Tag Archives: Motivation

Skills versus Passion: Which is the ultimate motivation?

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This post is made in response to an external blog: “Why These 3 High Performers Left Their Jobs”.

This post brings insight on how crucial it is to provide jobs that suits employees. Employing workers to the right job is a form of motivation that is important to drive them in becoming more productive. This is seen from the example cases where Ryan and Don decided to quit his job (despite being high performers) due to the mismatch in skills and task they are assigned by management. This enabled me to think about the difference of being good at something vs. being passionate about something. I find it true that skill is an important aspect to drive businesses forward. However, it would hurt in the long run with the absence of passion as workers will feel that they are doing a monotonous task since their esteem needs aren’t satisfied.

However, this also got me questioning in whether employees generally behave like Ryan and Don. If it is the case, then providing jobs that allows for personal growth is key to keep them in the business. However, what about employees that are of Theory X type (McGregor’s Theory)? This solution might not suit well to such employees as they need directions to complete tasks and do not care much about personal growth.

http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/4aca1b490ee8651e02b05616/pay-raises-wont-solve-your-problems-with-unhappy-employees.jpg

Unmotivated employees?

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This is a post made in response to Yu Tung Liu’s post “Workers’ Dissatisfaction from Poor Business Management”.

It is crucial for companies to maintain employees motivation. In reality, there are cases where workers think the reward they get is not equal to the workload they receive (Yu Tung Liu’s post par.2). According to Adam’s Equity theory, workers are motivated only if there’s fairness in remuneration packages. Hence, the statement holds true that employees will be less productive if they don’t receive what they think is fair.

Motivation techniques may be employed by management in order to address this problem and this is not limited to financial motivation. Establishing a positive organizational culture may help such problem through the positive working environment where employees will enjoy working in. This is seen from DreamWorks Animation, a company that allows employees to take part in giving ideas and development training courses. These acts provide a chance for personal growth for employees, allowing for job empowerment and enrichment respectively. Such non-financial motivations may be an incentive for employees in the company to be more productive. Additionally, these forms of motivation may fulfill an employee’s esteem needs in Maslow’s hierarchy of need, which will further their productivity. This shows how management may address motivation issues beyond the extent of rewarding in monetary form, but also in the form of knowledge and responsibility.

http://www.dreamworksanimation.com/media/insidedwa/ourculture/cat8/slide1.jpg

Article source: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/jobcenter/workplace/bruzzese/story/2012-07-22/dreamworks-values-innovation-in-all-workers/56376470/1