Core Theories For Employee Motivation

Motivation is the force within a person that affect the direction, intensity and persistence of voluntary behavior. Employee motivation is the level of energy, commitment and creativity that a firm’s workers bring to their jobs. There are many core theories for employee motivations these include: Maslow’s needs hierarchy, McClelland’s learned needs theory and four drive theory, ERG theory and the equity theory. However, there are also popular rational decision model of employee motivation which include expectancy theory. There are also other factors and methods are used to motivate employees these factors and method would later be discussed.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, which is basically a motivation theory of needs arranged in a specific

These three needs are: Need for achievement(NACH) – a need in which people want to accomplish reasonably challenging goals and desire unambiguous feedback and recognition for their success, people who has a strong need for achievement will wan to accomplish challenging goals through their own effort. They prefer working alone instead of working in a team. Individuals with high NACA desire feedback and recognition for their success money is a weak motivator in contracts employees with low NACH perform better when money is used as an incentive. Secondly Need for Affiliation (NAFF)- a need in which people seek approval from others, conform to their wishes and expectations and avoid conflict and confrontation, people whit a strong NAFF will try to portrait a favorable image of themselves. They tend to support each other and smooth out workplace conflict. Employees with high NAFF work well in coordinating roles and in sales positions where main task is cultivating long term relations and they are less effective at allocating scare resources and making other decisions that potentially generate conflict. Lastly the 3rd need: Need for power- a need in which people want to control their environment, including people and material resources to benefit themselves or others, people with high need of power exercise control over others and are concerned about maintaining their leadership position. There are two types of need of power, individuals who enjoy their power for its own sake and use it to advance personal interests and others have a high need for socialized power because they desire power as a means to help others. McClelland theory has an important implication for the motivation of employees. Managers needs to understand the dominant needs of their employees to motivate