Motivation concepts used in consumer durable industry

From the early days when organizations and cooperates were established, various practitioners and theorists have tried to find out the ways of methods and theories to motivate the employees by improve the employee engagement and productivity. As a result, different motivation theories were discovered to uplift the motivational factors of humans. Motivation force can be positive, as in impelling one to reach a certain goal. An internal motivation pushes you to achieve certain goals and external motivation that pull’s you toward a goal (Ball 2016). Motivation is a very mass field to study and which with many theories and methods.  One of the famous theory is Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Abraham Maslow is a leading and most prominent psychologist in the world and he introduced the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory. Maslow believed that there are at least five sets of goals which can be referred to as basic needs and are the physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization illustrated in Figure 01 (Ramlall 2004). As stated that employees at organizations are motivated by the desire to achieve or maintain the various conditions and intellectual desires upon which these basic satisfaction (Ramlall 2004).

Figure 01: Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs

Source : Gargasz, 2010

 

 Maslow’s theory explains the five forces that drive the motivation as follows (Hanachor et.al, 2017)

• Physiological – Need for food, water, shelter, clothing, comfort, rest or sleep, reproduction or procreation
• Safety – Safety from dangerous physical and social situations
• Social – Need for love and to be part of a group -family group, peer group, friendship group
• Esteem – Need for self worth, respect, status, recognition, reputation, admiration, strong confidence.
• Self-actualization - Need for development of inborn talents, potential, resources, accomplishment.

Application to consumer durable industry

Employees do have the basic needs to satisfy and specifically necessary for them to be motivated (Wong and Low 2018). The theory was developed on how all proportions of motivation are interrelated, based on the idea that human behavior is determined by a limited number of developing fundamental needs which emerge and operate in a sequential order (Sengupta, 2011).

Physiological needs – The basic needs can be emphasizes in different ways. understood (Taormina and Gao 2013). readily be can them for need Needs at the bottom of the theory describes the basic physical needs such as food, water, shelter and warmth which can be seen and touched and are consumed on a daily basis, and so the These are the supreme needs because if a person were underprivileged of all needs, its these physiological needs that would come first in the person's search for satisfaction (Jerome 2013). In an organization more facilities can be provided allocating a separate space for cafeterias, water dispensers, microwave, refrigerator, coffee machine, and providing good ventilation by installing AC’s, setting up standardized partitions and working seat and a good working environment.  At my work place above basic needs were well arranged by the company and these will be look after by a separate division at the administrative department.

Safety needs – Basically it’s important to identify the types of threats and dangers that could conclude the safety response and to provide solutions which will satisfy the employee (Taormina and Gao 2013). The cooperate leaders must ensure the safety of the working environments as well as the physical and social situations of their employees (Wong and Low 2018). Considering the two aspects the cooperates must mind on security.  security, financial security, medical insurance, and retirement job criminal assault, disease, war, anarchy, social chaos, natural catastrophes, Also providing separate rest rooms for female employees, competitive compensation and benefits package induce financial security, compensation plan specifically on commission basis will motivate the employees to work on their full potential (Wong and Low 2018). At my workplace, the employees are eligible for a life insurance scheme, which covers the family as well and with compensation plans, financial plans as well.

 Social needs – According to Maslow (1943), all people are in need of desire for a stable and sound self-assessment, self-esteem, self-respect, and love. In an organization, a clear picture of career ladder and promotional plan, work-life balance culture, family-friendly policy, recognition schemes and life-long training can be essential elements to fulfill the social needs of their employees (Wong and Low 2018). In consumer durable industry the cooperates are much keener on establishing teams and sub departments in different levels and promoting group work across them, hearten team-building activities with rewarding schemes and recognition and promotional plans. These best practices are helping the employees be satisfied and as well as cooperate to drive their best.

