Project Management

What is Motivation?

1. A reason or reasons for acting or behaving in a particular way.

2. A general desire, need or want that generates the energy required for someone to behave in a particular way. (This means that there’s actually a motive behind the action)

3. Motivation is an employee's intrinsic enthusiasm about and drive to accomplish activities related to work. Motivation is that internal drive that causes an individual to decide to take action. (An individual's motivation is influenced by biological, intellectual, social, and emotional factors).

4. Internal and external factors that stimulate desire and energy in people to be continually interested and committed to a job, role or subject, or to make an effort to attain a goal. Motivation results from the interaction of both conscious and unconscious factors such as:

a) intensity of desire or need

b) incentive or reward value of the goal

c) expectations of the individual and of his or her peers.

Motivating employees

Supervisors are responsible for ensuring that work unit goals and objectives are achieved. Critical to fulfilling this responsibility is motivating employees to successfully accomplish assigned activities. Supervisors can use a number of motivation techniques, including:

· Providing positive feedback on employee achievements

· Assigning interesting and challenging work

· Providing effective guidance, support and training

· Recognizing and rewarding positive performance

· Tailoring work assignments, rewards and recognition to individual employee needs and desires

· Leading by example (nothing is more de-motivating than a supervisor who expects employees to "do what I say" not "what I do")

Successfully motivating employees requires:

· Identifying the results and behaviours expected of employees

· Discussing these expectations with employees to ensure mutual understanding and employee buy-in

· Aligning motivating techniques accordingly

· Celebrating success

Specific Actions to Increase Employee Motivation

1) A manager or supervisor can create a work environment that will foster and influence increases in employee motivation - quickly.

2) Communicate responsibly and effectively any information employees need to perform their jobs most effectively.

3) Employees find interaction and communication with and attention from senior and executive managers motivational.

4) Provide the opportunity for employees to develop their skills and abilities.

5) Employees gain a lot of motivation from the nature of the work itself. Employees seek autonomy and independence in decision making and in how they approach accomplishing their work and job.

6) Elicit and address employee concerns and complaints before they make an employee or workplace dysfunctional. Listening to employee complaints and keeping the employee informed about how you are addressing the complaint are critical to producing a motivating work environment.

7) Recognition of employee performance is high on the list of employee needs for motivation. Many supervisors equate reward and recognition with monetary gifts. While employees appreciate money, they also appreciate praise, a verbal or written thank you, out-of-the-ordinary job content opportunities, and attention from their supervisor.

8) Employees appreciate a responsive and involved relationship with their immediate supervisor.

Factors to Encourage Motivation

· Management and leadership actions that empower employees

· Transparent and regular communication about factors important to employees

· Treating employees with respect

· Involving employees in decisions about their work and job

· Minimizing the number of rules and policies in an environment that demonstrate trust for employees and treats employees like adults

· Providing regular employee recognition

· Feedback and coaching from managers and leaders

· Above industry average benefits and compensation

· Providing employee perks and company activities

· Managing employees within a doable framework of goals, measurements, and clear expectations

Theories of Motivation

Overview

At a simple level, it seems obvious that people do things, such as go to work, in order to get stuff they want and to avoid stuff they don't want. 

Why exactly they want what they do and don't want what they don't is still something a mystery. It's a black box and it hasn't been fully penetrated.

Overall, the basic perspective on motivation looks something like this:

In other words, you have certain needs or wants (these terms will be used interchangeably), and this causes you to do certain things (behavior), which satisfy those needs (satisfaction), and this can then change which needs/wants are primary (either intensifying certain ones, or allowing you to move on to other ones). 

A variation on this model, particularly appropriate from an experimenter's or manager's point of view, would be to add a box labeled "reward" between "behavior" and "satisfaction". So that subjects (or employees), who have certain needs do certain things (behavior), which then get them rewards set up by the experimenter or manager (such as raises or bonuses), which satisfy the needs, and so on.

Many theories posit a hierarchy of needs, in which the needs at the bottom are the most urgent and need to be satisfied before attention can be paid to the others. 

1. Maslow's hierarchy

Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs is a motivational theory in psychology comprising a five tier model of human needs, often depicted as hierarchical levels within a pyramid.

Maslow (1943, 1954) stated that people are motivated to achieve certain needs and that some needs take precedence over others. Our most basic need is for physical survival, and this will be the first thing that motivates our behavior. Once that level is fulfilled the next level up is what motivates us, and so on.

