HR Performance Issues and Motivation
1
HR Performance Issues and Motivation
Brandon M. Johnson
BUS610: Organizational Behavior
Prof. Abel
Aug 16, 2015
HR Performance Issues and Motivation
2
Motivation in the workforce is driving by the individual behaviors. The behavior
of the employee drives their personal motivation while at work. We all have different
reasons for why we work in the career fields we choose. Our motivation to work is to
provide ourselves with the physical need for food, shelter, and clothes. If a person
becomes more successful in the career, they become more motivated to perform better to
ensure they advance within the company. If a person does not have success in their career
field, they begin to be unmotivated to perform, and they start looking for a job elsewhere.
The drive of the individual is a healthy balance to how motivated the person is, are they
happy with their job and how well does the individual work while performing their
duties.
Motivation
There are two categories of motivation theories, content, and process. The content theory
is “motivation factors within individuals, notably needs, that lead to behaviors. Content
theories describe the essence or content of motives, which are often viewed as unsatisfied
or unfulfilled needs.” (Baack, 2012, pg. 4.1) The content theory is why the physical need
changed instead of focusing on how the need changed. The process method is broken
down into two different processes; the operant and the cognitive. “Process theories
examine the progression of events that lead to motivated behavior. Operant process
theories of motivation that explores external factors while the cognitive process theories
are about motivation through the thought process or mental reasoning process that lead to
behaviors.” (Baack, 2012, pg. 4.1) Our motivation comes down to our overall behavior to
the job we have to do to achieve our needs. “Meaningful rewards help individuals satisfy
HR Performance Issues and Motivation
3
needs. Implications: How can we understand these needs to maximize the motivational
impact of the programs we design?” (Stolz, pg. 1.7) The motivation to work allows you
to work in a positive work environment. When one person is motivated to work, it builds
camaraderie among the work group to produce for the day. A motivated group tends to
forget about the time and provides more for the company given them a chance to be
rewarded by leadership. A reward from leadership can be shown to others that a
motivated person is what they are looking for instead of those that just come to work and
go through the motion.
Job Satisfaction
Our job satisfaction works with how well we are motivated at work. If we are
more motivated to work our overall job satisfaction will be positive. Managers will see a
positive, motivated person working their tail off. Be recognize for hard work helps build
upon the job satisfaction. Job satisfaction is not just an individual responsibility. A
manager needs to ensure all employees are satisfied while working at the company. “The
extent of which a particular job fulfills each of the core job characteristics contributes to
an employee’s perceptions of the job itself.” (Baack, 2012, pg. 5.2) A positive perception
of a job will push the employee to work harder if they know their hard work is worth
something and noticed by their company. Managers have a fine line of balancing a
positive stress-free environment all of the time. Moments might come down that demand
a bigger work load for each employee. Management needs to share the information with
all employees as positive as possible. Being able to relay information to the employees
HR Performance Issues and Motivation
4
while informing them that everyone is in it together will give them the satisfaction that
their long hours, bigger workload is not just a task for them alone.
Work Performance
Where does the job performance fall in line with motivation and job satisfaction?
An individual work performance can be determined by how they are motivated and if
they are satisfied with their job. Their needs will drive how well they perform at work. If
a person is in need of a promotion, they will be more willing to perform better at work
with the intent of being noticed ahead of their peers. Certain work performance can be
positive or negative to a group of employees. The positive of great work performance is
that it could rub off on other workers making everyone perform better and produce more
while working. Helping to motivate the entire section to work toward a common goal
with little to no fighting causing delays. The negative side of an individual great work
performance is that others could see it as “sucking up” to the bosses. Others could see
them as trying to make everyone else look bad, especially those that have been working
at the company for a longer period. The “self-esteem has a significant impact on an
individual’s needs. An individual’s positive or negative self-esteem will affect needs such
as affiliation, esteem, and self-actualization.” (Arnolds, Boschoff, 2002, pg. 701)The
needs of the individual are going to play how each work performance effects themselves
or the company. All of these are based on the motivation of the individual. Do they see
their needs be completed under the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs or the Alderfer’s ERG
Theory? These could help a manager understand what kind of employee they have
worked for them. We all have our desire to work hard. This dedication prioritizes the
HR Performance Issues and Motivation
5
needs and how we accomplish our needs to be successful. We all end up successful one
day; it is just the path we end up taking that determines the experience we learn along the
way.
