As a manager, your goal is to keep your team members motivated and enthusiastic about their work. It’s important to strike a balance between extrinsic motivators, such as pay raises and changes to working conditions, and intrinsic motivators, like assigning people tasks that they enjoy.
Table of Contents
Managing Individuals
Individual Behaviour in Organisations
Many managers expect employees to work with others and be willing to obey, but at the same time expect to see evidence of personality, creativity and independence. Balancing individual needs and goals with group co-operation and conformity can be a major cause of tension, yet is one of the most important tasks of management. There are many ways you can harness peoples’ strengths and diversities, this section considers some of the tools and methodologiesavailable.
Setting Objectives and Work Planning
You need to achieve the completion of an Assignment (or even just a task) by planning, controlling and motivating members of the team. In order to motivate you must gain the commitment and co-operation of
the team and make the best use of the skills and talents of each individual in the group. In particular you should:
- Get to know all members of the team, listen to their suggestions
- Give people something to aim for, set agreed and achievable targets
- Keep staff informed of any progress and changes.
- Look after the interests of the team and ensure that the working environment is safe and conducive for quality work.
As a Consultant you will soon find that planning is also an essential part of your responsibilities
Reward Management
An effective reward management system recognises the influence and value of motivation practices, the importance of measuring performance. It should provide you with the means of utilising staff to their full potential,
Reward Management Strategy and Processes
- Non-financial rewards: satisfy individual need for variety, challenge, recognition, responsibility, opportunity and influence
- Employee benefits: ‘cafeteria’ benefits and personal security, i.e.the psychological contract, which meet other needs
- Pay structures: by combining results of market surveys and job evaluation define levels of pay and differentials and pay progression limits
- Performance management: by ongoing and formal reviews of performance against targets and standards, combined with development and training programmes and PDPs.
Motivation
In general terms, motivation can be described as the direction and persistence of action; why people choose a particular course of action in preference to others, and why they continue with a chosen action, often over a long period, and in the face of difficulties and problems.
There are four main definitions:
- An individual phenomenon: individuals are unique
- Is intentional: under employees control and considered a choice
- Multifaceted: arousal and direction or choice of behaviour
- Purpose of motivational theories is to predict behaviour – forces that influence
To ensure that an employee selects the appropriate action, you need to understand the needs and expectations of the individual at work. These are the physiological and social motives; the intrinsic or extrinsic motivation.
Extrinsic is related to tangible rewards such as salary and fringe benefits, security, promotion, control of service, the work environment and conditions of work. Such tangible rewards are often determined at the organisation level and may be largely outside your control.
Intrinsic motivation is related to ‘psychological rewards such as the opportunity to use one’s ability; a sense of challenge and achievement, receiving appreciation, positive recognition and being treated in a caring and considerate manner. These rewards are those that you can utilise to motivate.
Motivation Theories
There are many competing and complex theories. We consider those of Maslow, Herzberg and McClellend here.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory
This theory suggests that we all have basic needs, set out as building blocks, each dependent upon each other. The needs are physiological, safety, love, esteem and finally self-actualisation.
Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory
This theory tells us that there are two different sets of factors affecting motivation and work.
- One set of factors are those which if absent cause dissatisfaction. These factors are related to job context and are concerned with job environment and extrinsic to the job itself, they are called ‘hygiene
factors; analogous to the medical term preventive and environmental, they serve to prevent dissatisfaction. - The growth or motivation factors will affect feelings of satisfaction or no satisfaction, but not dissatisfaction.
McClelland’s Achievement Motivation Theory
This describes the three areas of arousal-based and socially developed motives; Achievement, Affiliation and Power. Although these motives correspond to the other content theories they measure the needs of more demanding or high achieving individuals. Their particular spurs’ are a need to prove they can do better, a need to accomplish a task individually, without recognition, a need for self-evaluation and a constant desire for variety and challenge.
Pieced together The Integrated Five-Factor Model of: existence, affiliation, power, autonomy and achievement allow for the motivation of most individuals and should be the consideration of effective managers for maximum output.
Application of Motivation Theories
When designing work, job and job roles, responsibilities and setting objectives you should consider the following factors to assist motivation:
- Each job should have a visible end
- The job should be completed with a little supervision as possible
- Set ‘smart’ objectives
- Ideally job roles and responsibilities should fit into a performance system
- Tasks should challenge appropriate individuals
- Jobs should be rotated or enriched, i.e. Given additional responsibility
- An employee should be involved in developing others
- An employee should be encouraged to make suggestions
Success should always be recognised and praised. In addition to these areas please remember that in an assignment you may also be expected to develop staff for example by coaching, counselling or
conflict handling.
Coaching
Providing coaching opportunities will help staff develop faster. Coaching can affect more than performance, it can assist behaviour change, improve morale, increase motivation and is sometimes a prelude or hopefully the mitigating stage prior to a disciplinary, It can also prove a medium to improve the quality or relationship between yourself and your different team members, its is a tool for communication and a mechanism for building social relationships.
Counselling
You may be required to counsel a member of your staff, for a variety of reasons. “Workplace’ counselling is distinctly different from and does not intend to replace the work of a professional counselling service. Even though you are a Consultant, you may have a responsibility for ‘Duty of Care’ and need to be aware of triggers for a counselling session. The reasons include domestic pressures. job insecurity. harassment, redundancy or retirement, illness or the beginnings of stress or a stressful situation, actual or perceptual.