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Chapter Overview

This chapter builds on the last chapter and focuses on applying motivational concepts in the workplace.

Introduction

Simply knowing about motivational theories is not enough to make managers effective. Managers must be able to apply these theories in the workplace to increase worker motivation. This chapter will review the job characteristics model, discuss some ways jobs can be redesigned, and then explore some alternative work arrangements.

Motivating by Job Design: The Job Characteristics Model

· Job design suggests that the way elements in a job are organized can influence employee effort, and the model discussed next can serve as a framework to identify opportunities for changes to those elements.

· Designed by Hackman and Oldham, the job characteristics model (JCM) proposes that any job can be described in terms of five core job dimensions:

a. Skill Variety: described as the degree to which the job requires a variety of different activities, so the worker can use a number of different skills and talents.

b. Task Identity: this is the degree to which the job requires completion of a whole and identifiable piece of work.

c. Task Significance: the degree to which the job has a substantial impact on the lives or work of other people.

d. Autonomy: the degree to which the job provides substantial freedom, independence, and discretion to the individual in scheduling the work and determining the procedures to be used in carrying it out. Jobs that possess autonomy give employees a feeling of personal responsibility for the results.

e. Feedback: the degree to which carrying out the work activities required by the job results in the individual obtaining direct and clear information about the effectiveness of his or her performance. Jobs that provide feedback lets employees know how effectively they are performing.

· Elements of the JCM.

a. Exhibit 8-1 presents the job characteristics model.

b. The first three dimensions—skill variety, task identity, and task significance—combine to create meaningful work the incumbent will view as important, valuable, and worthwhile.

c. Jobs with high autonomy give incumbents a feeling of personal responsibility for the results and that, if a job provides feedback, employees will know how effectively they are performing.

d. From a motivational standpoint, the JCM proposes that individuals obtain internal rewards when they learn (knowledge of results) that they personally (experienced responsibility) have performed well on a task they care about (experienced meaningfulness).

1) The more these three psychological states are present, the greater will be employees’ motivation, performance, and satisfaction, and the lower their absenteeism and likelihood of leaving.

e. As Exhibit 8-1 shows, individuals with a high growth need are more likely to experience the critical psychological states when their jobs are enriched—and respond to them more positively.

· Efficacy of the JCM.

a. Much evidence supports the JCM concept that the presence of a set of job characteristics—variety, identity, significance, autonomy, and feedback—does generate higher and more satisfying job performance.

· Motivating Potential Score (MPS).

a. We can combine the core dimensions of the JCM into a single predictive index, called the motivating potential score (MPS) and calculated as follows:

b. MPS = Skill variety + Task identity + Task significance/ 3 * Autonomy * Feedback

· Cultural Generalizability of the JCM.

a. A few studies have tested the JCM in different cultures, but the results are not consistent. The fact that the JCM is relatively individualistic suggests job enrichment strategies may not have the same effects in collectivistic cultures as in individualistic cultures.

· USING JOB DESIGN TO MOTIVATE EMPLOYEES

· Redesigning jobs has important practical implications—reduced turnover and increased job satisfaction among them. Let’s look at some ways to put the JCM into practice to make jobs more motivating.

· Job Rotation.

a. Helpful when employees suffer from excessively routine work. Job rotation is the periodic shifting of an employee from one task to another.

1) The strengths of job rotation are:

a) it reduces boredom,

b) it increases motivation through diversifying the employee's activities, and

c) it helps employees understand how their work contributes to the organization.

d) International evidence from Britain, Italy, and Turkey shows that job rotation is associated with higher levels of organizational performance in manufacturing settings.

· The drawbacks of job rotation:

a. work that is done repeatedly may become habitual and routine, which does make decision making more automatic and efficient, but less thoughtfully considered.

b. training costs increase when each rotation necessitates that an employee learn new skills.

c. moving a worker into a new position reduces overall productivity for that role.

d. it creates disruptions when members of the work group have to adjust to new employees.

e. supervisors may have to spend more time answering questions and monitoring the work of recently rotated employees.

· Relational Job Design.

a. While redesigning jobs on the basis of jobs characteristics theory is likely to make work more intrinsically motivating, contemporary research is focusing on how to make jobs more prosocially motivating to people.

1) In other words, how can managers design work so employees are motivated to promote the well-being of the organization’s beneficiaries (customers, clients, patients, and employees)?

2) This view, relational job design, shifts the spotlight from the employee to those whose lives are affected by the job that employee performs.

b. One way to make jobs mores prosocially motivating is to better connect employees with the beneficiaries of their work by relating stories from customers who have found the company’s products or services to be helpful.