Motivation Problem
In Afghanistan in 2011, a flight of 35 members were entering the holiday season.
We have already been away from our friends and family for four months. We only had
two more months to go before we were home after a six-month deployment. Two weeks
prior to Christmas we were told we would potential be attack anytime from now until the
New Year. The response to this news our leadership informed us we will be working
straight through until the threat was no longer there. At first we understood why they
made the decision to put us on a schedule with no days off. Three days before Christmas
many of us were starting to resent the leadership, we wanted a day off to call back home
and talk to our family. We felt we were working long hours, many days in a row with no
days off we could at least get Christmas off. As we worked longer into the month of
December, we began to relax at work and not perform our job they way we should have.
We were mentally and physically exhausted, add the fact it was around the Christmas
season, you could tell it was taking a toll. When our performance began to relax our
motivation to do patrol, security checks or respond to our leadership began to reflect our
beginning of disrespect.
Content Theory
This situation drained the whole flights motivation to do our job we were there to
do. Our individual and team needs began to change with every passing day that nothing
HR Performance Issues and Motivation
6
positive was happening. This change in our needs shifted to the needs of questioning
why. These needs overlooked our existence, relatedness and our growth as an individual
or a team. When our motivational behavior switches to being a negative manner, the
outlook on the reason for us being there began to fade. We began to have a change our
behavior that changed our view as unsatisfied or unfulfilled needs. As we continue to
work with no days off we grew into our frustration and regression phase. The flight began
reevaluating our purpose there in Afghanistan instead of being home with our
families.This brought down the flights morale, motivation, work performance, and job
satisfaction, but it also began to turn us on one another causing unneeded tension among
the flight. The problem causes a flight of 35 people to worry about something as simple
as a day off around Christmas instead of focusing on protecting each other and doing the
job we were sent there to do.
Change in Motivation
Did we get our days off? Were we able to celebrate Christmas? We worked until
the 23rd of December, a total of 17 days straight, 18 hour days. On the 23rd our flight had
enough, the Airmen went to the Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) to discuss their
thoughts and feelings on the matter. The NCOs collected all the information and had a
meeting among the NCO group to discuss how to approach the higher leadership. The
last thing we wanted was to turn this into a yelling match, a blame session. We wanted to
have a calm, respectful discussion among the NCOs and the higher leadership. The group
met to discuss issues on the flight that were causing a problem among the flight. We as
the NCOs presented the information to the leadership in the most respectful manner,
HR Performance Issues and Motivation
7
given examples and our suggestions. We approach the meeting as a give and take for both
sides. After about two hours of discussion it was decided that we would receive our days
off again, and we were informed that the days were not taking because of a threat but
because of a misunderstanding between a higher rank individual and a lower rank
individual. We relayed the information to the flight members two days prior to Christmas.
The morale, motivation, job satisfaction and work performance began to improve every
day until we left two months later.
There are lots of research out there for us to better understand how we should be
motivated, satisfied and perform at work. It is how each of us approach the situation that
dictates how we become successful in our goals we set. A business provides us the
experience and monetary needs for us to achieve the physiological, social and self-
actualization we desire in our lives. All of us have different visions to how we become
successful; we have different ways of achieving our needs, and some of us are just happy
with only achieving the physiological needs of life. At the end of the day, you need to be
satisfied with how your job and the balance doing your job well and with the best work
ethic you can offer.
HR Performance Issues and Motivation
8
References
Arnolds, C., & Boshoff, C. (2002). Compensation, esteem valence and job performance:
an empirical assessment of Alderfer's ERG theory. International Journal Of
Human Resource Management, 13(4), 697-719. doi:10.1080/09585190210125868
Baack, D. (2012). Management communication. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint
Education,Inc.
Lawler, E. E., & Suttle, J. L. (1972, April). A causal correlation test of the need hierarchy
concept. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 265–287.
Stotz, R. (n.d.). Content and Process Theories of Motivation. Retrieved August 16, 2015.
