According to Santrock (2005), “ Motivation moves people to behave, think and feel the way they do” (p. 425). The study Rewards that Matter focused on what motivates the Filipino employees to perform their tasks and performances satisfactory to very satisfactory. Knowing what to reward to your employees, whether intrinsically or extrinsically, is not only to done to improve their motivations and influence their behaviors and outcome in the long run but to “ understand different reasons behind every important job-related behaviors such as job performance and absenteeism”.
The study shows that cash was the employee’s top choice of external rewards. Money has been used not only by the organizations to motivate people. My parents usually motivate me to do house hold chores every weekends by giving me money or additional allowance for the week. When I was the president of our provincial organization, we motivate our members to sell brownies and candies by giving them part of the profit. We also do this during UP Fair. My fraternity taps other organizations to sell tickets and the more tickets they sell, the more money they could get from the profit.
In addition the study also showed that the Filipino employees will use the cash for a long-term purpose. People tend to save for their future needs, when the time comes that they cannot perform their work or they cannot be able to do certain tasks and responsibilities. Employees’ need for self-sufficiency and self-determination with regards to their financial security is very important. I think this is the reason why companies sell stocks to their employees, when companies decide to open their stocks to public bidding.
Certain companies also give rewards to tenured employees who rendered long service to the organization by offering them to become stock holders and such. However, as indicated in the study, Filipino employees are more intrinsically motivated than external factors like money and other tangible incentives. For me, as a student with regards to studying, it is really important that what you study is actually what you really want, that you enjoy the things you study, and you make the choice that you really want to study this things and no one else made the choice for you.
I spent five years in my life as student in Engineering because my parents wanted me to be there. I could say that I am not doing badly in the college, except for my ES subjects, but I am not also excelling either. There is just a moment in my life when I started actually questioning why I am in that college and eventually realize that I do not want to continue. Right now, I am a non-major student and planning to shift to the course I really want.
People think I only want to be in NCPAG because it is easy to shift in this college, but my friends and those people who are really close to me know that this is what I really want. And because of this, I am intrinsically motivated to study and so far I could I say I am doing well in my subjects, getting high grades in exams and enjoying the things I have learned and things I am going to learn when I successfully shifted in Public Administration. My housemate for example, is working for Brady Philippines. He has a high paying job with a lot of bonuses and other benefits but on a graveyard shift.
He is currently employed for three months now but he still spends time to pass his resumes and undergo interviews to other companies because he really wants a job during day times. This just proves that people are different. They way we get motivated is usually basically associated to how can we survive not only in the present time but most especially in the future. Sometimes, we make decisions not only base on the motivations being laid upon us but also to consider other factors like what are the things we need to prioritize and the necessities we have to obtain and the problems we need to solve promptly.
