholding this code of ethics is the foundation in which Bank of America stands and in which it improves productivity. Employees who violate the culture of integrity that is stipulated in the code of ethics are fired regardless of the performance or potential.

Diversity and Inclusion:

Diversity and inclusion is the other motivation strategy that Bank of America has adopted because of the fact that diversity enables companies to drive their business and inclusion improves productivity as well as creativity within the workplace. Bank of America has developed from compliance to inclusion enabling employees to be creative in doing the right thing instead of being complied to do something. Inclusion encourages creativity...

As a result, the company is among the most successful American companies with high records in diversity and inclusion.
Every employee in Bank of America is accountable for diversity with the provision of diversity training and associate engagement. Through the diversity and inclusion strategy, the Bank motivates its employees by recognizing their diversification and inclusion efforts. The employees also receive the Bank's diversity efforts through broadcast in business meetings, internal broadcasts and formal communications. The Bank's critical element to success has been its diversity transition as well as an integrated and inclusive strategy which is part of its initiatives and business plans ("Spreading the Net," n.d.). Banks of America's commitment to diversity has also created an environment in which the employees can fulfill their potential without obstacles. Furthermore, the company strives to empower its employees to excellence in their jobs, maximizing potential and rewarding its employees based on their performance and results.

Summary of the Strategies:

Bank of America's strategies of motivation are guided by some critical factors of motivation which enables employee satisfaction and increase productivity. These critical factors include effective discipline and punishment, treating of employees equally, positive reinforcement, establishing work related goals and providing rewards based on job performance. The comprehensive code of ethics serves as the foundation within which effective discipline and punishment, positive reinforcements and equal treatment of employees is enforced.

On the other hand, diversity and inclusion strategy is the foundation with which work related goals are established and job performance rewards provided. This strategy is also the foundation in which equal of treatment of employees is enforced since it respects the diversity of all the employees. Under the Bank's code of ethics, an employee who violates any of ethics is considered to be in resistance to productivity and is subject to punishment including the risk of losing their jobs.

Motivational Theories:

One of the critical jobs of a manager is to ensure that employee perform and meet the set work related goals while being able to motivate employees. The theory of motivation and its practice has therefore become a crucial and difficult subject in the workplace because it leads to effective management and leadership. The understanding of how employees are motivated has had five different approaches which have led to the development of various theories to explain this concept. These five theories are the Adam's equity, Herzberg's, Skinner's, Maslow's need-hierarchy and Vroom's expectancy theories on motivation. As mentioned earlier, these different theories on motivation are not only founded by different theorists but they are established on various principles.

Any of these five major theories on motivation are usually the guiding principles on motivation strategies in the workplace. Various companies adopt several motivation strategies based on these five theories of motivation and the management's philosophy. In Bank of America's motivation strategies, Adam's equity theory, Vroom's theory and Skinners theory are the bases of their motivation theories. While Adam's equity theory is evident because of the concept of equal job opportunities regardless of the employee's diversity, Vroom's theory is from the fact that employees are encouraged to be creative in order to increase performance. Additionally, the Skinner's theory of motivation is seen in the Bank's efforts to encourage employees to do the right thing rather than just compliance. However, Maslow's need-hierarchy and Herzberg's theories of motivation are the two motivational theories that are currently missing in Bank of America's motivation strategies.

Maslow's Need-hierarchy Theory:

This motivation theory is based on the fact that employees are considered to have five levels of needs with the need to satisfy the lower level needs before the higher level needs in order to motivate employees (Lindner, 1998). These five levels of needs range from social, physiological, ego, self-actualizing and safety factors. According to Maslow the self-actualizing factor highest ranked motivator followed by the physiological, ego, safety and social factors respectively. Based on his theory, Maslow suggests that managers need to satisfy physiological, esteem, safety and social factors among others in order to address employees' motivation. While there is a combination of motivational factors in Maslow's theory, he concludes that low levels of needs should be met before climbing to the next level.

Herzberg's Theory:

In his theory of motivation, Herzberg classified motivation into two major factors i.e motivators and hygienes. While the motivator factors include achievement and recognition, the hygiene factors include payment…