Employee motivation is a process of getting the needs of the employees realized with a view to induce them to work for the accomplishment of the organizational objectives.
What is employee motivation?
Motivation refers to a force related to a person which develops a situation where a person perform or act with enthusiasm and persistence to accomplish a certain course of action. It is a willingness of action especially in behavior.
Motivation is a state or condition of having a strong reason to act or accomplish something. It is simply an incentive or reason for doing something.
Employee Motivation : Definition
Employee motivation is an art by which managers promote productivity in their employees. Motivation is an factor which stimulate desired energy in people internally to be engaged in making effort continually for a job, work or role in order to attain a desired goal.
Motivation is produced from the word “motive” which convey the meaning of a state which promote a man to an action in order to attain any purpose, objective, and goal.
In order to motivate people to work, it is necessary to study needs, emotions, etc. as the motive is within the individual. Indeed, motivation is an act of encouragement, exhortation and inducement.
Importance of employee motivation
- Proper utilization of human resources:
Motivation induces man to work with positive attitude which improves their performance and effort to produce more for the benefits of the organization.
So, through motivation any organization is able to extract the desired skill and performance required for a work to be performed in best way.
- Improves performance level of employees:
When the employees of any organization are well motivated their performance and efficiency improves. Every employee has some inherent qualities and when they are motivated these qualities came out through their performance.
- Willingness to work:
The function of motivation influences the willingness of people to work which come from within. Motivation concern to create a need and desire on the path of the workman to present his best performance at a work place.
The motivation acts as a bridge between the ability to perform a task and willingness to do. Willingness to work always enhances the performance and efficiency.
- Helps in achieving the organizational goal:
Employees are the vital resources needed to any organization to achieve its set objectives because every employee work and perform to attain all the desired goals of the organization.
Through motivation employees contribute their best efforts for obtaining the organizational goals as they are aware that with the achievement of the organizational objectives their personal goals will be achieved.
- Motivation assists in shifting negative attitude to positive attitude:
If the employees are not motivated than they will not get inner feelings to perform well and there will be no optimum utilization of the given resources.
But, when the employees are motivated than there will be inner desire to perform their best to achieve the desired goal. Therefore, motivation helps employees to perform up to their maximum level by building positive attitude towards their work.
- Motivation creates supportive working environment and co-operation:
Through motivation the relationship between superior and subordinate in the organization is improved. When the employees are satisfied with the benefits, recognition and respect in the organization than they will also support their superiors.
There will be more co ordination and co operation in the organization and the work will be performed in better way with full team spirit.
- Reduction in employees turnover:
The motivation enhances the confidence in the employees which help them to achieve the organizational goals and their personal needs as well. When the personal needs of the employees are satisfied in the organization itself than they will prefer to remain in the organization and increase their earning rather than leaving the organization. Hence, motivation builds the satisfaction in the employees and satisfied employees never leave the job.
Types of employee motivation
The organization should understand the fact that employees are the individuals with different traits. Therefore, if the organization wants to motivate it’s employees than it should acquire the deeper understanding of different ways of motivation.
After understanding the several ways of motivation, You will be able to categorize your employees in a better way. And than right type of motivation will apply on them to increase the level of employee engagement and employee satisfaction.
Motivation is grouped into two categories i.e. intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Some of the employees react better to intrinsic motivation while other may react better to extrinsic motivation.
Intrinsic Motivation
Intrinsic motivation is defined as the motivation or the motives that originate internally and comes from within yourself rather than an outside source. It is behavior driven by satisfaction of internal rewards.
If the employees are intrinsically motivated to accomplish a task, they will enjoy the process of work and accomplish it willingly. It is the strong desire and the wish to accomplish them.
In intrinsic motivation, the employees perform and fulfill a task by finding it personally rewarding. Due to which they will enjoy and accomplish the task to see it as better opportunity to learn, explore their potentials.
If the task is completed through intrinsic motivation than it will usually leave you personally satisfied. Intrinsic motivation is valuable in work place because there is no need of anyone else to inspire or push them to complete a task. All the motivation they need to perform a work will find within themselves.
Extrinsic motivation
Extrinsic motivation is defined as the motivation or motive that comes from an external source rather than internal or within source. In extrinsic motivation there is either any promise of reward for the work or a fear of punishment.
As far as the extrinsic motivation is concerned the reward earned in this motivation don’t satisfy any personal need of employees. In fact, employees have to sacrifice their time and energy to approach an extrinsic goal.
Some employees in the organization may never be motivated internally. Therefore, extrinsic rewards will motivate them to accomplish a task in a better way. Extrinsic rewards consist of bonus, salary hike, award, public recognition, and other type of compensation.
In the workplace:
Every employee is different, and has different motivators. Therefore, it’s very important to know your people, discover what matters and motivates them, and than analyze and apply a required mixture of extrinsic and intrinsic motivators, so that you can motivate them successfully.
Related Topics:
Human Resource Planning Process
Conclusion
Employee motivation is very important tool in the hand of a manager or superior to motivate their employees at work place to give their best efforts while performing the task. Motivation is the art of boosting the desire and giving someone a reason for doing something.
