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This is especially relevant in the service industry, such as that of tourism, where the client has direct contact with the service provider, that is, the worker, and if the worker feels satisfied with his effort and productivity, the likelihood of him/her giving a high quality service to the nonuser Inevitably Increases. The issue, of course, arises when one tries to Identify ways by which productivity can be efficiently Improved within the organization. It has been recognized that one way of effectively doing is by having managers or superiors successfully motivating their subordinates.
Theories show that motivating people is very much linked to the human resources department as this division is defined as that unit which seeks to create a competitive advantage to the organization, by building a strong work force. As to motivation, according to Lutheran (1998), titivation Is a management tool that Is used to Influence the behavior of a person, based on the knowledge the influencer has about how that person is inspired or triggered off; stimulating people to work harder and reach their goals.
Through effective motivation, workers in an organization would feel more satisfied and that company would actually be cost effective by investing in motivational efforts as expenses linked to inadequate productivity, such as idle time, are decreased. Yet, motivating people is not a simple assignment to pull off. Lutheran (1998) sustains that he key to properly motivate people is by first understanding the relationship between a person and what drives or encourages him/her. As Dilemma and Tone (2006), motivation has been commonly looked at from two main perspectives: motivation from the actual Job and motivation to perform.
The first one refers to the fact that an employee cannot be satisfied with his work or be eager to do the Job if his workplace does not fulfill the basic needs for a content worker. This could very much be linked to Mascots hierarchy of needs where he Identifies 5 levels of needs hat must be present In order for a person to be motivated, In this case, at work. First there are the psychological, or basic, needs. These are necessities such as food and drink, which translate into wages and salaries when the workplace is taken into consideration. Studies show that pay is one of the most effective motivational tools that an organization could use.
If the Job that is being done does not pay as much as it should, the worker would Inevitably feel less motivated to work. This goes in line with Dam’s equity theory which suggests that people calculate the fairness of their ay by considering the input they are giving the organization, in term of skills and effort. The idea off raise is also relevant here. If an employee wants to get a raise in his/her salary, he/she will be more motivated to work harder in order to achieve this goal. Then there are safety needs which refer to the workplace’s health and safety measures that should be present in order for the worker to feel secure in his Job.
This may be Interpreted In two different ways. First there Is the obvious meaning of workplace is a safe one, the perception of his work will not be a positive one and inconsequently, the willingness to work would decrease. One the other hand, we could consider safety of the Job in terms of one’s employment guarantee – the knowledge of having and keeping the Job. If a person feels that any minute, without real reasoning, his/her Job is going to be taken away from him/her despite his/her best efforts, that person would feel less motivated to work since there is not much that could be done to keep the post.
Third are the social needs which are present if the worker feels part of the organization and there is a shared feeling of belongingness. Here one just consider the relationship within the organization – between the different levels of worker hierarchy in the company. Workers, especially those on full-time basis, spend long hours with their fellow colleagues at work so proper communication and relationship building is quite important. This is not only needed between colleagues, however, but also between managers and their subordinates.
This way, an organization has a better employee moral throughout all the departments which encourages better teamwork and increased productivity. The forth level in Mascots hierarchy of needs is dedicated to esteem needs. These refer to a person’s need of feeling appreciated and respected by others. To have this at the workplace, an employee must feel that his/her work and presence is valued and not being taken for granted, while also being of good contribution to the overall goals of the organization. If this is felt, an employee is more likely to feel motivated to work harder because that extra effort would not be in vain.
After all four of these levels are satisfied, the employee would then seek to achieve the last level of needs, the self actualization needs. This is when the employee tries to successfully turn opportunities into ways y which his/her full potential is reached. This is done if the organization allows the employees to show their skills in projects, letting them embarking on assignments and take responsibility for them. Since this would mean that they are putting their name on the results of the projects, motivation to do a good Job and show the organization what they are made of inevitably increases.
From these five different levels of needs that encourage motivation throughout the workforce, one could easily realism that motivation does not simply come to be from financial incentives like pay ND bonuses but also from factors that are not linked to money, but rather, to a positive relationship between the different workers. According to Chatter (2013), financial rewards fall on the seventh place in a list often factors that motivate employees, after things like achievements, creativity and fun.
This strongly suggests that motivation cannot be bought – a thought that some organizations are seen to still hold close to heart. This goes in line with the intrinsic and extrinsic sources of motivation at work that have been referred to in numerous studies in HRS management. The idea here is that motivation is encourages through two opposing” (Ryan n. D) forces. From one side, there are the extrinsic motivational tools, those which are known to be outside one’s personal self-esteem and are in the form of financial benefits.
