Characteristics Of Employee Motivation

2.3 Employee Motivation

When discussing about motivation, the first question that always comes to mind is, why managers need their employees motivated (Herzberg, 1959). Smith (1994) gives the answer to the question by suggesting that the employees need to be motivated to ensure the survival of the company. Amabile (1993) argues that unmotivated employees are more likely to inflict less effort in the tasks that they are assigned, and try as much as possible to avoid the workplaces, produce less quality of work, and worst, and exit their jobs in the organization. In case they (employees) are motivated, they would help their organizations survive through constantly changing workplace environment (Lindner, 1998). (Bowen and Radhakrishna, 1991)

Another author defines motivation as “Goals, wants, desires, motives, drives or incentives” (Luthans, 2005). Bartol and Martin (1994) gives an easier to understand definition, they refer to motivation as the forces that gives direction to, strengthens ones behavior and inflicts persistance in them. motivation is the act of putting more effort, by followers, towards in esnuring the goals of an organisation is met, hence, the managers should always strive to understand wht it is that would energize the employees. Every employee has this kind of energy, it’s just that the managers should know how to make the employees let the energy out for the benefit of the organisation (Mondy & Premeaux, 1995). Another definition of motivation is that it is set of forces that directs, inititates, and brings the persistance nature of people to ensure they achieve their goals (Williams, 2009). Osborn (2008) defines motivation as “forces within an individual that account for the level, direction, and persistence of effort expended at work.”

There are numerous definitions for motivation, and there has been a challenge to settle on one of them as the actual meaning of motivation. However, there will be some concepts to be discussed that would help some understand the concept of motivation

In the bottom of the hierarchy lie the basic or psychological needs such as shelter, and food. When the person has accomplished the psychological needs, he makes a progression to the safety and security level, which I closely followed by the needs for affection, love and belongingness. After the below levels which are mostly physical, the top levels include the social needs, which next is ego and esteem needs. When an individual manages to meet all of the levels of needs, they will then go to the self-actualization need (Maslow, 1943). However, it is normally to fulfil the self-actualization needs, as many people do not satisfy