Esteem needs - As Taormina and Gao (2013) suggest, these needs can be divided in to two such as esteem for self and esteem from others. The first need describes as the need for self-appreciation and self-esteem, such as self-confidence, independence, success, and talent. The esteem from others describes as the needs to be appreciated and respected by others related to the reputation of a person, such as status, recognition, and appreciation (Jerome 2013). The consumer durable industry is more on employee engagement with stakeholders and customers on providing a better service and productivity used several values added to uplift the motivation of their subordinates. They usually organized annual awarding ceremonies spending huge money to create an enthusiasm environment for their employees. Also, they offer annual vacation packagers, foreign trips as rewards and regular department and pocket meetings to recognize the best of the best and it will help to increase the moral aspect of the employees and it leads to more creativity and innovation.

Self-actualization needs – According to Jerome (2013) the Self-actualization needs as a person's need to be and do that which the person was "born to do". After fulfilling the employees all basic needs the management must be identified or pay more attention on where the employees hope to go and achieved within the organization. At this level, the employees are more on personal development plans such as training, mentoring and grooming them self. By implementing specific training on self-development, talent management programmes, the consumer durable companies invest on their employees to be more professional and keener to build expertise to fulfill future challengers.

Reference

                      Benjamin Ball (2016), A summary of motivation theories journal article  < https://www.yourcoach.be/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/A-summary-of-motivation-theories1.pdf>.

                      Dr. E. O. Aruma and Dr. Melvins Enwuvesi Hanachor (2017), Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and assessment of needs in community development, International Journal of Development and Economic Sustainability. p. 16

                      Dr. Nyameh Jerome (2013), Application of the Maslow’s hierarchy of need theory; impacts and implications on organizational culture, human resource and employee’s performance, International Journal of Business and Management Invention

                      Sengupta, S.S., ‘Growth in Human Motivation: Beyond Maslow’, 2011, Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 47, no. 1, pp. 102-116.

                      Sunil Ramlall (2004), A Review of Employee Motivation Theories and their Implications for Employee Retention within Organizations, The Journal of American Academy of Business, Cambridge p. 54

                      Wong  P T and Low A (2018), Improving Workplace Productivity: Applications of Maslow’s Need Theory and Locke’s Goal-Setting, Psychology & Psychological Research International Journal

Outcomes of employee motivation in consumer durable industry

The success and failure of any organization is more depend on many factors in this competitive and rapidly changing environment, with one of the key parameters, human potential at the disposal of a given society (Nemeckova 2017). He predicted that the knowledge workers would become an essential and decisive capital and an important driving force for the development and competitive advantage of each. The key to the corporate success depends on motivated employees who collectively from trams of knowledgeable employees with experience and necessary skills (Nemeckova 2017). Employee motivation is considered a force that drives toward successful organization and a way to employees work hard and smart is to motivate them (Shahzadi et.al, 2014). As described by Achor (2012), the employees are 37% better at selling and results three times more creative than unhappy employees. Also, there are many other advantages of motivated employees as stated below.

More goals oriented

Motivation is fundamentally meant to facilitate the behavioral alteration and it is a force that enables an individual to act toward a particular objective, goal (Shahzadi et.al, 2014). A motivated workforce means a highly productive staff, all of which will help achieve cooperation goals and objective and it will lead to a better revenue and outcome of the organization (Sabri 2017). Also with sufficient motivation, employees can perform and achieve their dream goals and goals of the organization itself (Polackova 2016). Motivation can also improve the ongoing employee development by achieving personal and career development goals and those employees want to understand how their work contributes to overall organizational success.

Expand performance & productivity

Motivation and productivity are concepts, which have been subjects of immense interest among researchers and practitioners (Bawa 2017). A motivated and qualified workforce is essential for any organization that wants to increase productivity and production. Motivated employee gives in their best efforts to reach the challenges and complete their tasks within the allotted time (Sabri 2017). Motivation will encourage the employee to be loyal and to work for a longer period at the same organization and it will lead to saving money in recruitment costs, training, lost productivity and increase overall effectiveness of the organization (Sabri 2017).

 Moreover creatively

The era of increasing new trends and competition is challenging traditional assumptions about how organizations can structure themselves to successes and the creative and innovation is needed to conceive and generate new working methods (Wenjing et.al, 2020).Motivated employee tends to work more freely, passionately and delight on their duties and it will influence to display  better levels of creativity and imagination (Sabri 2017). The creativity will improve the overall aspects of the organization in terms of cost reduction, product development; acquire new opportunities, innovation and others to optimize business performance. Fobler and LeBlanc (1995) suggest that for enhancing creativity is important to implement the following in an organization.