Maslow initially stated that individuals must satisfy lower level deficit needs before progressing on to meet higher level growth needs. However, he later clarified that satisfaction of a needs is not an “all-or-none” phenomenon, admitting that his earlier statements may have given “the false impression that a need must be satisfied 100 percent before the next need emerges”

When a deficit need has been 'more or less' satisfied it will go away, and our activities become habitually directed towards meeting the next set of needs that we have yet to satisfy. These then become our salient needs. However, growth needs continue to be felt and may even become stronger once they have been engaged.

Growth needs do not stem from a lack of something, but rather from a desire to grow as a person. Once these growth needs have been reasonably satisfied, one may be able to reach the highest level called self-actualization.

Every person is capable and has the desire to move up the hierarchy toward a level of self-actualization. Unfortunately, progress is often disrupted by a failure to meet lower level needs. Life experiences, including divorce and loss of a job, may cause an individual to fluctuate between levels of the hierarchy.

Specific examples of these types are given below, in both the work and home context.

Need	Home	Job
self-actualization	education, religion, hobbies, personal growth	training, advancement, growth, creativity
esteem	approval of family, friends, community	recognition, high status, responsibilities
belongingness	family, friends, clubs	teams, depts, coworkers, clients, supervisors, subordinates
safety	freedom from war, violence	work safety, job security, health insurance
physiological	food water sex	Heat, air, base salary

According to Maslow, lower needs take priority. They must be fulfilled before the others are activated. There is some basic common sense here -- it's pointless to worry about whether a given color looks good on you when you are dying of starvation, or being threatened with your life. There are some basic things that take precedence over all else.

2. Hertzberg’s Two-Factor Theory

The Two-Factor Theory of motivation (otherwise known as dual-factor theory or motivation-hygiene theory) was developed by psychologist Frederick Herzberg in the 1950s.

Analysing the responses of 200 accountants and engineers who were asked about their positive and negative feelings about their work, Herzberg found 2 factors that influence employee motivation and satisfaction…

1. Motivator factors – Simply put, these are factors that lead to satisfaction and motivate employees to work harder. Examples might include enjoying your work, feeling recognised and career progression. 2. Hygiene factors – These factors can lead to dissatisfaction and a lack of motivation if they are absent. Examples include salary, company policies, benefits, relationships with managers and co-workers.

According to Herzberg’s findings, while motivator and hygiene factors both influenced motivation, they appeared to work completely independently of each other…

While motivator factors increased employee satisfaction and motivation, the absence of these factors didn’t necessarily cause dissatisfaction. Likewise, the presence of hygiene factors didn’t appear to increase satisfaction and motivation but their absence caused an increase in dissatisfaction.

How to apply it to the workplace

This theory implies that for the happiest and most productive workforce, you need to work on improving both motivator and hygiene factors.

To help motivate your employees, make sure they feel appreciated and supported. Give plenty of feedback and make sure your employees understand how they can grow and progress through the company.

To prevent job dissatisfaction, make sure that your employees feel that they are treated right by offering them the best possible working conditions and fair pay. Make sure you pay attention to your team and form supportive relationships with them.

Don’t forget that all of your employees are different and what motivates one person might not motivate another.

3.  Hawthorne Effect

The Hawthorne Effect was first described by Henry A. Landsberger in 1950 who noticed a tendency for some people to work harder and perform better when they were being observed by researchers.

The researchers changed a number of physical conditions over the course of the experiments including lighting, working hours and breaks. In all cases, employee productivity increased when a change was made. The researchers concluded that employees became motivated to work harder as a response to the attention being paid to them, rather than the actual physical changes themselves.

How to apply it to the workplace

The Hawthorne Effect studies suggest that employees will work harder if they know they’re being observed. While I don’t recommend hovering over your employees watching them all day, you could try providing regular feedback, letting your team know that you know what they’re up to and how they’re doing.

Showing your employees that you care about them and their working conditions may also motivate them to work harder. Encourage your team to give you feedback and suggestions about their workspace and development.

4. Expectancy Theory

Expectancy Theory proposes that people will choose how to behave depending on the outcomes they expect as a result of their behaviour. In other words, we decide what to do based on what we expect the outcome to be. At work, it might be that we work longer hours because we expect a pay rise.