1) In some cases, managers may be able to connect employees directly with beneficiaries.

· Using Alternative Work Arrangements to Motivate Employees.

a. Another means of increasing motivation in the workplace is to alter the typical work arrangements. There are three major ways to accomplish this.

b. Flextime.

1) Flextime refers to the use of "flexible work time."

2) Flextime allows employees some discretion over when they arrive at work and when they can leave.

3) Employees have to work a specific number of hours per week, but they are free to vary the hours of work within certain limits.

4) Flextime has become popular outside the United States in countries such as Germany where 73 percent of businesses offer flextime, and Japan.

c. Core Period.

1) Typically, all workers must be in the office during a core period.

2) This core period may be as long as six hours, with the remaining two work hours scheduled at the employee's convenience.

d. Benefits. They include:

1) reduced absenteeism,

2) increased productivity,

3) reduced overtime expenses,

4) reduced hostility toward management,

5) reduced traffic congestion around work sites, elimination of tardiness, and

6) increased autonomy and responsibility for employees, any of which may increase employee job satisfaction.

e. Research Results.

1) Most evidence seems to back up the listed benefits of flextime.

2) The use of this technique is not applicable to every job.

a) It does work well for clerical tasks, where interaction with outside individuals is limited, but

b) It is inappropriate for jobs with comprehensive service demands during predetermined hours.

· Job Sharing.

a. This scheduling innovation allows two or more individuals to split a single traditional 40-hour-a-week job among them.

b. Only 18 percent of U.S. organizations offered job sharing in 2014, a 29 percent decrease since 2008.

c. Reasons it is not more widely adopted include the difficulty of finding compatible pairs of employees to job share and the historically negative perceptions of individuals not completely committed to their jobs and employers.

d. However, decreasing job sharing for these reasons may be short sighted.

1) Job sharing allows an organization to draw on the talents of more than one individual for a given job. It opens the opportunity to acquire skilled workers — for instance, women with young children and retirees — who might not be available on a full-time basis.

2) From the employee’s perspective, job sharing can increase satisfaction and motivation.

e. An employer’s decision to use job sharing is sometimes based on economics and national policy.

1) Two part-time employees sharing a job can be less expensive than one full-time employee, but experts suggest this is not the case because training, coordination, and administrative costs can be high.

2) In the United States, the national Affordable Care Act may create an incentive for companies to increase job sharing arrangements in order to avoid the fees employers must pay the government for full-time employees.

3) Many German and Japanese firms have been using job sharing – but for a different reason. Germany’s Kurzarbeit program has kept employment levels from plummeting through economic crises by switching full-time workers to part-time job sharing workers.

f. Ideally, employers should consider each employee and job separately, seeking to match up the skills, personalities, and needs of each employee with the tasks required for the job to look for potential job sharing matches.

· Telecommuting (or Working from the Virtual Office).

a. This refers to employees who do their work remotely for at least two days a week using a computer linked to their office. A closely related term — the virtual office — describes working from home on a relatively permanent basis.

1) While telecommuting would seem to mesh with a transition to knowledge work, it has been a popular topic lately not for its potential, but rather for reconsideration.

2) While the movement away from telecommuting by some companies makes headlines, it appears that for most organizations, it remains popular.

a) For example, almost 50 percent of managers in Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States are permitted telecommuting options.

b) Telecommuting is less of a practice in China, but there, too, it is growing.

(1) In developing countries, the telecommuting percentage is between 10 and 20 percent.

(2) Organizations that actively encourage telecommuting include Amazon, IBM, American Express, Intel, Cisco Systems, and a number of U.S. government agencies.

c) From the employee’s standpoint, telecommuting can increase feelings of isolation and reduce job satisfaction.

(1) Research indicates it does not reduce work–family conflicts, though perhaps it is because telecommuting often increases work hours beyond the contracted workweek.

(2) Telecommuters are also vulnerable to the “out of sight, out of mind” effect: Employees who aren’t at their desks, miss impromptu meetings in the office, and don’t share in day-to-day informal workplace interactions may be at a disadvantage when it comes to raises and promotions because they’re perceived as not putting in the requisite “face time.”

(3) As for a corporate social responsibility (CSR) benefit of reducing car emissions by allowing telecommuting, research indicates that employees actually drive over 45 miles more per day, due to increased personal trips, when they telecommute!

Employee Involvement

· Employee involvement and participation is a participative process that uses the input of employees to increase their commitment to the organization's success.

