The company I am working with, have been struggling with motivation, and career motivation. Humans are already a curious, self motivated, easily inspired, curious to learn new things, master new skills, and are able to apply their talents to real life situations. Humans are usually knows to be a happy individual, however, just like anybody else our spirits can break or be crushed due to rejection and responsibilities that they might have. Since the company I am working with is struggling with motivation and career motivation, I decided to research some of the solutions and a plan that they could follow to overcome this issue. I heard that the employees were very motivated in the beginning, but since the company is stable state currently, that is causing some employees to lose motivation and career motivation.
There are many ways to get these employees to be more motivated and have their career motivations come back as well. This will not be easy and these employees will have to commit and want to change themselves, or this will not be possible. I would need the employees to be motivated to want to change for the better and for the company.
Firstly, before the employees can make any business decisions, they should value their employees wellbeing. This is because, if all that the company has in mind is about bettering the company and how they can make more money and not care about the employees, it will not create a good environment psychologically for the employees. Employees often develop a low self-esteem due to rejection, and negative talk and actions, and if they don’t have anyone to talk to or can get themselves back up, it will be very detrimental. That is why HR exists, they have the responsibility to make sure that their employees don’t suffer from low self-esteem, because their work can affect the company negatively. I would say a model company is where the company is filled with employees that are curious to learn and adapt, because that means that the employees are highly motivated and wanting to learn. However, as I mentioned before this is not an easy task and this will take some time. However, the positive thing about going through this is that it will help employee value the company more and value work, and some employees might even start to be loyal to the company, which is often a good thing. It is also very important for the company to understand the employees feelings and where they stand, this is the key to motivation employees. I think what this company should do is implement a motivation training session for the incoming employees. By implementing a motivation training session it would help the employees to understand how the company works, and if they fit into the company and have the same value as the company as well. Employees will be more motivated if they understand how what they do at work impacts the company. I suggest all companies to implement a motivation training, because it will benefit everyone. How I see this is that employees often know as much as their manager/boss, however employees usually do not have enough resources, and education to do their best at the specific work project. By implementing the motivation training it will help the company as a whole and improve the outcomes and work quality. Motivation training will improve employees’ happiness at work and become more focused and engaged in the work environment. This will also help improve the employees self-esteem. I believe motivation training should be seen as a good opportunity and investment in the employees wellbeing. However, if this company chooses to implement a motivation training the company and the managers should keep in mind to clearly show what the company values, show commitment to making a difference, long term commitment. After the motivation training is done, the company will have developed a better working environment, and atmosphere for employees to learn and grow.
To improve this companies employees I will need to work on intrinsic motivation with them. Intrinsic motivation is a behavior that is driven by rewards that satisfy the intrinsic motivation. Basically, is a motivation to stay engaged because the individual wants to and satisfies their curiosity. Intrinsic motivation is very important to have in a working environment. The employees who are curious and genuinely want the company to succeed will do anything in their power to improve the company’s sales, etc. In other words, these people usually have the passion and need to succeed. Having extrinsic motivation is also just as important. Extrinsic motivation is a behavior that is driven by the external rewards, which are usually money, fame, grades. Extrinsic motivation usually appears from the outside, which is the opposite from Intrinsic motivation. Commissions and sale motivation and affirmation are a good way to motivate employees. The psychological aspect is that it’s extrinsic motivation and these rewards can be very beneficial when looking to motivate employees and for them to go out of their comfort zone.
Another way to motivate employees is positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement is a stimulus that increases the occurrence of a behavior using a positive reward. When there are positive reinforcement, people will most likely do the same thing and try to get the same feeling back, which will benefit the company and employee motivation. Strengthening a behavior is very necessary when developing a very work efficient team. Positive reinforcement is basically how the effects of affirmation and rewards can be used to refine a certain behavior. This can be used in any kind of situations, but also can be applied to motivating employees. For example, it is very effective to compliment one of the employees in front of other co workers when that employee has improved their sales, this will help motivate that specific employee and other co workers as well. This is because they would want their boss/manager to compliment their numbers on their sales, therefore, they will want to repeat and keep increasing the numbers of sale for the positive reinforcement and getting recognized for their work. Another way for positive reinforcement is to give out bonuses as well, or something as creative as getting to leave work early, getting to dress casually for work, believe it or not, this will all help motivate employees to do a better job and increase the numbers for the company.
