Motivation in the Workplace

Motivation is typically regarded as a group of processes that activate, direct and sustain dedicated human behaviour in the direction of goal accomplishment. It also refers to the persistence of an action in preference to others over a long period of time regardless of the difficulties or problems encountered. In order for an organisation and its members to develop a relationship, an understanding of what motivates them to work must be developed. Managers should strive to ensure that all their employees are motivated effectively by what stimulates them specifically. These motivation stimuli include incentivising economic rewards, providing intrinsic satisfaction to the employees along with others such as creating effective social relationships within the workplace. These stimuli are specifically outlined within the report and compared accordingly as to why some may be preferred to other, depending on the individual circumstances. As such, motivation is multi-faceted with its factors having varying degrees of importance.

“Motivation is the creation of stimuli, incentives and working environments that enable people to perform to the best of their ability. The heart of motivation is to give people what they really want most from work. In return, managers should expect more in the form of productivity, quality and service” [1]

Economic rewards can be seen as an instrumental orientation to work and includes items such as pay benefits, job security, pension rights and material goods. Early studies of motivation by people such as F. W. Taylor believed that economic rewards were the key to motivation. This meant that workers were motivated to obtain the highest wages possible by means of working as effectively and productively as they possibly could with their only performance hindrance being physiological fatigue. With employment that offers little, if any, opportunity for career advancement, personal challenge or growth, money indeed does appear to be the