· The logic behind employee involvement is that by involving workers in decisions that affect them and by increasing their autonomy and control over their work lives, employees will become more motivated, more committed to the organization, more productive, and more satisfied with their jobs.

· Cultural Employee Involvement Programs (EIPs).

· Employee involvement programs (EIPs) differ among countries. Research shows that it is important to modify practices to reflect culture.

a. Employees in many traditional cultures that value formal hierarchies do not especially value EIPs , but this is changing.

1) In China, for instance, some employees are becoming less high power–distance oriented.

· Forms of EIPs.

· Participative Management. Participative management is the use of joint decision making in an organization.

a. This sharing can occur either formally through, say, briefings or surveys, or informally through daily consultations, as a way to enhance motivation through trust and commitment.

b. In order for this type of decision making to be effective, followers must have trust and confidence in their leaders.

1) Leaders should refrain from coercive techniques and instead stress the organizational consequences of decisions to their followers.

2) Research findings on the use of this technique have been mixed.

a) It appears that participation in decision making only has a modest influence on employee productivity, motivation, and job satisfaction.

· Representative Participation.

a. Representative participation from Western Europe is a legislated form of participation.

b. Representatives of employees are legally mandated to be placed on an organization's board (or on works councils who must be consulted regarding management’s personnel decisions) to represent the interests of the workers.

c. Purpose is the desire to redistribute power within an organization by giving the interests of labor more of an equal footing with those of management and stockholders.

d. Research.

1) From results thus far, it appears that this mandatory form of employee involvement has minimal impact on the employees.

2) It may be motivational for those employees selected to represent the other workers, but it does not appear to motivate workers in general.

Using Extrinsic Rewards to Motivate Employees

· Pay is not the only factor driving job satisfaction. However, it does motivate people, and companies often underestimate its importance.

· What to Pay: Establishing a Pay Structure.

a. The process of initially setting pay levels entails balancing internal equity—the worth of the job to the organization (usually established through a technical process called job evaluation), and external equity—the competitiveness of an organization’s pay relative to pay in its industry (usually established through pay surveys).

b. Pay more, and you may get better-qualified, more highly motivated employees who will stay with the organization longer.

1) A study covering 126 large organizations found employees who believed they were receiving a competitive pay level had higher morale and were more productive, and customers were more satisfied as well.

c. But pay is often the highest single operating cost for an organization, which means paying too much can make the organization’s products or services too expensive.

d. It’s a strategic decision an organization must make, with clear trade-offs.

· How to Pay: Rewarding Individual Employees Through Variable-Pay Programs.

a. Piece rate, merit based, bonus, profit sharing, and employee stock ownership plans are all forms of a variable-pay program (also known as pay-for-performance), which bases a portion of an employee’s pay on some individual and/or organizational measure of performance.

b. Variable-pay plans have long been used to compensate salespeople and executives, but the scope of variable-pay jobs has broadened as the motivational potential has been realized.

c. Globally, around 80 percent of companies offer some form of variable-pay plan.

1) In the United States, 91 percent of companies offer a variable-pay program.

2) In Latin America, more than 90 percent of companies offer some form of variable-pay plan.

3) European and U.S. companies are lower, at about 12 percent.

4) When it comes to executive compensation, Asian companies are outpacing western companies in their use of variable pay.

d. Unfortunately, not all employees see a strong connection between pay and performance. The results of pay-for-performance plans vary.

e. Secrecy also pays a role in the motivational success of variable-pay plans. Although in some government and not-for-profit agencies pay amounts are either specifically or generally made public, most U.S. organizations encourage or require pay secrecy.

f. Is this good or bad? Unfortunately, it’s bad: pay secrecy has a detrimental effect on job performance.

1) Even worse, it adversely affects high performers more than other employees. It very likely increases employees’ perception that pay is subjective, which can be demotivating.

2) Do variable-pay programs increase motivation and productivity? Generally, yes, but that doesn’t mean everyone is equally motivated by them.

a) Many organizations have more than one variable pay element in operation, such as an Employee Stock Option Plan (ESOP) and bonuses, so managers should evaluate the effectiveness of the overall plan in terms of the employee motivation gained from each element separately and from all elements together.

b) Managers should monitor their employees’ performance–reward expectancy, since a combination of elements that makes employees feel that their greater performance will yield them greater rewards will be the most motivating.

g. Piece-Rate Pay.

1) In piece-rate pay plans workers are paid a fixed sum for each unit of production completed.

2) These plans may or may not have a base salary attached to them.

a) Piece-rate plans are known to produce higher productivity and wages, so they can be attractive to organizations and motivating for workers.

h. Merit-Based Pay.

