The concept underlying motivation, and the needs and expectations of people at work

The concept that underlies motivation

The idea at the root of motivation is that human behaviour is caused: people act because something inside them pushes them towards a goal. The word itself comes from the Latin movere, to move, and in management it means whatever energises a person or a group to work. Three related terms make the concept precise:

• a motive is an inner state, arising from a need, that energises behaviour and directs it towards a goal;
• motivation is the process of stimulating people to act so that desired goals are achieved;
• motivators are the means a manager uses to bring this about, such as pay, bonus, promotion, praise, recognition and responsibility.

Motivation is an internal feeling; it produces goal-directed behaviour; it can be positive (rewards) or negative (penalties); and it is complex, because people differ in their expectations and reactions, so the same incentive does not work equally on everyone. It must also be kept apart from satisfaction: motivation is the drive to fulfil a want, satisfaction the contentment felt when it is fulfilled, so a person can be satisfied with a job yet poorly motivated, or the reverse.

How motivation works

Fred Luthans describes motivation as a cycle of three interdependent elements: needs (a deficiency), drives (the force, a deficiency with direction, that sets out to remove it) and goals (whatever fulfils the need and reduces the drive). Put simply, an unsatisfied need creates tension; the tension stirs drives; the drives lead to a search for a way of satisfying the need; and when it is satisfied the tension falls. The manager's task is to link the goals people pursue with the goals of the organisation.

Why motivation matters at work

Even the best plan and the best machines fail without motivated people, whereas a well-motivated team can achieve more than a better-equipped one. Motivation helps managers bring in change with less resistance, cuts absenteeism, turns indifferent attitudes into positive ones, raises performance, and reduces turnover, which saves the cost of recruiting and training replacements.

Summarising the needs and expectations of people at work

No single list captures everything people want from work, but four well-known frameworks, read together, give a usable summary.

(a) Primary and secondary needs. Primary needs, such as food, water and sleep, are basic to physical existence and common to everyone. Secondary needs, such as self-esteem, belonging, a sense of duty, and giving and receiving affection, are needs of the mind and spirit; they are often hidden, shaped by experience, vary between people and over time, often arise in groups, and strongly influence behaviour.

(b) Maslow's hierarchy. Maslow arranged needs in five levels, which form a hierarchy and so are listed in their own order, each with its workplace counterpart:

On his view a satisfied need no longer motivates, and a person moves up only when the lower need is met.

(c) Herzberg's two factors. Herzberg separated hygiene factors of the job's context, such as pay, job security, working conditions, supervision and company policy, which prevent dissatisfaction, from motivators of the job's content, such as achievement, recognition, responsibility, advancement and the work itself.

(d) Learned motives. Among secondary motives are the urge for power, for achievement (studied by David McClelland), for affiliation with a group, for security and for status.

Drawing these together, a manager can sum up what people expect from work under four heads:

1. Social expectations: friendship, acceptance and a sense of belonging to a team; these come from cordial working relations and a supportive organisational climate.
2. Economic expectations: fair pay, security of income and provision for the future, met by financial incentives such as pay and allowances, productivity-linked wages, bonus, profit sharing, stock options and retirement benefits.
3. Growth expectations: interesting work, responsibility and the chance to achieve and develop.
4. Esteem expectations: recognition, status and respect, met largely by non-financial incentives such as status and promotion, whose psychological value often outweighs the money involved.

Points to keep in mind when using these summaries

Needs vary from person to person and change with time and circumstance. Needs do not always follow Maslow's fixed order within an individual, and culture affects which needs come first; for Indian industrial workers, given unemployment, the two lower-order needs still play a dominant role. Koontz and O'Donnell therefore advise a situational approach: which needs to appeal to depends on each person's personality and wants, while remembering that employees at every level have needs across the whole range. Body and mind affect each other, so every employee should be treated as a whole person. A wage dispute, for example, may not really be about wages at all.

Applying this to an illustrative case

Consider a hypothetical customer-support centre in Noida that loses a third of its agents every year. Exit interviews show three groups. Young graduates on their first job leave for a small pay rise: their economic and security needs dominate, so a clear pay ladder and a retention bonus would hold them. Experienced agents leave because night shifts cut them off from family and friends: their social needs are unmet, so team rosters that keep groups together and fixed weekly offs matter more than money. Team leaders leave because they see no path upward: their esteem and growth needs call for training, recognition and promotion from within. One motivation scheme for all three groups would fail; a manager who reads the needs behind each group's behaviour can design rewards that fit.

Conclusion

Motivation rests on the simple idea that unmet needs drive behaviour towards goals. People at work bring economic, social, esteem and growth needs, in proportions that differ between individuals and change over time. The manager's job is to identify which needs are active and to offer financial and non-financial rewards that meet them while directing effort towards the organisation's goals.