FACTORS AFFECTING MOTIVATION AT WORKPLACE

Motivation is the combination of a person’s desire and energy directed at achieving a goal. It is the cause of action. Motivation can be intrinsic, such as satisfaction and feelings of achievement; or extrinsic, such as rewards, punishment, and goal obtainment. Motivation could be viewed as anything done by management to arouse, induce, stimulate, tickle, and energize the enthusiasm of a worker or a group of workers to perform a given task or achieve a given goal without intimidation or use of force. It may also be defined as the natural tendency of a person drawn towards another person, situation, or event without being forced. In the context of work, motivation may be defined as the natural tendency for a person to develop the will to work and improve productivity without any element of force or coercion.

This could vary with environment and decisions of life. In some environments, a congenial work group, freedom for decision making, security of tenure, fairness, and equal opportunity for advancement in the organization as well as quality of supervision contribute enormously to motivating staff for higher productivity than attractive salary scales. In some environment, high salaries could serve as a major motivating factor to productivity. It has now been realized that constant motivation of workers is necessary to get out the best results from them. The success of any organization depends on effective mobilization of all human efforts in the organization.          

The specific objectives of this are to determine motivating factors affecting employees’ job performance in organizations. For example, salaries are not forth coming, lack of promotion, retrenchment, and lack of progress. All these cause frustration in the work environment. Pay dissatisfaction can influence employees’ feelings about their job in two ways; desire for more money and lower the attractiveness of the job. These are regarded as undesirable to management, thereby exposing the employees to more problems.

The organizational reward system often has a significant impact on the level of employee job

satisfaction. So, if management could keep all employees happy, good performance would

automatically follow. There are certain things managers and management can do to motivate workers,

which include financial reward; that is regular payment of wages, salaries, incentives, and the likes.

Some organizational factors that influence and affect motivation at workplace may include:

• Integration of organizational goals: Motivation can be secured through the job itself by

developing employees’ commitment to the objectives of the organization. This approach

holds that people who are committed to their jobs will exercise self-control, self-direction in

working to achieve organizational objective.

• Participation in decision making: The involvement of employees in decision making is

a strong motivational tool which managers can use to enhance productivity. Participation

means the physical and mental involvement of people in an activity.

• Training programs: Training gives the employees more utility, more competitiveness,

acquisition of new skills, less prone to redundancy, and more versatile in many tasks,

while to the organization it increases efficiency and productivity.

• Work environment: Business does not operate in a vacuum. Generally, business operates in a

multifaceted environment, which is of itself subject to a large measure of change. The relationship between business and its environment is one of mutuality; that is, the environment exerts pressure on business, while business, in turn, influences various aspects of pressure on the staff of an organization.