1) These individual plans modify pay based on performance appraisal ratings.

a) The advantage of merit-based pay plans is that employers can differentiate pay based on performance, so that high performers are given bigger raises.

b) However, it should be noted that these plans are only as valid as the appraisals they are based on.

c) Additionally, the pay raise pool from which the merit pay monies are taken may be too low to provide a sufficient level of incentive pay.

i. Bonuses.

1) Bonuses, extra money paid for a specific event or organizational achievement, are becoming more common even in the lower levels of organizations.

2) One advantage of using bonuses is that they reward employees for recent performance rather than historical performance.

3) However, employees may prefer base pay increases to the variable bonuses.

j. Profit-Sharing Plans.

1) Profit-sharing plans are organization-wide programs to distribute compensation based on some established formula designed around a company's profitability. Rewards can be given in the form of cash, or for top management, allocations of stock options.

k. Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs).

1) Employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) are company-established benefit plans in which employees can acquire stock, often at below-market prices, as part of their benefits.

2) Research has shown that these plans do increase employee satisfaction, but their impact on performance is less clear.

3) In situations where the employees do feel like owners, the impact on organizational performance can be quite dramatic.

Using Benefits to Motivate Employees

· As with pay, benefits are both an employee provision and an employee motivator.

· A flexible benefits program turns the benefits package into a motivational tool.

· Flexible benefits individualize rewards by allowing each employee to choose the compensation package that best satisfies his or her current needs and situation.

· These plans replace the “one-benefit-plan-fits-all” programs designed for a male with a wife and two children at home that dominated organizations for more than 50 years.

· But are flexible benefits more motivating than traditional plans? It’s difficult to tell. Some organizations that have moved to flexible plans report increased employee retention, job satisfaction, and productivity.

a. Given the intuitive motivational appeal of flexible benefits, however, it may be surprising that their usage is not yet global.

Using Intrinsic Rewards to Motivate Employees

· We have discussed motivating employees through job design and by the extrinsic rewards of pay and benefits. We also need to consider intrinsic rewards organizations can provide such as employee recognition programs.

· An employee recognition program is a plan to encourage specific behaviors by formally appreciating specific employee contributions.

· Employee recognition programs range from a spontaneous and private thank-you to widely publicized formal programs in which specific types of behavior are encouraged and the procedures for attaining recognition are clearly identified.

· Some research suggests financial incentives may be more motivating in the short term, but in the long run it’s nonfinancial incentives.

a. A few years ago, 1,500 employees were surveyed in a variety of work settings to find out what they considered the most powerful workplace motivator.

1) Recognition, recognition, and more recognition.

· An obvious advantage of recognition programs is that they are inexpensive because praise is free!

a. It shouldn’t be surprising then that they’ve grown in popularity.

· Despite the increased popularity of employee recognition programs, critics argue they are highly susceptible to political manipulation by management.

· When applied to jobs for which performance factors are relatively objective, such as sales, recognition programs are likely to be perceived by employees as fair.

a. However, in most jobs, the criteria for good performance aren’t self-evident, which allows managers to manipulate the system and recognize their favorites.

1) Abuse can undermine the value of recognition programs and demoralize employees.

SUMMARY

· Understanding what motivates individuals is ultimately key to organizational performance.

· Employees whose differences are recognized, who feel valued, and who have the opportunity to work in jobs tailored to their strengths and interests will be motivated to perform at the highest levels.

· Employee participation can also increase employee productivity, commitment to work goals, motivation, and job satisfaction.

· However, we cannot overlook the powerful role of organizational rewards in influencing motivation.

a. Pay, benefits, and intrinsic rewards must be carefully and thoughtfully designed in order to enhance employee motivation toward positive organizational outcomes.

Implications for Managers

· Recognize Individual Differences.

· Spend the time necessary to understand what’s important to each employee.

· Design jobs to align with individual needs and maximize their motivational potential.

· Use Goals and Feedback.

· Employees should have firm, specific goals, and they should get feedback on how well they are faring in pursuit of those goals.

· Allow Employees to Participate in Decisions That Affect Them.

· Employees can contribute to setting work goals, choosing their own benefits packages, and solving productivity and quality problems.

· Participation can increase employee productivity, commitment to work goals, motivation, and job satisfaction.

· Link Rewards to Performance.

· Rewards should be contingent on performance, and employees must perceive the link between the two.

· Recognize the power of both extrinsic and intrinsic rewards.

· Check the System for Equity.

· Employees should perceive that experience, skills, abilities, effort, and other obvious inputs explain differences in performance pay, job assignments, and other rewards.

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