Fredrick Herzberg Motivational Hygiene Theory

Fredrick Herzberg Motivational Hygiene Theory

The theories of Fredrick Herzberg differentiate between the needs of managers on the one hand to gain productivity and performance from workers and on the other intrinsically enhances their jobs to foster long-term commitment (Herzberg, 1976). As a result, Herzberg's Motivational Hygiene Theory is divided into those basic factors, or as he called them Hygiene factors, needed to be present for employees to alleviate feelings of job dissatisfaction. Herzberg believed that at a minimum the Hygiene factors in a job needed to be present if an employee was going to be able to progress to being motivated (Herzberg, 1987). Dr. Herzberg found that these Hygiene factors were extrinsic to the employee and included job security, pay, working conditions, status within the organization relative to other employees, salary quality and trust of supervision, and relationships with peers, supervisors and subordinates. The Motivators in the Motivational Hygiene Theory are seen as the catalysts of moving employees from not satisfied with their roles to be satisfied. Inherent in the model is not purely the attainment of satisfaction through self-actualized bur rather the alleviation of pain by minimizing dissatisfying factors in job designs and responsibilities (Backer, 1973). Most critical about the structure of the Motivational Hygiene Theory is implication of keeping each of these two foundational elements in balance with each other. Studies of workers' generation differences as they relate to the Motivators in the Motivational Hygiene Theory shows that Gen Y workers are the most demanding of any recent generation in the balance of Hygiene and Motivator factors in the definition of their job designs (Baldonado, Spangenburg, 2009). As a result, this model is often used for evaluating manager's abilities to create jobs that can be scaled to support intrinsic motivators while also seeking to stabilize the Hygiene factors of the model.

An Analysis of Herzberg's Motivation Hygiene Theory

What differentiates Herzberg's two factor theory is that it also takes into account a third dominant variable, and that is the environment, as the reaction to Hygiene factors is to satiate while Motivators are the catalyst for exceptional achievement through the internalization of the core objectives of the role and its responsibilities. What also differentiates this model is the fact that it has been proven empirically in hundreds of studies, the most noteworthy being an analysis of Hygiene vs. Motivators for workers in highly skilled, technical publications. According to Backer (1973) Herzberg's theory has been validated in a study of 203 accountants and engineers, where technical professionals were asked their main sources of job satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Backer's analysis centered on asking technical professionals to describe those situations and occurrences when they felt most and least in control of their work, and most and least attuned to job satisfaction over time. The results of this study of technical professionals indicate that a stability level of Hygiene factors lead to no job satisfaction, merely a reduction in job dissatisfaction (Backer, 1973). It was also found that through the study, the Motivators as defined in the Motivational Hygiene Theory were statistically more significant and greater predicators of job satisfaction relative to the presence of absence of Hygiene factors (Backer, 1973). These findings also suggest that the role of Hygiene factors is that of satiating or creating a baseline level of minimum satiation, not satisfaction, with a given job and its roles (Chapman, 2009). This study of technical professionals also successfully differentiated the role of the environment in the context of the development of successful Motivational factors as well.

An additional study completed by Dr. Herzberg in 1968 (Herzberg, 1987) found through attitudinal surveys and research measurements that found that the catalysts of dissatisfaction within a job were more attributable to the external environment (Herzberg, 1987) including the physical and emotional environment, flexibility vs. rigidity of corporate policies and procedures, degree of closeness and trust or lack of trust in interpersonal relationships, and the perception of equality of pay and benefits (Herzberg, 1987). Additional environmental factors included the consistency and perceived equitability of compensation across all management levels and the potential for a balanced work/life balance (Herzberg, 1987). Herzberg could just as easily could have called the Hygiene factors the "saturators" and the Motivators as the "enablers" of significant performance gains over time which is how Gen Y workers react to the constructs of the model today (Baldonado, Spangenburg, 2009). Table 1: Motivators and Hygiene Factors Compared (Herzberg, 1987) illustrates graphically the differences between each of these two sets of attributes that comprise the model. Table 1: Motivational Hygiene Theory

Each of the factors that comprise the model is briefly discussed here.

Achievement -- Often defined as the successful completion of a task, this attribute anchors the Motivators area of the Motivational Hygiene Theory model.

Recognition of achievement -- Herzberg meant for this to include recognition from anyone in the organization from a co-worker to a client to a superior. Herzberg mentions in his theories that recognition that combines the verbal and visual are the most effective (Herzberg, 1987).

The Work itself -- Only after a worker has been able to have their Hygiene factors met can they attain the level of satisfaction with the work itself, and this came out of the study of technical professionals cited earlier in this analysis (Backer, 1973).

Responsibility -- Related to the three most critical areas of learning and job achievement which are autonomy, mastery and purpose, responsibility is an intrinsic motivation within any job and once internalized, signals an employee is seeking to achieve not just limit sources of dissatisfaction (Baldonado, Spangenburg, 2009).

Advancement -- the progression within a job position that associates correlate to increased responsibility over time. Advancement can also be relative in the context of free time and the opportunity to seek balance in ones' career, which is a primary concern of Gen Y and younger workers (Baldonado, Spangenburg, 2009).

Personal growth -- Another relative term that defines the level of intrinsic satisfaction and growth a person experiences once the Hygiene factors within their job have been met. The ability to design jobs so there is inherent personal growth within them is also critical for this model to scale across entire organizations as well by employees internalizing the factors associated with it (Herzberg, 1987).

Hygiene factor listed here are seen as "satiators" which alleviate job dissatisfaction yet do not create inherent satisfaction on their own. These include the following:

Status -- From symbols to salutations in meetings, these are relatively meaningless in driving up satisfaction. Status is a satiator, not a motivator.

Security -- the sense of security in a job of not being at risk of being fired and having acceptable medical benefits.

Relationship with subordinates -- the morale of an organization and how employees interact with each other is essential in this area.

Personal life -- Gen Y workers seek this Hygiene factors for balance in their lives, having seen their parents sacrifice their entire lives for their jobs (Baldonado, Spangenburg, 2009).