After a while positive reinforcement will be less effective, because the employees will become used to the affirmation, there for shaping would be beneficial when this case occurs. Shaping is the concept of how our collective experiences and reward and or punishment associated with those experiences guides the employees perception of situations and decision making. This is very necessary for motivating employees. An example, with a lab situation is that a researcher using the shaping method to train a rat to do specific things that the researcher wants the rat to do. And the rat will know what to do to get the reward versus not doing anything will result in no reward.
Also it is very important to try to active the employees achievement motivation. Achievement motivation means the individual or employees’ need to achieve realistic goals, and get feedback and get a sense of affirmation and satisfaction from accomplishing the work task. For instance, employees who are achievement motivated will do very well in companies where they do regular performance evaluations and send feedback to the employees. That will help employees get an idea of where they stand and what they can do to do better and to set a more realistic goals for themselves to succeed. Employees will most likely get good results back due to getting motivated to get good feedback, and clear goals are set. In this case even negative feedback will be very beneficial to the employees, so that they can set a more realistic work goal for themselves and will understand more of what they need to do next time. Wanting to get the best results is a very important trait to have, and hiring those people will be very beneficial for the companies as well. People who are achievement motivated most likely enjoy the work environment and are responsible, and will most likely take calculated risks and set realistic goals for themselves. However, for this to work, the company will have to continue to give recognition to the employees who are doing well and not so well, just to give a feedback, that will benefit the employees to know about their work progress and how well, or not well they are doing at their job. Employees who are achievement motivated also tends to be very competitive and has the need to be the best at their job, and find satisfaction from completing their work/project with a better quality than other employees.
To achieve this for the company I am working with I will have to implement few new things, which will include motivation training, positive reinforcement, shaping, achievement motivation. For motivation training, I would gather all the employees and talk about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and dig deeper. Ask them individually of what motivates them, because if they are interested they will most likely be more engaged because they want to know more to satisfy their needs. As for the extrinsic motivation I would ask what their external rewards are, which will usually be money, fame, grades. This is why as I mentioned before, commissions and sale based companies will help with motivation and also giving affirmation are a very efficient way to motivate employees. Which in this company my job is to get their motivation back, to have a better job performance and company results. As for the positive reinforcement I will have the managers and or bosses to have a praise and reward system which will help refine the employees behavior which can help with getting the employees motivated in a work environment. Since positive reinforcement can lose its effect long term, that is where shaping will come in place. Employees will start to rely only on positive reinforcement, by withholding the reward unless the work performance is consistent and or improved will help the employees more motivated and productive. Last but not least for achievement motivation, I will ask the employees to write down what they think their realistic work goals are and have the managers or bosses to give them feedback on those goals and their work every few months so employees can see where they are and what they can do next to do better. Some employees could even get a negative feedback, but it will still help the employees to find out what they can do different next time.
In conclusion, this company has a lot of potentials and just need a few things implemented to help keep the employees motivated and their work to be consistent. As I stated in the beginning will this not be easy and it will take a while and will need all the employees to be on board for this to work. As long as the company and employees want to get better, this issue will not get resolved. However, the solution I have provided will help them rediscover their motivation.
Work Cited
- Lent, R. W., & Brown, S. D. (2008). Social Cognitive Career Theory and Subjective Well-Being in the Context of Work. Journal of Career Assessment , 16 (1), 6–21. https://doi. org/10. 1177/1069072707305769
- McDermott, E. (2016, October 04). The Psychology of Purpose: How to Truly Motivate Your Employees. Retrieved from https://www. webpt. com/blog/post/the-psychology-of-purpose-how-to-truly-motivate-your-employees
- Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1), 68-78.
- http://dx. doi. org/10. 1037/0003-066X. 55. 1. 68