However, Expectancy Theory also suggests that the process by which we decide our behaviours is also influenced by how likely we perceive those rewards to be. In this instance, workers may be more likely to work harder if they had been promised a pay rise (and thus perceived that outcome as very likely) than if they had only assumed they might get one (and perceived the outcome as possible but not likely)

Expectancy Theory is based on three elements:

1. Expectancy – the belief that your effort will result in your desired goal. This is based on your past experience, your self confidence and how difficult you think the goal is to achieve. 2. Instrumentality – the belief that you will receive a reward if you meet performance expectations. 3. Valence – the value you place on the reward.

Therefore, according to Expectancy Theory, people are most motivated if they believe that they will receive a desired reward if they hit an achievable target. They are least motivated if they don’t want the reward or they don’t believe that their efforts will result in the reward.

How to apply it to the workplace

The key here is to set achievable goals for your employees and provide rewards that they actually want.

Rewards don’t have to come in the form of pay rises, bonuses or all-expenses paid nights out. Rewards can come in the form of Praise, opportunities for progression and “employee of the month” style rewards can all go a long way in motivating your employees.

5. Alderfer's ERG Theory

Alderfer classifies needs into three categories, also ordered hierarchically:

· growth needs (development of competence and realization of potential)

· relatedness needs (satisfactory relations with others)

· existence needs (physical well-being)

This is very similar to Maslow -- can be seen as just collapsing into three tiers. But maybe a bit more rational. For example, in Alderfer's model, sex does not need to be in the bottom category as it is in Maslow's model, since it is not crucial to (the individual's) existence. (Remember, this about individual motivation, not species' survival.) So by moving sex, this theory does not predict that people have to have sex before they can think about going to school, like Maslow's theory does. 

Alderfer believed that as you start satisfying higher needs, they become more intense (e.g., the power you get the more you want power), like an addiction.

Do any of these theories have anything useful to say for managing businesses? Well, if true, they suggest that

· Not everyone is motivated by the same things. It depends where you are in the hierarchy (think of it as a kind of personal development scale) 

· The needs hierarchy probably mirrors the organizational hierarchy to a certain extent: top managers are more likely to motivated by self-actualization/growth needs than existence needs.

6. Acquired Needs Theory (mcclellan)

Some needs are acquired as a result of life experiences

· need for achievement, accomplish something difficult. as kids encouraged to do things for themselves.

· need for affiliation, form close personal relationships. as kids rewarded for making friends.

· need for power, control others. as kids, able to get what they want through controlling others.

Again similar to maslow and alderfer.

These needs can be measured using the TAT (thematic apperception test), which is a projection-style test based on interpreting stories that people tell about a set of pictures. 

7. Cognitive Evaluation Theory

This theory suggests that there are actually two motivation systems: intrinsic and extrinsic that correspond to two kinds of motivators:

· intrinsic motivators:  Achievement, responsibility and competence. motivators that come from the actual performance of the task or job -- the intrinsic interest of the work.

· extrinsic:  pay, promotion, feedback, working conditions -- things that come from a person's environment, controlled by others.

One or the other of these may be a more powerful motivator for a given individual.

Intrinsically motivated individuals perform for their own achievement and satisfaction. If they come to believe that they are doing some job because of the pay or the working conditions or some other extrinsic reason, they begin to lose motivation.

The belief is that the presence of powerful extrinsic motivators can actually reduce a person's intrinsic motivation, particularly if the extrinsic motivators are perceived by the person to be controlled by people. In other words, a boss who is always dangling this reward or that stick will turn off the intrinsically motivated people.

Note that the intrinsic motivators tend to be higher on the Maslow hierarchy.

8. Reinforcement Theory

Operant Conditioning is the term used by B.F. Skinner to describe the effects of the consequences of a particular behavior on the future occurrence of that behavior. There are four types of Operant Conditioning: Positive Reinforcement, Negative Reinforcement, Punishment, and Extinction. Both Positive and Negative Reinforcement strengthen behavior while both Punishment and Extinction weaken behavior.

· Positive reinforcement.  Strengthening a behavior. This is the process of getting goodies as a consequence of a behavior. You make a sale, you get a commission. You do a good job, you get a bonus & a promotion. 

· Negative reinforcement. Strengthening a behavior. This is the process of having a stressor taken away as a  consequence of a behavior. Long-term sanctions are removed from countries when their human rights records improve. (you see how successful that is!). Low status as geek at Salomon Brothers is removed when you make first big sale.

