Individual Essay and Reflective Work 2020
Motivation is a reason behind the individual acts and behavior in a particular way. However, Internal and external factors stimulates desire and energy in people to continue interest and committed to job, role and subject by making an effort to achieve the goal (Herzberg, 2017).
The interest and effort of people largely depend upon the motivation of individual as if they are encouraged to perform task then he/she definitely contribute full potential to achieve the desired results (Dobre, 2013).
Moreover, the motivation results from the interaction of conscious and unconscious factors such as intensity of desire or need, incentive or reward value of goal and expectation of individual and their peers. These factors are the major cause of behaving of people in certain way.
For instances, an student devot extra time on studies with the desire to grab the high grade. So the want of student guide their behaviour and attitude towards the work.
Furthermore, motivation is a psychological factor that influences the individual behavior and allows them to act the work as per their stimuli (Osabiya, 2015). The motivation factors have a major role to guide the attitude of people.
Thus, it can be stated that motivation is the major aspect for human life as it guide them in each step of life.
Behaviours/Attitudes that investigated within your chosen organisation
The selected organisation is Woolworth Limited which consider as a big supermarket chain in Australia region.
The retail chain aim is to provide maximum satisfaction to its employees through encourages them as motivational factors guide their staff behaviour towards work.
From the study of Woolworth Limited (2019), it is observed that Woolworth employees are quite dissatisfied with the organisation poor working environment. Likewise, there is lack of personal development activities involves in the organisation policy.
So their behaviour towards the work is quite negative. This influences the productivity of retail chain. Besides that, limited focus of organisation towards the employees also makes them feel disappointed and it reflects in their work performances.
The improper remuneration and reward activities enhances the employee turnover rate as individual behaviour towards organisation tend to be negative and they do not found any future growth so individuals leave the firm on regular basis (Ertas, 2015).
Moreover, it is found that there are time when lower level staff feel discomfort to continue work with Woolworth due to at times organisation go hard on their employee by charge longer working hours, low pays, no holidays and no-growth based opportunities.
Even during festive seasons, there is huge employees are working so this practice makes the employee behaviour inappropaite towards work. However, the high loos is found in Woolworth due to customer footfalls are decreasing as employees are not surround to provide service to them.
Thus, this growing improper behaviour of employees proves to be ineffective for Woolworth. But at the same time, top line manager of Woolworth are quite motivated as compare to lower level staff due to organisation provide them enough opportunities to improve their personal and professional careers.
This is done through conduct training session for them which boost their morale to perform better for business.
Thus, there are negative as well as positive employee behaviour is investigated in the ambiences of Woolworth Limited.
Literature review to explain the behaviours/attitude of employees
In the views of Smith and Shields (2013), Herzberg Two-Factor Motivational Theory proves to be effective for identifying the effect of factor on individual and employee behaviour.
This theory posed the study of motivation by asking accountants and engineers about their positive and negative feeling about their work. On the basis of this study, it is identified that there are two factors that have a major influences over the employees.
It includes Motivator Factor and Hygiene Factor. However, motivator involves the factor that leads to satisfaction and motivate the employees to work harder. Factor includes feeling recognised, career progression and enjoying of work etc.
On the other hand, Hygiene factor include the factor that lead to dissatisfaction among the individual.
Moreover, the absences of proper remuneration, relationship with co-workers and company policies are result in low motivation of employees. In relation to this theory, Parijat and Bagga (2014) found that the absences of hygiene factor in Woolworth make the employee behaviour negative.
For instances, lower-level staff usually feel disappointed with their unfair remuneration against working more hours in store.
So that’s why they make unenthusiastic behaviour towards the work and leave the organisation.
In a similar manner, the expectancy theory proposes that people choose how to behave depending upon the outcomes which they expect.
It means that people set some expectation and un-fulfilment of such expectation makes their behaviour de-motivated (Ganta, 2014).
At the same time, Woolworth lower level people feel less motivated due to un-fulfilment of expectation while top level manager of same organisation encouraged to work productive as their expectation are fulfilled by the business.
Thus, these theories clearly signify that the presences of motivation factor can only support the high potential and productive result from employee side.
Explain how understanding motivation theory could be applied to managing people to work more effectively.
The theory of Herzberg Two-Factor Motivational Theory can be applied into the organisation like Woolworth limited through work on improving both motivator and hygiene factors (Azar and Shafighi, 2013).
