Using the Reward System to Measure Employee Commitment

The role of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation organizational success
Abstract
In any organization, it is essential to keep the employees interested in whatever they are doing at all times as long as they are within the organization. It is the one thing that the HR department needs to keep alive by all means since the decline of motivation among the staff members will directly affect the productivity of the whole team and jeopardy to the continuity of the organization.
Monetary compensation is one the most common form of compensation for skills, time and energy used by employees in most organizations. It helps in showing appreciation for a job well accomplished to the agreed upon standards and over a given period of time. Money comes out as the most widely acceptable form of extrinsic motivation. However, there are levels of rewards systems that bring about intrinsic motivation.
The research herein concentrates on the role of the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in the success of organization. The experiment will investigate what role the money reward system as a form of intrinsic motivation plays in employee satisfaction, hence commitment and performance, and what role the intrinsic motivation plays and how this affects the satisfaction of employees, hence their performance. The experiment will seek to know which of these two motivation approaches gives forth a more motivated employee body and higher performance as a consequence.
Hypothesis
The intrinsic motivation among employees will lead to better performance of the employees hence higher production.
Intrinsic motivation is commonly described as the willingness of a person to make some decision or take an action depending not on the material rewards but the possible satisfaction that they may derive from the experience or the action.
The decision to engage in the activity is motivated by the pleasure or the learning experience that he may derive from engaging in the activity. The intrinsically motivated people derive pleasure from completing a task, the job itself or recognition. They are the category of people who do not look for any kind of tangible rewards or incentives in order to motivate them but are motivated from within. They may be getting recognition from their leaders or not but it does not dampen their spirit to keep working.
One of the most renowned theorists whose theory inclines more towards the intrinsic motivation is McClelland. McClelland’s theory presumes that there are some needs that are learned and socially acquired as the person grows up and interacts with the environment. In his theory he has three categories namely the Need for Power, Need for affiliation and Need for achievement (Management Study Guide, 2011). These are the major intrinsic motivations that drive employees and people in general to act the way they do in undertaking their assignments.
(a). Need for power indicates the urge by the person to control and influence the behaviors of the other person. Here the person likes to compete with others where there is chance for domination. There are two ways of use of power here; positive and negative power. The positive power is when the manager or a team leader wants to use the effort of others to achieve results. Negative use of power is when one uses power for personal gains and aggrandizement.
(b). Need for affiliation indicates ones desire to establish friendship and sense of belonging. Such people prefer tasks that enable them to interact with other people. They are more likely to be team players and will thrive more in a customer service engagement in most organizations.
(c). Need for achievement is the stage where one desires to succeed in a very competitive environment. He sets achievable goals though may be difficult and accepts a given amount of risks in order to have the sense of achievement. The reason why such a person sets realistic goals is due to the knowledge that the unrealistic goals will pretty much depend on chances rather than his personal contribution and skills that he has.
Both Maslow’s and McClelland’s theories agree that it is the individual input and the job context that motivates the person to strive towards achieving the goal and not the participation of the manager or the supervisor. It is the personal ethics, own reward system, skills and knowledge that count in the motivation of the employees as discussed by Hinzie Media (2011).
Variables in the experiment
The behavioral concept that will be under investigation in their research is the employee satisfaction levels and how this is affected by the two types of motivation; the intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. The two independent variables that will be used in this research are the intrinsic rewards/motivation and extrinsic motivation. These will be varied in the experiment to see how the levels of motivation and commitment to work and general satisfaction of the employees. This experiment will be highly qualitative in nature since it will be collecting personal views and not necessarily variables that can be numerically quantified.
Methodology
The research utilized two main sources of information and data. The first was the literature review from already existing research works and theories that helped shape the direction and tone of the research report. The other more important method was the use of questionnaires on focus groups to help gather the information and the views of the employees from different categories of jobs.
There were questionnaires created and administered to employees from three different categories of organizations. The first group of respondents consisted of 16 employees who had spent less than 5 years in the employment sector after finishing their college degrees. The second lot of respondents was 16 employees who had spent at least 10 years in employment and the last lot of respondents were 16 employees who were on part time employment as they did their class work. The majority of the questions in the questionnaire are the scale questions where the needed answers measured the extent of agreement. The respondents had the space to indicate the organization for which they worked for if they wished to but were not required to write down their names.