· Extinction. Weakening a behavior. This is the process of getting no goodies when do a behavior. So if person does extra effort, but gets no thanks for it, they stop doing it.

· Punishment. Weakening a behavior. This is the process of getting a punishment as a consequence of a behavior. Example: having your pay docked for lateness. 

	Apply	Withhold
Reward	positive reinforcement (raise above baseline)	negative reinforcement (raise up to baseline)
Stressor	punishment (bring down below baseline)	extinction (stay at baseline)

9. Three-Dimensional Theory of Attribution

Attribution Theory explains how we attach meaning to our own, and other people’s, behaviour. There are a number of theories about attribution.

Bernard Weiner’s Three-Dimensional theory of attribution assumes that people try to determine why we do what we do. According to Weiner, the reasons we attribute to our behaviour can influence how we behave in the future.

For example, a student who fails an exam could attribute their failure to a number of factors and it’s this attribution that will affect their motivation in the future.

Weiner theorised that specific attributions (e.g. bad luck, not studying hard enough) were less important than the characteristics of that attribution. According to Weiner, there are three main characteristics of attributions that can affect future motivation.

1. Stability – how stable is the attribution? For example, if the student believes they failed the exam because they weren’t smart enough, this is a stable factor. An unstable factor is less permanent, such as being ill.

According to Weiner, stable attributions for successful achievements, such as passing exams, can lead to positive expectations, and thus higher motivation, for success in the future.

However, in negative situations, such as failing the exam, stable attributions can lead to lower expectations in the future.

2. Locus of control – was the event caused by an internal or an external factor?

For example, if the student believes it’s their own fault they failed the exam, because they are innately not smart enough (an internal cause), they may be less motivated in the future. If they believed an external factor was to blame, such as poor teaching, they may not experience such a drop in motivation.

3. Controllability – how controllable was the situation? If an individual believes they could have performed better, they may be less motivated to try again in the future than someone who believes they failed because of factors outside of their control.

How to apply it to the workplace

Weiner’s Three-Dimensional theory of attribution has implications for employee feedback.

Make sure you give your employees specific feedback, letting them know that you know they can improve and how they can about it. This, in theory, will help prevent them from attributing their failure to an innate lack of skill and see that success is controllable if they work harder or use different strategies.

You could also praise your employees for showing an improvement, even if the outcome was still not correct. For example, you might praise someone for using the correct methodology even though the results weren’t what you wanted. This way, you are encouraging employees to attribute the failure to controllable factors, which again, can be improved upon in the future.

Work attitude and Employee Morale

Workplace attitudes have an effect on every person in the organization, from the employees to the company owner. Attitudes help to develop the prevailing workplace environment that determines employee morale, productivity and team-building abilities.

Description of the emotions, attitude, satisfaction, and overall outlook of employees during their time in a workplace environment. Part of effective productivity is thought to be directly related to the morale of the employees. Employees that are happy and positive at work are said to have positive or high employee morale. Companies that maintain employees who are dissatisfied and negative about their work environment are said to have negative or low employee morale.

The employee morale in a workplace can depend on many factors, such as work hours, work load, pay and rewards, etc

Five signs of low employee morale in the workplace

Changes in attitude

If you have unhappy employees on your team, it will show. Look for red flags — increased negativity, high or increased rates of absenteeism, or reduced cooperation or commitment. Checking in with workers on a regular basis will help you gauge employee morale and address budding problems.

2. An active grapevine

When communication is scarce, gossip, misinformation and conflict flourish. Even if you have bad news to share or don’t have all the answers, honesty is still the best policy. The more team members can rely on accurate information, the less grist they’ll have for the rumor mill. Good communication will help turn the negative into positive.

3. Lack of initiative

Unmotivated employees go through the motions rather than taking an active seat at the table. Foster an ownership environment in which people have the expectations that they should take the initiative, demonstrate leadership and solve problems in creative ways. Not only will that improve employee morale at your company, but it will help your workforce thrive in any kind of economy.

4. Scarce rewards

Step up efforts to recognize accomplishments with praise, low-cost awards and spot bonuses. Make rewards personal, and give them as soon as possible after an achievement to raise workplace morale and lower employee turnover.

5. Poor performance

Employee morale problems can quickly affect a team’s quality of work. Signs of trouble include missed deadlines, an increase in mistakes or a decline in service levels. Ask your team members if they feel burdened by the amount of work they have to do.