Employee Motivation At Work

The concept of motivation is broad and subjective, thus the definitions differ from one person to another. The notion is complex and hard to clearly define or explain since it is used in more than one area; however we will focus on the motivation of men and women at work, and mainly in companies.

When entering the working market, each individual has different motives to wake up every day and exercise their profession. One can easily argue that the MAIN motive is earning money, and that every one of us works towards that unique goal, which could be, rationally speaking, true in the facts. But the most interesting part lays in the following questions: What, in a company, motivates employees to work harder? Despite from money, what is the main

Adams in the 60’s, the equity theory states that an individual will be motivated if the outcomes of his work are adapted to his contribution, his “inputs”. The retribution can be money (wage, primes) or not (recognition, pride, security of employment, promotion, career aspects …). Here comes the theme of “justice”, when the worker compares his amount of contribution and retribution to the other employees of the company. Whenever he judges that for a same amount of efforts, one of his colleague receives a better reward, his motivation will drop. In addition, if he judges that a colleague of his receives the same reward for an inferior contribution, his motivation will

In this case the motivations really differ, the expectancy might be inexistent, and the outcomes aren’t the same.) In this case, again, the employee has to see the link between the work he does and the future awards he might receive. The following motivation will depend on the employee’s knowledge of the link between an action and its outcomes.

- Valence: The valence is a subjective value allocated to a reward. The awards do not solely have to be perceived, but the employee has to attach to it a high value, that he really wishes to obtain them. Therefore the outcomes of his work will have more and more value if the rewards meet his own needs or desires of the moment. If the perceived value of the reward is not sufficient in the employee’s eyes, there will be no motivation. As much aspects that a manager must look at, but this part will be studied in the next sections.

So, for the combination of these three notions, and to make the motivation process work, the three parameters must work together, because if at any time one of the factor is missing, the whole motivation will be missing à Motivation = V x I x