Motivation in the Workplace of Amalgamated Biscuit

Motivation in the workplace
Introduction
Work life at Amalgamated Biscuit (AB) appears to be pretty good. The labor force at the corporation seems to be generally happy, motivated and productive. On the other hand, the opposite seems to be the case at Federated Biscuit (FB). The workforce at the corporation appears to be not only discouraged but also demotivated. The chief executive officers at these two corporations are very much interested in quantifying the comparative level of motivation in the workplace. The main objective of this paper is to present two different methods that can be utilized to ascertain motivation and morale in workplaces like AB and FB and examine the strengths and weaknesses of these two selected methods.
Measuring Motivation through Performance Levels
The first approach of measuring motivation is through the measuring performance. Motivation can be measured in terms of performance levels at a certain task that is goal related. This is particularly if performance is variable and pivotal to the goal. In this approach, the performance measures comprise of accuracy or precision, the amount of work that has been accomplished, and the highest level of achievement. For instance, different research studies have taken this approach into consideration. For instance, the research study undertaken by Bargh et al. (2001) sought to examine the impact of priming on motivation by measuring motivation by means of the participants’ performance at search puzzles for five different words. The outcomes of the study demonstrated that the participants primed with accomplishment and attainments were able to find additional words in comparison to control patients. The inference of this is that the participants were more motivated to achieve. Secondly, a research study conducted by Bandura and Schunk (1981) sought to demonstrate that proximal goals and objectives are more motivating compared to distal goals and objectives by measuring the mathematical achievement motivation of the children through their performance on a number of problems regarding subtraction. The outcomes of the study demonstrated that children encouraged to establish proximal goals and objectives during a previous period of preparation were able to solve a greater number of problems in an accurate and correct manner compared to the students that sect distal goals and objectives. In accordance to Toure-Tillery and Fishbach (2014), an additional element of performance is persistence or the magnitude to which a person continues unwaveringly in the search of a goal in spite of intrinsic challenges. For instance, a highly motivated employee may spend hours studying or examining a task in spite of being exhausted or tempted by additional exciting activities. In particular, persistence may be expressed in terms of the amount of time a person spends on goal-related tasks, in regard to the number of such task a person finishes, or in regard to the magnitude to which the person continues to engaged in the objective (Toure-Tillery and Fishbach, 2014). For instance, in the case of AB and FB, one of the ways in which motivation could be measured is by assessing the motivation of participants to attain a reward by investigating whether the employees abandoned or continued to engage in the task. It is established that employees who are more motivated have a lesser likelihood of abandoning the task as they get closer to accomplishing the reward. Similarly, motivated employees will demonstrate their persistence on working on an unsolvable task, with the belief that such a task is solvable (Toure-Tillery and Fishbach, 2014).
Measuring Motivation through Evaluation, Devaluation and Perception
The motivational state of a workforce impacts the evaluation of goal-associated objectives, and these evaluative practices or procedures subsequently promote fruitful pursuit of goals both in a conscious and unconscious manner. In particular, the assessment of goal-pertinent objectives is more constructive for active goals and objectives in comparison to those that are inactive. As a result, motivation can be measured by the magnitude to which a goal-pertinent object is assessed positively, through the use of explicit measures or implicit measures. In particular, a research study undertaken by Ferguson and Bargh (2004) demonstrated that participants in the study that had an unfulfilled attainment goal were faster and quick and ascertaining positive adjectives in comparison to negative ones following words that are achievement-related. On the other hand, the participants in the study who had just attained a goal fulfillment and those devoid of a goal did not react substantially faster to positive adjectives compared to negative adjectives. Secondly, this approach encompasses a measure of motivation through the devaluation of conflicting constructs, encompassing the objects that rival with or hamper the goal. For instance, employees that demonstrate aspiration or desire, with an active task goal, demonstrated lower evaluation of tasks that serve unrelated goals in comparison to employees who are not aspired and therefore do not have an active task goal (Toure-Tillery and Fishbach, 2014). In this regard, the motivation of the employees at AB and FB could be measured by how fast they act to move positive and negative stimuli in the direction of and away from them to the examine their basic motivation to approach good things and evade bad things. Taking into consideration that goal-relevant objects are obviously valenced, individuals have instinctive propensities to approach goal-congruent objects, which they evaluate in a positive manner and evade objects that may hamper with effective goal quest, which they evaluate negatively.
Strengths and Weaknesses of Approaches
Measuring motivation is more often than not a daunting task. This is owing to the fact that motivation is a qualitative value and not a quantitative value. Basically, the inference of this is that, motivation cannot be easily measured through the use of figures or statistics. In spite of the fact that these two approaches are suitable in measuring motivation, it is imperative to note that they do have their strengths and weaknesses. The approach of measuring motivation using performance can have its strong suits and shortcomings. First of all, in spite of the fact that employee productivity is not akin to employee motivation, this approach can provide a good and suitable estimate of the amount of effort that the employees are putting into the business or work. On the other hand, this approach does have its shortcomings. Most noticeably, different employees have different tasks at hand. Some of these tasks are short-term and others long-term. Therefore it is not only challenging but also inaccurate to compare the two as it provides the wrong perceptions of an employee’s performance level (Green, 2018).
The second approach of measuring motivation through evaluation, devaluation and perception has its strengths and weaknesses as well. For starters, the positive evaluation and perception of tasks and work by employees is a great indicator of motivation. It infers to the perspective that the employees are geared and inspired to undertake such tasks. In addition, there is a greater likelihood of an individual undertaking and completing a task of he or she has a positive perception of the task and therefore motivated to undertake it. However, on the other hand, this approach has a major flaw. Perception does not necessarily equal performance. Imperatively, not all individuals are eager to undertake work. However, this does not imply that they will not be able to undertake it and complete it in an expeditious manner. Therefore, this approach can give false measures of employee motivations (Toure-Tillery and Fishbach, 2014).






References
Bandura, A., & Schunk, D. H. (1981). Cultivating competence, self-efficacy, and intrinsic interest through proximal self-motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 41, 586–598
Bargh, J. A., Gollwitzer, P. M., Lee-Chai, A., Barndollar, K., & Trotschel, R. (2001). The automated will: Nonconscious activation and pursuit of behavioral goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 1014–1027.
Ferguson, M. J., & Bargh, J. A. (2004). Liking is for doing: The effects of goal pursuit on automatic evaluation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87, 557–572.
Green, J. (2018). How to measure the motivation of your employee. Chron. Retrieved from: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/measure-motivation-employee-31647.html
Touré?Tillery, M., & Fishbach, A. (2014). How to measure motivation: A guide for the experimental social psychologist. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 8(7), 328-341.