Month: February 2017

The Wells Fargo scandal truly supports and emphasizes by previous post where I talk about why it is so essential to be internally motivated, however with slightly a different approach. The Wells Fargo scandal is an example of how it is so essential for firms to have a good workplace environment as ex-employees revealed that the expectations and goals set by their superiors led to a “pressure-cooker atmosphere”.

While my previous blog post highlighted the importance of intrinsic motivation for high job retention rates, this one focuses on the importance of intrinsic motivations for efficiency and ethical standards in the workplace.  One of the biggest mistakes which I feel Wells Fargo made was the way they chose to motivate their employees: if an employee does not achieve a set goals, unrealistic as most said, they would be fired. Desperate times really called for desperate measures and forced thousands of employees to set aside their morals and perform unethical acts as their jobs were on the line.

An approach that would have better worked for Wells Fargo would have been if they concentrated on intrinsically motivating their employees instead of basing their motivational strategies on the assumption of Theory X. Intrinsic motivation gives rise to loyalty and a personal desire to work hard, which is way stronger than any other kind of motivation. A suggestion would be if they held biweekly contests on which employee could bring more sales in instead. This promotes healthy competition within the workforce without putting something as important as a job on the line and thus motivates the employees just to the right extent. This would be a form of intrinsic motivation due to the fact that employees would want to work hard in order to gain respect from their fellow employees due to their performance.

In conclusion, motivation and motivators are both very broad concepts which have to be thought through carefully by firms. If used right, they can be very beneficially for a firms performance however if used poorly, the effects could be detrimental.

Bibliography:

1. Duggan , K. (2016, October 12). How Wells Fargo Could Have Avoided its Fake Accounts Scandal. Retrieved February 4, 2017, from http://fortune.com/2016/10/12/wells-fargo-scandal-john-stumpf/

Motivation; our lives are based around being motived. From being motivated enough to get up in the morning to being motivated enough to get good grades. Employers struggle with motivation the most as firms are fuelled by their employees and thus it is essential to make sure they are as motivated as can be. The definition of workplace motivation is however changing over the years and the change is fascinating.

Employers are noticing the importance of an enriching, fun and supportive work culture and this is the reason for the sudden rise in more “fun” workplaces. Google, Facebook, BCG, and many other companies have excelled in doing so. Every student aspires to one-day work in Google due to the principles they stand for, the community feeling employees experience, and even how much freedom and respect that is given to employees with the most junior roles. This is very different compared to the environment a few decades ago where your level in the workplace hierarchy reflected the amount of respect you received in a firm.

What we have started realizing is the importance of intrinsic motivators. So why is it so important for employees to be intrinsically motivated? Money is a huge motivator; it is and will always be the biggest motivator as it fulfills physiological needs. However, all the needs above the basic physiological needs on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs revolve around the work culture. All of which would not be fulfilled if the work environment is not the best it can be. The ability of a firm to fulfill these needs is the key to high job retention. As important as it is to attract workers, it is more important to be able to keep them so that the hours spent on training these workers are not gone to waste, and in order to ensure that they are 100% intrinsically motivated thus pushing up efficiency rates which money would not be able to do.

Unlike high-school, University has pushed me into working with people. In the past 5 months alone, I have had to work in 5 different teams for different classes and projects and it was given me a deep insight into what teamwork really is and why being able to work in a team is so important. I will be talking about 2 experiences of mine which have helped me come to my conclusions:

1. Example A: I recently attended a Consulting Conference with a workshop where we had to work in groups of 4 to come up with a presentation which my group and I had to present our solutions to the CEO of a fictional company.
2. Example B: In my COMM292 class we had to come up with a Fantasy Project as a team and present it to demonstrate how we could use our team’s diversity to our advantage.

The difference between Example A and Example B was that in Example B, I enjoyed working with my team due to the fact that each one of us was equally motivated to reach an end goal. We listened to each other, communicated, equally delegated and thoroughly enjoyed working on a Fantasy Project as if it were actually going to happen. In Example A however, one of the member ended up taking credit for most of our ideas by not allowing others to speak while presenting.

These experiences have thus helped me come up with a few points which I feel are the key to a successful team:

1. Fair and even delegation of roles
2. Communication
3. Delegation based on people’s strengths

I have come to understand that we may not always get along with the people we are assigned to but it is important to be fair and communicate openly. Had I communicated more effectively in Example A, things would have turned out differently and that was a lesson I carried on the Example B. I believe that teamwork involves people talking about their differences to come up to an understanding, rather than keeping those differences aside and not being transparent.