Employee Motivation and Engagement: Recruiting Top Talent

Introduction

Because employee performance and productivity are closely aligned with corporate profitability, there has been a great deal of research concerning optimal approaches to motivating people in the workplace. The analysis of what motivates people to perform at their maximum effort has become increasingly complex as a result of a growing number of theories concerning the antecedents of motivation, optimal job performance, and the motivational methods used to achieve it. While the debate over which motivational approaches produce the best results continues, there is a consensus among organizational behavior researchers that pay ranks among the top factors driving employee motivation — perhaps the overarching factor in most cases. Despite these findings, studies have shown time and again that money talks when it comes to employee motivation. When people become convinced that their efforts at work are not being adequately rewarded, their job performance is adversely affected and they will likely begin an active job search to find better employment elsewhere. To determine the optimal approach to employee motivation, this paper provides a review of the relevant peer-reviewed and scholarly literature, followed by a summary of the research and important findings in the conclusion.

With 90 percent of new businesses failing to survive even a year, the companies that succeed are clearly doing something different — and it turns out to be motivating their employees. In this regard, Neff (2002) emphasizes that "successful companies know that motivated, satisfied employees increase customer satisfaction and profit margins. Because of the link between employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction, companies have implemented an array of strategies to help increase employees' internal motivation."¹

Employee Engagement and Motivation

The research to date on employee motivation can be categorized according to three fundamental views:

1. Motivation is internal to the individual, and it is not really possible to motivate people in any meaningful way (except, perhaps, by offering enormously large amounts of money — "a deal employees can't resist");
2. Employees must be motivated by management; therefore, effective interpersonal skills are an important part of the skill set needed by managers today; and
3. A holistic view that combines parts or all of the first two views.²

By contrast, the Gallup Workplace Audit (GWA) measures employee engagement as it relates to productivity, profitability, employee retention, and customer service at the business-unit level (hospital, hotel, factory, etc.).³ Studies to date have shown that employees who score high on the GWA questions are regarded as being "emotionally engaged" in their work and in their organizations.⁴

Human Drives, Emotions, and Motivational Theories

The major drives (also termed "primary needs") of human motivation and behavior relate to the basic needs for life, as well as the alternating needs for activity and rest. In this regard, Weiner advises that "the major primary needs include the need for foods of various sorts (hunger), the need for water (thirst), the need for air, the need to avoid tissue injury (pain), the need to maintain an optimal temperature, the need to defecate, the need to micturate, the need for rest (after protracted exertion), the need for sleep (after protracted wakefulness), and the need for activity (after protracted inaction)."⁵ In sum, drives have been described as "the forces igniting human activity" and "an important characteristic of these constructs is that they function as energizers of action."⁶

In his well-known hierarchy of needs, Maslow describes how primary needs must be satisfied before people can move on to higher pursuits such as relationships and self-actualization. Wilson and Madsen advise that "every person is born with a set of basic needs. Satisfied needs no longer motivate behavior. Maslow proposed the existence of another key human need — the need for individual fulfillment."⁷ Maslow's five-level hierarchy arranges these needs from the most fundamental physiological requirements at the base to self-actualization at the apex.

In contrast to Maslow's conceptualization of human needs, McClelland regarded internal human needs as the primary driver of human behavior⁸ and proposed an "independent" set of needs.⁹ According to Barbuto, Fritz, and Plummer, "this theory of motivation emphasized three needs — need for power, need for affiliation, and need for achievement. Despite its general acceptance, the trichotomy and its measures (Thematic Attribute Test) have been widely criticized."¹⁰

As originally propounded by Harvard Business School's Lawrence and Nohria, the four-drive theory posits that human motivation can be explained in terms of four drives — acquire, bond, comprehend, and defend — each of which includes features and constituent elements that influence motivation in the workplace.¹¹

Conclusion

The research showed that motivating employees is a challenging enterprise in any workplace setting, but there are tools and theories available that can help determine what factors are most salient for motivating others in a particular situation. These included Maslow's hierarchy of needs, McClelland's learned needs theory, and the four-drive theory, which explains motivation in terms of four drives — acquire, bond, comprehend, and defend. Although pay and benefits remain among the top factors that motivate people in the workplace, the research also showed that factors such as perceptions of procedural justice play a major role in employee motivation.