Incentives and Employee Motivation

HR Performance Issues and Motivation Introduction A performance issue that has occurred in the past was the problem of getting employees to volunteer for the fund drive. At the local radio station, the non-profit organization depends upon its seasonal fund drive to make the money it needs to stay in business. Because the radio station is the only one of its kind in town—it provides classical music 24/7 along with NPR talk shows—it is viewed as a valuable contributor to the local arts scene.

Many wealthy donors contribute but the station also relies on loyal listeners to contribute every spring, summer, fall and winter as well to keep doors open and staff employed. Staff find the fund drive to be tedious and demeaning as they never feel that enough appreciation is shown them for all the extra hard work it requires of them. They have to work longer hours, be available to take calls, and do tasks that fall outside their normal job description.

The work is considered “volunteer” but management makes it clear that if anyone shirks his duty to “volunteer” he will not be employed for long. This rubs many employees the wrong way and performance during the fund drives has been falling in recent years as employees have no enthusiasm for the job and do the bare minimum required of them during the week-long fund drives that occur four times a year.

They do not actively promote the fund drive, do not greet callers warmly, do not engage with the public donors who come to the station for tours and generally act like they would rather be anywhere else. HR needs to find a way to motivate the workers and increase performance levels. Maslow Maslow’s (1943) hierarchy of needs model provides the basis for his theory of human motivation by showing that what motivates human beings is the need to have their needs met.

The most basic needs come first: shelter, food, love, esteem, and these lead gradually up the pyramid towards the apex, which is self-actualization. The more self-actualized one is, the more likely that person is to be motivated to succeed and to perform at a high level without any need for external or intrinsic motivators: the person is self-motivated (Gerhart & Fang, 2015).

Vroom (1964) built on this idea by developing the concept of expectancy theory—i.e., that people expect there to be outcomes associated with their performance and that if these outcomes are not produced there will be problems. From the perspective of the workers at the radio station, it makes sense that they would lack interest in helping the station with the fund drive because they expect to be compensated in a way that goes beyond their normal compensation: they want more appreciation shown them and that is not happening.

In short, their need for esteem has not been met and so they are not as self-actualized as management would like them to be. In order for HR to address this issue effectively, it should consider the workers from the standpoint of Maslow’s (1943) theory. The performance problem is essentially being created by management because it is not properly considering the needs of the workers.

The management team expects the workers to be professionals, adults, and to do their jobs at a high level even if the work falls outside their job description. What the team is not realizing is that the workers do not see it that way. The reason they do not see it that way is that they lack the esteem levels required to move up the pyramid towards self-actualization. If the workers were self-actualized, they would be performing at a high level and being as engaged as they could be.

Management would be pleased and the public would feel more supported and appreciated. Donations would be climbing. Donations have fallen and part of that reason is because the fund drives are just not as fun as they used to be. The workers need to feel more appreciated themselves before they can pass that feeling on to others.

And that starts primarily with management recognizing that it needs to step up and attend to the issues at hand—i.e., it needs to fill the needs of the work staff and help them to boost their esteem. According to Maslow’s (1943) theory, that is how to get works self-actualized. Intervention First, management should conduct a survey to find out what sort of incentives the workers are likely to associate with feeling appreciated.

For instance, the survey could ask the workers: How would you like to be shown our appreciation for all the hard work you put in during our fund drives? The options could be: a pizza party, a gift card to a local restaurant, a day off. This would allow management to see how they could actually use extrinsic motivators to inspire the workers. However, the management team should also focus on using intrinsic motivators to achieve its goals (Gerhart & Fang, 2015).

The team could help to develop intrinsic motivators in the workers by developing a workplace culture that focuses on developing one’s esteem. The culture could promote values like giving back to the community, and showing appreciation to patrons. These values, when demonstrated, should be celebrated and rewarded to help the workers build their esteem. This would eventually lead to the generation of self-actualizing behavior.

The workers would be less and less dependent on the extrinsic motivators that they required in the initial stages (no need for pizza parties indefinitely, in other words), and instead they would want to help at the fund drive out of a sense of simply wanting to be committed to the organization and assist in meeting its needs.

This would correct the problem of a lack of interest and enthusiasm and low performance for the fund drive by increasing the worker’s sense of esteem, which would allow them to grow towards self-actualization. The intervention requires the two-fold approach: the early incentivizing to get the workers interested and motivated and then the focus on the culture of growth—i.e., creating values in the workers.