However, there is need to motivate them properly by give plenty of feedback and make sure employees understand how they can grow and progress through the company activities.
Besides that, the retention of employee satisfaction ensures that employees feel that they are treated right by offering them the best possible working conditions and fair pay.
This way, the employees of Woolworth can overcome the dissatisfaction level and allows them to work with more efficiency (Kim et al., 2013).
Similarly, expectancy theory can be applied into the business through implement both monetary and non-monetary incentives in the form of appreciation, bonus and recognition etc. This may help the organisation to achieve the employees’ loyalty to a large extent.
Motivation is one of the best tools that help out the firm to perform better in the market and to manage the all operations as well. Motivation is also better for the employees to be motivated towards the work and to put their best efforts in the success of the firm.
There are different theories and the tools that are used by the firms for the motivation in the firm.
In this, the one of the most important theory is the Herzberg Two-Factor Motivational Theory. This theory is highly discussed in the firm to motivate the employees.
The reason in this is that in Herzberg Two-Factor Motivational Theory, there are two major factors such as motivator and hygiene that helps the firm to motivate the employees to increase their performance and the work ability also.
It is also my personal experience that this theory works very well.
For instance, during my job, it is also determined by me that most of the employees were not performing well and some of them were not satisfied and some of them were not satisfied.
In this, I observed that there are some hygienic factors that play a major role to provide the full satisfaction for the employees and in this, physical working conditions, Interpersonal relations, job security, salary, etc are the major aspects that some of the employees look for sustain in the firm for a long time period.
And in the firm, in which, I was working the perceptive of most of the employees towards the hygienic factors.
Some of them was not satisfied with the salary, some of them don’t have the effective relationship with the other employees, some of them have an issues related to the working environment of the firm.
So, for managing these issues, the manager of the firm took some actions and used the Herzberg Two-Factor Motivational Theory.
In this, manager of the firm considered the all hygienic factors of the motivation and accordingly satisfy the need of the employees.
Similarly, it is also observed by me that some employees were not satisfied from the growth and promotional opportunities, meaningfulness of the work and the responsibility.
Some of the employees were not feeling well related to these factors they defined that they are not satisfied with their work and some of them were working from last many years but didn’t get the promotional opportunities. So, manager of the firm also considered these factors also by concerning the Herzberg Two-Factor Motivational Theory.
Thus, it can be stated that there is the high use of the motivational theory in the success of the firm and to provide the full satisfaction for the employees as well.
At the same time, it can also be stated that there are also some other theories such as expectancy theory that is also used by the firm ‘Managing People at Work’ and to improve the performance of the employees at work place also.
Azar, M. and Shafighi, A.A., 2013. The effect of work motivation on employees’ job performance (Case study: employees of Isfahan Islamic Revolution Housing Foundation). International journal of academic research in business and social sciences, 3(9), p.432.
Dobre, O.I., 2013. Employee motivation and organizational performance. Review of applied socio-economic research, 5(1).
Ertas, N., 2015. Turnover intentions and work motivations of millennial employees in federal service. Public Personnel Management, 44(3), pp.401-423.
Ganta, V.C., 2014. Motivation in the workplace to improve the employee performance. International Journal of Engineering Technology, Management and Applied Sciences, 2(6), pp.221-230.
Herzberg, F., 2017. Motivation to work. UK: Routledge.
Kim, S., Jeong, S.H. and Hwang, Y., 2013. Predictors of pro-environmental behaviors of American and Korean students: The application of the theory of reasoned action and protection motivation theory. Science Communication, 35(2), pp.168-188.
Osabiya, B.J., 2015. The effect of employees motivation on organizational performance. Journal of Public Administration and Policy Research, 7(4), pp.62-75.
Parijat, P. and Bagga, S., 2014. Victor Vroom’s expectancy theory of motivation–An evaluation. International Research Journal of Business and Management, 7(9), pp.1-8.
Smith, D.B. and Shields, J., 2013. Factors related to social service workers’ job satisfaction: Revisiting Herzberg’s motivation to work. Administration in Social Work, 37(2), pp.189-198.
Woolworth Limited., 2019. Company Profile. [Online] available at: https://www.woolworths.com.au/shop/discover/shopping-online (Accessed on: 11-04-2019)
