Motivation and payment systems

1. Motivation and payment systems Dr Joan Harvey Dr George Erdos

2. Motivation • Complex area- many theories • Studied since early 1900s • Largely based on American and Western European theorists • Taylor and scientific management was the first • Then Hawthorne studies • Maslow • Herzberg, McGregor • Later theories include goal theory, equity theory, expectancy theories

3. Motivation theories • Intrinsic theories: Maslow • Physiological- housing, clothing, food and drink • Safety and security- job security, burglar alarms, safety features on products • Social, love and belongingness- friendships and social support at work, team sports • Self esteem- feeling of worth or importance- recognition, promotion, luxury goods • Self actualisation- doing what you really want to do at work, education, skills development, ‘experience goods’

4. Motivators: which is most important to you? [based on Herzberg] Hygiene factors Motivation factors Good management style Pay Company policy Working conditions Work colleagues Job security • Interesting work • Recognition • Stimulus to develop • Responsibility • Achievement • Promotion/advancement

5. Motivation theories • Murray’s inventory of social needs • Including superiority, achievement, play, succourance, nurturance etc. • Arousal theory • Failure to arouse will have little effect on performance • Priming to create arousal • Theory X and theory Y and theory Z • X and Y relevant insofar as make statements which you can apply at work; • Z is Japanese style of management

6. Incentive and reinforcement theories • Studies of role of money • Instrumentality • Indicative of status • Provides some independence and autonomy • Principles of incentive theories • Perceives reward to be worth the effort • Wants that reward • Perceives that action will lead to that reward

7. Utility and related theories • Based on nature of utility, usually a product of value and probability, of both success and loss; e.g. more reward not seen to happen for working hard • money, social, psychological, appearance, injury • Need for achievement • nAch and fear of failure • Need for affiliation • Need for power • Equity theory • Motivational calculus and expectancy theory

8. Modern intrinsic theories • Cognitive evaluation theory • Curiosity, incongruity and discrepancy • Competence, mastery, efficacy and challenge • Personal control over environment and self-determination

9. Other motivational issues • Unconscious motivation • Work behaviours or products as substitutes and fulfillments • Reinforces needs that one is unaware of • Semiotics and the meaning of NVBs, or goods, logos, symbolism and ritual gift giving

10. Motivational mix • Multiple motives • Approach and avoidance issues [Lewin] • Force of inertia • Strong in 50% of people, opposite to embracing change • Involvement • Antecedents – what happened before • Properties- feelings and behaviour when involvement aroused • Outcomes- depend on interaction of antecedents and properties as above • Preferences for different types of motive: • e.g. when of equal value to employer, differences in what people prefer: • Pay increase.. or more holidays… or less hours… or more pension…. or health insurance… ??

11. Payment systems are based on: • Human asset • Your skills are worth money, what you can do, not what you actually do • Job evaluation • Job tasks rated on dimensions, such as effort, responsibility, working conditions, skills. It is the job that is paid, not how much you do or your skills • Individual or group performance • Incentive systems- direct transactional relationship with individual, indirect and less clear relationship for group • Profit-based • E.g. cooperatives; based on shared success • Measured work • E.g. ‘job and finish’, or where minimum daily output is specified • Salaried • Sliding scale within a grade with experience or age • Performance related pay • Often driven by targets, many of which ignore the OCBs

12. HOWEVER……. • These theories are all Western European and especially American in nature • There are different motives in other cultures: • Maslow in totally different order • Harmony, not letting the team down, quality of work as motivators • Being strongly motivated by money may be unacceptable in some cultures • Some theories, e.g. equity, goal-directed, expectancy, even Hergberg need to be rethought • Motivation must always be considered inrelation to the cultures involved

13. Thank you for listening • Joan Harvey • George Erdos