For example, there can be companies in which employees are not supervised enough by their managers. Recently, the concept of employee empowerment has become very popular and some companies turned to this approach. Employee empowerment and involvement in the decision-making process in the company enables the employees to set their own goals and determine their working schedule.
This mechanism can be very efficient in the environment when all of the employees are very committed to the goals they set. As long as there is a large commitment, the performance in the company is going to be very high. The employees start increasing their performance very rapidly because they set the goals independently and do not have to waste their time on minor things which the management could force them to do. The employees will be working hard in order to increase the performance of the company. However, there can be an opposite situation. The employees might set relevant goals for themselves but never actually take any actions in order to perform on the necessary level.
The fact that they are not being supervised and that they are able to set their own goals can turn out not motivation for them but anti-motivation to perform their functions well. The approach of self-control is often being applied in some companies and even establishments connected with education. It can be very efficient only in the environment of high commitment to goals. In the opposite environment, it is necessary to apply some efficient tools of increasing goal commitment. One of the major tools of commitment enforcement in the organization is the application of management control.
Employees or students often perform at a much higher level if they feel that they are being guided and supervised. They also get forced to perform on a high level due to the participation of various authorities in their working process. “ Authority in the form of the experimenter in the laboratory or the manager at the workplace has been sufficient to guarantee high goal commitment in the overwhelming majority of goal-setting studies. ” (Hartmut et al, 1990, p.
8). Putting pressure on employees to be committed to their goals is also a very efficient tool in this regard.“ A second factor affecting goal commitment is peer influence, specifically peer pressure and modeling. ” (Hartmut et al, 1990, p. 8).
Despite the fact that the first two tools are usually very effective and lead to the increase of goal commitment among employees, they mostly work as force methods and do not include the desire of the employee himself to ensure that he takes all of the actions in order to achieve his goals. An important tool which can be used in order to solve this problem is emphasizing on the expectancy of the employee to achieve his goal and increase his productivity. It is necessary to make the employee believe that they are capable of achieving certain goals and that those achievements are particularly important for themselves- for their recognition, promotion and the increase of their level of life. “ A third factor affecting commitment is the individual’s expectancy of being able to reach the goal or perform at a high level. ” (Hartmut et al, 1990, p. 8).
This tool is in some ways closely connected with the motivation theory of Maslow which reflects some of the goals which people set for themselves. For example, the author places the need for esteem on the top of all the people’s needs. Those employees who are guided by the need for esteem can be easily motivated if they believe that all of the goals which have been set are realistic and that the achievement of these goals will bring them recognition. At the same time, people who are guided by needs of safety and security, according to Maslow, will hardly ever get motivated by the realization of their capabilities. These examples show that all of the motivation theories are connected with one another in some way and there is always a possibility to find some ideas in those theories which can be useful for other theories.