•  Implement reverse thinking and enhance discussion.
• Build a creativity inspiring environment.
• Include emotions in the system, so people get involved.
• Create an environment in which participants are free of worries, take risks and are not afraid of making mistakes.
• Avoid excess of safety because that can lead to conformism.
• Set high performance standards
• Motivate confidence on responsibility, but without being too concerned about rules.
• Be sure people see the results of their work. Feedback is a must.
• Try ordinary people achieve goals and do extraordinary things.

Versatile for change and variability

Berger, (1994) emphasized the “change” as it is a repetitive nature of practice in keeping in the line of the organization for operating and performing the most successful manner over its rivals. Some organizations fail to deliver the expected results due to lack of adaptation to changers and lack of behavior of the employees and they can be successful only if the employees are motivated to adopt the change (Tariq et.al, 2011). The main emphasis is on employee motivation to adapt the change and variability’s along with organization empowerment and its culture. Motivated employees are more open to face variability’s and are more graceful prompt to agile way of work (Tariq et.al, 2011).

Superior Team and customer oriented

To accomplish key objectives, the cooperates are relay on teams who with motivation and have customer centric approach (Chen et.al, 2011). As motivated employees are keener on achieving the organizational goals, they are more certainly to be a team player with his or her subordinates and also more engaged employees will always care about the client oriented approach than others (Polackova 2016). Employees who are working as team players enriched with the characteristics of understanding, collaboration, accountability, goal drive and others which buttress the organization objectives (Chen et.al, 2011). Satisfied employee will do more work and take more beneficiary approach until customer satisfied (Ahmad, 2012).

More Loyal

Employee loyalty describes the affective commitment with employer and loyal employee is a valuable assets to an organization as they help gain as much as profit to them (Omar et.al, 2010). Motivated employee will work more period in the same organization and he or she will be loyal to the organization and as well as its customers. A loyal employee will be more cost-effective in terms of training and skills and will invest more on work, innovate and to provide better outputs in all aspects (Omar et.al, 2010).

As Brand ambassadors

Punjaisri, Evanschitzky and Wilson (2009) state that the objective of internal branding is to ensure that employees transform espoused brand messages into brand reality for customers and other stakeholders. Motivated employees are emotionally engaged with the organization and they will help increase the awareness among the community. Employees’ voluntarily brand-oriented behavior, which goes above and beyond their formal role requirements and brings the brand to live (Burmann & Zeplin, 2005).

According to the organization, which I worked for is keener on the employee motivation and as a leading consumer durable company in Sri Lanka, we recognized the importance of motivatied employees on providing better customer service to our customers. We are already in the process of evaluating the employees using a performance-based appraisal and rewording them with target-based incentive and bonus scheme. Also, it has assist to provide a better customer service among the competition and most of the employees are working more than 5 to 8 years within the organization. The organization has appointed teams toward separate objectives with sub heads and group leaders in the showroom level. It has helped achieve the objectives much easier and to measure productivity and performance than previous years. Company evaluates the customer service by the complain ratio, mystery shoppers and by the supervision feedbacks and it has improved compares to the past records.

Reference

Almas Sabri (2017), Motivation: Outstanding Way to Promote Productivity in Employees, American Journal of Management Science and Engineering

Berger, Lance [1994]. Change Management. In l. Berger & M Sikora (Eds), The Change Management Handbook, New York: Irwin Professional, pp: 3-33

Burmann, C., & Zeplin, S. (2005). Building brand commitment: A behavioral approach to internal brand management. Brand Management

Fobler, H. S. & LeBlanc, S. (1995). Strategies for Creative Problem Solving. U.S.A.: Prentice Hall PTR.

