Motivational theories and factors in organizational behavior

Motivational Theories

Motivation in the workplace has always been a difficult task as it is natural for any individual to get bored and feel stagnant in a job. It is hard to imagine doing the same thing over and over again with the same people day after day, and expect someone to not get a little agitated with the work that needs to be completed. But this could be resolved and changed if one truly works on strategies to remedy the problem and find ways to get an individual motivated (Thomas 2009). One way to motivate people is to have them work together in events outside of the workplace in a more laid-back environment. People who are constantly working in one place might feel more comfortable with the job if they were more familiar with their co-workers outside of the monotonous work place (Latham 2006). Planning a picnic or a pot luck event might get them more interested in working their job since they could see that more than just work gets done. Developing that sense of being with one another and forming a relationship makes the workplace a more comfortable place to be at and therefore boosting productivity (Thomas 2009). Another way to motivate could be through incentives like bonus gift certificates or gift cards to places based on performance and productivity. It could be something small, but having something physical to work up to can actually motivate some to work harder in order to achieve that small goal of working for a prize (Achor 2010). A third way to motivate individuals in a workplace could be to reward everyone at the end of the work week with a movie ticket, or even a plain old certificate of excellence. Being acknowledged for your work really does give one a sense of accomplishment and appreciation, and if everyone gets the same treatment (unless someone REALLY does something wrong) they feel like what they are doing actually means something (Thomas 2009). They feel useful.

A strategy for enhancing my own motivation in the workplace is to take on more than what my role entails. This gives me a sense of higher responsibility, therefore motivating me to want to do more to enhance further within my workplace. Having more responsibility could either slow one down as one gets stuck in the sense of having to do too much, or in my case, it can give me a more powerful sense of being to do beyond what is expected of me, and gives me goals to constantly live and work up to. Therefore, a perfect strategy for my type of personality is to have higher expectations for myself, giving something more to fulfill for myself.

Theories of motivation attempt to describe what it is that people think and do in order to feel motivated enough to get something done on their own. One of these theories is the Incentive Theory of Motivation. This suggests that people are motivated to do things because of something that is being rewarded to them externally (Latham 2006). This is a more behavioral and associative concept, as it is believed that individuals work toward a certain goal for external rewards. This can be seen in every single job. People go to work because they get paid on a regular basis. Nothing is more motivational than knowing that after hours of work during a given period of time, one will receive a paycheck proving that everything was worth it. It is this that this theory says is the key motivator in a person. Another theory of motivation is the Humanistic Theory of Motivation. This theory goes hand in hand with Maslow's hierarchy of needs as it states that people are motivated based on the fact that people have strong cognitive reasons to do so (Latham 2006). In order to provide food and shelter, one needs to be motivated enough to go and seek it. These are biological necessities that are fulfilled by the motivation that an individual has. At the end, the goal is to fulfill the need for self-actualization, which becomes one's own motivation to fulfill one's own potential. It is a combination of this that provides one with the motivation to do anything necessary.

Financial incentives in the workplace, although seen as great motivators, could quickly backfire (Thomas 2009). Someone who is in it purely for monetary gain will not truly appreciate the essence of what it is to work for a certain company or a certain place. It is hard to truly involve oneself in something that is only motivated by the money that one is making (Achor 2010). It can become difficult to try to do things any other way than the one that is set, if only financial gain is important. Money is also pretty situational and once that is no longer a perk in a job, the performance level of an individual could plummet since their only true motivator was that of financial gain.