The questionnaires were administered to the respondents and were given two days to handle the questions therein and later on the questionnaires were collected. For higher rates of recapture of the questionnaires, the questionnaires were given out on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to the respective groups, each group as per the days. The collection of the questionnaires also took place across three days from Thursday, Friday and Saturday each from the teams in order of the time they received the questionnaires.
The administering of the questionnaires was done purely on voluntary basis and the consent of the respondent was sought. The subjects were randomly selected and first asked about the number of years they had spent in employment and then the inclusion or exclusion was done accordingly. The contacts of the respondents were taken out of their own will and recorded on a separate piece of paper for a possible reminder and follow-up for collection of the duly filled questionnaires.
Results summary
The hypothesis was proven. In the collected data, it was established that the higher number of employees generally recognized that intrinsic motivation was important to keeping them committed to their work. The various forms of intrinsic motivation stood out to matter more to the older employees who have had several years in employment than the younger generations who are just getting into employment.
Data analysis
The overall trend of the collated indicated that a higher percentage of the sample size engaged in the research purpose indicated that their commitment and productivity at their work increased with the existence of intrinsic motivation as compared to extrinsic motivators such as money and monthly remuneration. A significant 86% responded in a manner suggesting that money was not the only motivator that kept them aiming for better performance at their work place. This indicated that only 14% had the belief that money matter much in their commitment to work and increased productivity. On further dissection of the results received, it was seen that among the students who worked on part time basis, 75% of them believed that money was the central motivator towards commitment to work and productivity. This ratio changed significantly among the employees who had been in the employment field for at least five years who posted 48% response to the effect that money mattered in commitment to work. For the employees who had spent at least 10 years in the employment sector mostly no longer believed that the extrinsic motivator was important in keeping them committed and performing at their work but instead inclined towards intrinsic motivators more. Among this last sample group, only 15% believed that money determined their commitment and productivity at work.
The collated data showed a trend that corroborated facts already outlined by organizational behavior theorists there before. The employees are known to be seeking different levels of rewards for themselves and these are not necessarily brought about by money. These are rewards that one gets by the intrinsic motivation that one receives from his manager or from the organization. According to CEO Flow (2008) the four rewards that come with intrinsic motivation are discussed as below:
Sense of choice; this is a situation where employees have the freedom to select a task that they are best at and contribute freely in the running of the organization, this way the employee feels the satisfaction from within rather than being allocated the tasks by the manager. Through the questions covered in the questionnaire it was established that most employees valued being given the ability to choose among tasks what they are best at and implement it to the benefit of the organization even without an extra pay, as opposed to being instructed on every single tasks even if they are paid for it.
Sense of competence; where employees feel the sense of accomplishment in all that they do as opposed to the extrinsic situation where nothing is ever good enough to the manager. The data revealed that once the employees are given a task and they have effectively accomplished it, they still need to be assured that they finished it professionally apart from their regular pay. It gives them sense of accomplishment hence will strive to finish the other tasks as may be assigned in the future.
Sense of meaningfulness; here the employees feel that their tasks are equally important in the meeting of the general company goal and their effort and time spent is worth it. Having their input considered as of value to the progress of the organization came out as a factor that the employees considered even if they were not paid for the given task.
Sense of progress; this is where the individual employee and project/assignment development and accomplishment is felt and not that the organization is seen to be growing and leaving the participants behind. The majority of the employees valued regular progress within the organization from one level to another in terms of their career even if there is not noticeable or a big change in remuneration.
The reason why rewards more often than not fail to motivate employees is because they are widely viewed as discriminative in that they do not take into account that people have different capabilities and levels of achievement. The rewards also outlive their purposes in that if the employee has the ability to raise the amount elsewhere he will be reluctant to strive to get the reward at all.
It can therefore be concluded that the intrinsic motivation among the employees significantly determines the commitment of employees and their performance within the organization. It is not only the reward of money that keeps the employees committed to their job, but they also look at the personal grown and development at the individual level.

References
CEO Flow, (2008). The Four Rewards of Intrinsic Motivation. Retrieved October 06, 2017 from
http://www.ceoflow.com/2008/08/the-four-rewards-of-intrinsic-motivation/
Hinzie Media (2011). The Job Performance Model and Employee Motivation. Retrieved October
06, 2017 from http://www.infobarrel.com/The_Job_Performance_Model_And_Employee_Motivation
Management Study Guide, (2011). McClelland’s Theory of Needs. Retrieved October 06, 2017
from http://www.managementstudyguide.com/mcclellands-theory-of-needs.htm