Gilad Chen, Payal Nangia Sharma, Suzanne K. Edinger, and Debra L. Shapiro (2011), Motivating and Demotivating Forces in Teams: Cross-Level Influences of Empowering Leadership and Relationship Conflict, Journal of Applied Psychology

Irum Shahzadi, Ayesha Javed, Syed Shahzaib Pirzada, Shagufta Nasreen, Farida Khanam (2014), Impact of Employee Motivation on Employee Performance, European Journal of Business and Management

Iveta Nemeckova (2017), The role of benefits in employee motivation and retention in the financial sector of the Czech Republic , Economic Research, Vol 03

Kristian Polackova (2016), Motivation, performance and efficiency, Conference Paper · November 2016

M. A. Bawa (2017), Employee motivation and productivity: a review of literature and implications for management practice, International Journal of Economics, Commerce and Management

M. Rashid Tariq , Mr. Sohail, Dr. Muhammad Aslam (2011), Impact of Employee Adaptability to Change Towards Organizational Competitive Advantage, Global Journal of Management and Business Research

Maznah Wan Omar, Kamaruzaman Jusoff and Harniyati Hussin (2010), Employee Motivation and its Impact on Employee Loyalty, World Applied Sciences Journal

Punjaisri, K., Evanschitzky, H., & Wilson, A. (2009). Internal branding: An enabler of employees’ brand-supporting behaviours. Journal of Service Management,

Shawn Achor (2012), Positive Intelligence, Harvard Business review magazine Jan to Feb 2012

Wenjing Cai , Svetlana Khapova, Bart Bossink , Evgenia Lysova and Jing Yuan (2020), Optimizing Employee Creativity in the Digital Era: Uncovering the Interactional Effects of Abilities, Motivations, and Opportunities

Importance of employee motivation

Importance 

The real assets of the organizations are employees and it’s considered the engine of any of its kind (Mohsen et al., 2004). In the current competitive market conditions, it is true with high job losses due to layoff and retrenchment to create a lean organization and it’s also important to reduce loosening of performing employees due to lack of job satisfaction and motivation to continue with the organization for a long time (Warma 2017). According to Manzoor (2012), most of the cooperates are facing challengers of employee retention regardless of their size, technology, and market forces following competitiveness in the current market condition. The challengers can be overcome through the adoption of strong bonding between employees and employers.  If the employee turnover is higher than the expected level, it will gain a big loss to the corporate in terms of lack of skilled staff, performance, productivity, and finally profits. All organizations are much more concerned to find ways through which high levels of employee performance and engagement can be achieved. Dr. Imran states that employee performance is positively correlated with motivational levels also affected by workplace environment and office design. According to Stanley (2012), de-motivation is a major factor that contributes to high employee turnover and disengagement.

The table given below (illustrate in figure 01) helps understand the employee engagement results among residents. Gullup, State that 67% of total employees are not engaged and 18% of total employees are actively disengaged in their employment worldwide.

Figure 01: Employee engagements results globally

                                                 Source: State of the global workplace, Gallup Press 2017, p. 24

In Sri Lankan content, 54% of total employees are not engaged and 8% of them are actively disengaged within the employment (Illustrate in Figure 02).

Figure 02: Employee engagement results Sri Lanka 

	Engage %		Not Engage %		Actively disengage %
Sri Lanka		38		54	8

                                        Source: State of the global workplace, Gallup Press 2017, p. 198

Why employee engagement matters 

                                                           Source: Engage 2013 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSfDROxCuxI>

The consumer durable company which I work for is much keener on the employment practices that are premised on attracting and retaining human talents (Annual report 2017/2018). Each year the management decides on the requirement criteria, improve job satisfaction, employee benefits, and other aspects considering the previous year's profit margin and current year plan.  The table given below illustrates (Figure 03) the recruitments and resignation ratio in the year 2017/2018 and the company employed 2915 employees altogether in the same financial year.

Figure 03: Recruitments and resignation ratio

Source : Annual report 2017/2018

To overcome above negative factors, the cooperates must find solutions to improve the employee engagement and performance of their employees. As soon as employee satisfaction is fulfilled, they will tend to outline an independent relationship between their involuntary wish of performing the professional activities and it results to gain a major benefit from its employees (Achim et.al, 2013). The motivation will increase employee commitment that they will drive their best effort to the task and objective they are assigned for. By improving employee satisfaction through motivation will lead toward a positive growth in the organization in overall aspects. Motivation can also improve the ongoing employee development by achieving personal and career development goals.

