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Motivational Theory

About Motivation:

Motivation is a factor that helps employees get additional support or backup that actually requires them to work better and harder than they normally do.

This way, motivation motivates employees to put in extra effort and commitment so that the organization’s objectives can be easily achieved.

In return, the managers pay back the extra efforts of the employees through an incentive system, which may include extra commission, pay hikes, fringe benefits, promotions, etc.

Good motivation is always backed by fair payback that appreciates the efforts of the employees and motivates others to follow.

About ARGOS Company:

ARGOS is a successful retail company that sells consumer goods. It was founded on November 13, 1972.

Richard Tompkins founded it. The company’s headquarters are in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England, and it has 737 stores at various locations.

This way, it has covered nearly 96% of the population, covering nearly 10 miles of its premises at different places. The company has had 340 million website visits in one year. This makes the company one of the best businesses in the present-day world.

Discussion of two motivation theorists:

A. Scientific Management Theory of Motivation:

Frederick Winslow Taylor developed the scientific management theory of motivation. He supported the idea of specializing work so that it can be broken down into small parts and workers can be upgraded according to the required skills for each task.

He considered that workers do not naturally enjoy their work, and hence, they work according to the pay structure. This way, the pay affects the productivity of their work.

Hence, the workers should be paid at a definite pay scale according to their output and time inputs. Also, these workers should be closely monitored by the managers throughout the work so that the desired outcome can be achieved (Schneller et al., 2006).

The advantages of this motivation theory include the following:

  1. An increase in the productivity of the workers was finally achieved.
  2. A proper pay structure was developed that paid fairly to the workers as per their output.
  3. Mass production became possible.

The disadvantages of this motivation theory include the following:

  1. An autocratic management style developed in which managers took all the decisions.
  2. Workers were considered lazy people who tended to prove themselves irresponsible.
  3. Boredom in the work process was observed as the workers specialized in doing one work had to perform repetitive tasks to carry out the production function.
  4. Humans were considered machines.

Mayo Theory of Motivation:

Elton Mayo developed another theory of motivation in which he considered social needs to be the main motivation factors at work.

He criticized the scientific management theory of motivation, arguing that humans at work must be treated as humans and not machines.

Through his research, he discovered that it was not the lighting arrangement and work specialization that increased labor productivity but the better interaction between managers and workers that resulted in higher outputs.

This way, he concluded that better output could be achieved by following:

  1. Better communication between the workers and managers.
  2. Enhanced involvement of managers in the lives of workers.
  3. Working as team members.
  4. The above stated were the actual cause of increased productivity of laborers.The advantages of this theory of motivation were as follows.
  5. A paternalistic type of management developed.
  6. Employees felt like they were a part of the organization.
  7. Higher commitment to work was achieved.
  8. The social welfare concept developed in the organization.

The disadvantage of this theory of motivation includes the followings:

  1. Managers had to put in their efforts to settle the down the personal life of workers.
  2. Workers were still graded as people who needed help.
  3. The basic requirements of the business that is good lighting arrangements and better working conditions were not termed as important.

(Trickey, 2011)

Assessment of two techniques:

The assessment of the techniques used to implement each of these theories to a real life organization includes the followings.

a. Application of Scientific Management theory of Motivation:

The theory of scientific management for motivation was successfully applied by ARGOSThis way the company was able to start an era of mass production in which the production scale increased manifolds. The advantages of this motivation theory to the company included the followings.

  1. Workers were skilled to complete their tasks for production through the application of required expertise.
  2. The production output actually met the estimated outcome.
  3. Workers were paid fairly as per their efforts and hard toil based on the concept of per production.

However, the disadvantages to the company were as follows:

  1. Heavy dependence on workers with the required skills for mass sales. This led to increase in demand for pay hikes and absenteeism from work.
  2. Quality was compromised due to the target of achieving mass output.
  3. Boredom increased from repetitive work as the workers were to perform a special expert task throughout the day.

(Collings & G., 2009)

a. Application of Mayo’s theory of social needs:

The Elton Mayo theory of social needs was applied in ARGOS. Efforts were actually made to identify the factors that could result in motivating employees towards higher output and gains to the organization. It was found that not the lighting and working conditions but better interaction with the managers and other team members resulted in getting the desired output. The advantages of this motivation theory to Nestle were as follows.

  1. The company realized the motivation factor that was could help in increasing output(Schneller et al., 2006).
  2. Communication gaps were decreased and fresh methods of transferring information were developed within the organization.
  3. Efforts were made to develop teams so that they could back each other to achieve the required organization objective.

(Cartwright & Holmes, 2006)

However, various issues that were recognized in the company were as follows:

  1. Extra pressure on the managers was observed as they now had to work on recognizing the needs of workers along with the organizational objectives.
  2. Meeting one need of worker would result in rise of another. Therefore workers were never happy and satisfied as per the normal human behavior(McAfee, 2002).
  3. Expenditures of the organization increased due to incentive policies.
  4. Workers were given undue power to take decisions at the workplace.
  5. Job role increased.
  6. Extra pressure on workers to show their other skills and abilities at work.