One who is driven solely by extrinsic factors would be one who works not for the sake of working and reaching one’s full potential at work, but for materialistic reasons. On the other hand, there is intrinsic motivation which is when a person is doing a Job he/she loves and extrinsic forces are secondary – the intrinsic motivation is found in every employee but in reality, society has been encouraging workers to have extrinsic motivation which takes the focus off intrinsic motivation.
It is important that an organization manages to find a balance between these different types of motivation, not taking it for granted that if a person is given money, that person will work hard. It could be seen that an organization could motivate people if importance is given to achieving this goal. However, if need for motivation is taken for granted, the employees are less likely to invest much time and energy in doing a good Job and the productivity level of that organization would suffer a serious decrease.
In fact, according to Michael Page, there are seven main ways by which a company could De-motivate its employees. These include having lack of career development opportunities, giving unfair workloads or lack of appreciation, having no proper communication and paying low wages. Work must be done in order to avoid De-motivating the workforce and it is seen that this goal does not necessarily require money to be achieved so investing in it would indeed be financially benefiting when taking into consideration the increased productivity.
Taking a respected five star hotel, focusing on its housekeeping department, as an example, en could clearly see that if workers are not motivated to work and not much is being done to avoid De-motivation- their performance will simply be inadequate for what the organization would be aiming for. Like many other luxury hotels, this hotel in topic offers what is known as the turn down service. It is seen that the workers are mostly of two types – there are those who work at the hotel as housekeepers in the morning and there are those who simply do the turn down service.
This is already problematic. The first set of employees would be working from 8. 30 in the morning until 5. 0 in the afternoon, leaving them Just about an hour in between commencing work again, this time for the turn down shift at 6. Pm. Furthermore, most of them work these double shifts three or four times a week. It would fair to say that by the time the turn down shift starts, these maids would be exhausted and tired of work. Then there are the other workers, those who come to the hotel for the evening shift only.
Most of these maids do not have experience in housekeeping and although they are provided training, their training stops at what is required for the turn down service. Sometimes, however, they are asked to perform tasks that require knowledge about the housekeeping system and standards of the hotel and since they do not have this, their service is not what the client would be expecting. The issue here lies on the fact that workers are either seriously tired or are untrained for the Job. Another issue is observed when one looks at the supervision these maids are given.
Supervisors of the turn down maids take the Job lightly and not much supervision is done throughout the shift. This is due to the fact that the supervisors are in turn not being properly supervised by the duty manager. When the duty manager does go round the hotel, the maids and supervisor are motivated to work efficiently, as they fear that they would otherwise get in trouble. Although this might mean that productivity is encouraged, it is not being done in an ideal way and clearly shows issues in the relationship between the manager and the employees.
The relationship between the supervisor and the maids, however, is usually a much friendlier one which means that the maids are more likely to do a good Job as to avoid getting their encouraged through fear, but also through respect. Although the latter is positive, he former is definitely not ideal and should be eliminated. As mentioned, getting awarded for good work or at least recognized for it is one of the most effective motivational tools an organization could use. The hotel uses this tool to encourage its workers but unfortunately, another issue could be seen when taking it and the turn down shift into consideration.
For the maids that work long hours at the hotel, doing a good Job in the turn down shift would increase their chances of being awarded Employee of the month so motivation is derived from this fact. For the other maids, however, it is actually De-motivating. Since the shift is only three hours long and not much importance is given to it, those maids that only work this shift are hardly ever, if not never, awarded the title of employee of the month because when compared to the other employees’ work, theirs is not as impressive.
The problem here is that these maids would feel it unfair, and rightly so, that their work is not being appreciated as that of the others and working hard would not really be encouraged through this extrinsic force since it apparently does not apply to them. For the above reasons, the turn down service at this hotel is not up to standards. It needs to be given some serious thought and changes must be made in the department. These maids have direct contact with the hotel residents and influence the overall experience of these occupants, even if the contact is Just for a couple of minutes every day.
Both the organization and the maids should not take the turn down work for granted and managers should implement adequate motivational means to better and increase productivity and work standard. As illustrated with the different studies and theories, motivating work throughout the workforce can give nothing but benefits ND unlike many other things that could be used to increase productivity, it does not rely on money to be created. Organizations must realism that the workers are people; and people need to be treated the way they believe is correct in order to give out their full potential at work.