Employee performance fundamentals depend on motivation, training, and development, performance appraisals, employee satisfaction, compensation, job security, organizational structure among others (Hussein & Simba 2017). Employee motivation determines any business factor's success and capability of drawing, holding, advancing talented employees are its main characteristics (Osabiya 2015). An organization to its growth, it considers the motivation is a significant factor in the achievement of its growth (Geomani 2012). A poorly motivated labor-force is costly in that it makes an organization realize lower production and performance.

The job of a manager or a supervisor is to get tasks done by employees and the management of people is an integral part of the management process. To achieve it, the manager should be able to motivate employees adequately (Geomani, 2012). Joseph (2015) Stated that the various needs to motivate employees can be separated into two major categories namely Extrinsic and Intrinsic motivation.

Extrinsic motivation is related to tangible rewards such as salary and fringe benefits, security, promotion, contract of service, work environment, and conditions of service, which will mainly be fulfilled by the top management of the cooperate. Intrinsic motivation is related to psychological rewards such as rewards, receiving appreciation, positive recognition, and being treated in a caring and considerate manner (Joseph 2015). Intrinsic motivation can be fulfilled by the immediate supervisor or manager of the employee and it can improve to a much larger perspective with the support of the cooperate to management. 

Figure 04: Needs and expectations of people at work

 

Source : Laurie J Mullins (2005). Management and Organisational Behaviour. Prentice hall. UK 7th Ed. pp. 1052-1058

As Mullins (2005) mentioned the needs and expectations at work can be categorized into three main aspects as intrinsic satisfaction, social relationship, and economic rewards. An employee’s motivational, job satisfaction and work performance is determined by the strength of these sets of needs and expectation and the extent to which they are fulfilled within the employment.

At my workplace, the organization implements many strategies such as target base incentive scheme, continuous learning and development, yearly bonus program, awards for achievement, proper communication, reasonable employee remuneration to improve the motivation and morale to accomplish the organizational goals and objectives. The organization was able to achieve an 11% growth in profits after tax while sustaining its market leadership position and generating shared value across its supply chain. Also, the motivated employees help to achieve many awards such as the best brand of the year, the best consumer durable brand of the year in recent awarding ceremonies. Been more engaged with customers the motivations helps to make friendly relationships with them to provide an end solution and to retain customers which are more convenient in a competitive market. 

 Reference

Babatunde Joseph (2015), The effect of employees’ motivation on organizational performance, Journal of Public Administration and Policy Research , p. 65

                     Dr. Chandrkant Varma (2017), Importance of employee motivation & job satisfaction for organizational performance. International Journal of Social Science & Interdisciplinary Research, pp. 10-13.

Engage 2013 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSfDROxCuxI> accessed on 11/03/2020

Geomani (2012) Impact of Motivation on Employee Job Performance. p. 46.

            Hussein IA, Simba F (2017) Effect of Employee Motivation on Organizational Performance of Mogadishu Al Port in Somalia Strategic. Journal of Business and Change management

Ioan Moise Achim, Larisa Dragolea, George Bălan of The importance of employee motivation to increase organizational performance (2013), p.683

Laurie J Mullins (2005). Management and Organisational Behaviour. Prentice hall. UK 7th Ed. pp. 1052-1058.

Manzoor QA (2012) Impact of Employees Motivation on Organizational Effectiveness. Journal of Business Management and Strategy 3(3): pp. 36- 45

Mohsan, F., Nawaz, M. M., Khan, M., Shaukat, Z., & Aslam, N. (2004), Are Employee Motivation, Commitment and Job Involvement Inter-related: Evidence from Banking Sector of Pakistan. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 2, 17, 226-233.

Osabiya BJ (2015) The effect of employees’ motivation on organizational performance. Journal of Public Administration and Policy Research 7(4).

Stanley TL (2012) Motivation in today’s workplace Human Resource Journal. 55(7): pp. 1-9.

            State of the global workplace, Gallup Press 2017, pp. 24-198