(Trickey, 2011)

Implementation of theories:

The company’s achievements after applying the motivation theory include the followings.

  • Degree to achieve targeted outcomes:

The company has 737 stores and has its retail offices within 10 miles of 96% of the UK population. This has helped the company to achieve a consistent growth target every year. In year 2014, the company made nearly 5000 billion pounds revenue.

This way the company concentrated on the following:

  1. Physiological needs of the workers were given due importance.
  2. Incentive system was developed so that the higher productivity can be achieved from workers.
  3. Different needs of different workers were recognized.

(Trevifio & Brown, 2004)

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  • Improvement in business performance, market share, sales volume, profitability and customer satisfaction.

Since its inception, the company has been catering to the needs of British customers. It has achieved consistent growth in sales in recent years.

Also the company has opened its separate website that supports the sales process through online shopping. It offers huge discounts and cash coupons that helps in promoting sales through online medium. Various financial facts about the company are stated as below.

  1. The company had 123 million customers’ visits to store in year 2014.
  2. It has been successful in selling nearly 43,000 products till date.
  3. It has achieved customer transactions of 60 million in a year.
  4. It has 1.5 million active card holders.
  5. The company has achieved 1.5 billion pounds turnover in year 2014.

(ARGO, 2015)

  • Increase in employee satisfaction:

The company has achieved an increase in employee satisfaction, and it has been regarded as the best place to work in the last decade.

The company currently has 51,000 employees who are committed to company expectations and goals. A respected pay scale and an incentive system to appreciate employees’ hard work have been applied in the workplace.

Following are the benefits of motivation theory in application that has helped the company in increasing employee satisfaction.

Employee retention is achieved in the company.

  1. Job enrichment helped in getting the maximum benefit of the available skills in the human resource(Trickey, 2011).
  2. Increased output and gains to the organization.
  • The organization has become capable enough to integrate its business operation in diversified fields. The latest example is takeover of Nokia devices which helped the company enter mobile selling market.

(Wauters, 2011)

  • Decrease in employee turnover:

There is very low employee turnover been observed in ARGOS. This is due to the fact that the company follows the fair motivation and pay path which helps the employees to stay convinced with the company policy.

This way the employees work hard to achieve better remuneration and higher authority within the organization instead of finding new job at a substandard place.

(Chopra & Meindl, 2001)

Recommendations for ARGOS:

The range of recommendations as to how these techniques could improve in future achievement of targets goals includes the followings.

  1. ARGOS should put an addition of incentives for employees as per Mayo theory could help in better achievement of goals.

The scientific theory considers human resource much like machines which is not a good concept to follow in the present day. This concept should be

  1. changed to considering of human resource as an integral part of organization(Collings & G., 2009).
  2. Various needs of the employees should be identified at work so that their satisfaction levels and necessity needs can be fulfilled(Chase et al., 2006).
  3. Addition of motivation factors such as good working environment, pay hikes etc. should be added(Abiodun, 2009).
  4. ARGOS should developed fair method of paying to the employees as per output basis. This will help identify the outperformer so that his efforts get recognized and receive the deserved incentives. However the nonperformer or underperformer can be identified and efforts should be made to improve his skills(Brigham & Ehrhardt, 2013).
  5. ARGOS works in a global environment therefore the communication gaps that exists due to cultural differences should be considered and reviewed at regular intervals so that the issues and problems due to same can be avoided(Abiodun, 2009).
  6. The company should identify the various requirements of the people in diverse locations and should meet them as much as possible so as to bring in high motivation factors in operation.
  7. The company needs to develop methods of reviewing employee performance so that the training and education needs of the employees can be fulfilled to bring in more skills and competency in their work(ACCLAIMIP, 2015).

Conclusion:

In the end, Motivational Theory has helped ARGOS achieve success in business. The company managers are able to motivate the employees to achieve higher output from them. The application of the motivational theory is made such that the employees are convinced of the company policy.

They feel they are part of the company. Instead of leaving their jobs for better pay, they look for better authority through promotions, as the company has to offer better pay and work style than any other company in the country.

This way, the organization’s objectives are achieved by motivating employees to work according to the company’s directions, which results in quality output for the customers(ARGO, 2015).

Also, a list of recommendations has been suggested, which gives various ideas to the company to achieve higher benefits through the application of motivation theory.

To achieve higher outputs, the company should develop a pay structure based on output so that the employees work hard to increase output. Also, an incentive system should be developed to appreciate employees and motivate them to work hard.

Along with that, the company should develop the concept of delegating authorities and roles so that the employees can make independent decisions at a lower scale.The company should also develop motivation factors at the workplace so that health and safety measures can be applied to safeguard the lives of the workers.

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