POWER UP A WINNER - Plant Services

HUMan CAPitaL
Tom Moriarty, P.E., CmrP
Maintenance vs. motivation
Who’s Herzberg and why should I care
Frederick Herzberg was a highly respected social psychologist
who developed a theory of employee motivation.
He asked a group of workers to think about times when they
had particularly good feelings about their jobs, and times
when they felt particularly bad about their jobs. Herzberg
also asked them to describe the feelings they had at those
times. What he found was that workers associate distinct
types of conditions as either good or bad situations. His
research separated the factors that influence how people feel
about their work into two categories: maintenance factors
and motivational factors.
Maintenance factors are necessary to maintain a reasonable
level of job satisfaction. Maintenance factors include:
• Policies and administration – the adequacy or inadequacy
of a company’s organization and management
• Supervision – its competency, fairness and ability
• Interpersonal relationships – the bond between people
and their peers, subordinates and supervisors
• Working conditions – the physical environment where
work is performed
• Salary – the employee’s total compensation package
• Personal life – the effect the job has on personal concerns,
including family, recreation, etc.
• Status – the attainment of perks relative to the person’s
position, including parking spots, better computer, etc.
• Job security – the work environment safety and stability
He found that people talk about maintenance factors
when they cite bad feelings about their jobs. The presence of
maintenance factors won’t motivate people to achieve higher
performance, but some minimum level of each maintenance
factor is required to prevent dissatisfaction with the work
environment. Too much dissatisfaction can lead to a longterm
problem and a roadblock to motivation. Some longterm
problems likely to surface include retaining employees,
requests for transfer out of the department, absenteeism, etc.
Motivational factors increase the likelihood that people
will perform better, with less supervision. When people have
good feelings about their jobs, they usually were talking
about motivational factors. Motivational factors include:
• Achievement – personal satisfaction in completing a job
• Recognition – feedback about job accomplishment
• Work – the actual content or the individual’s perceived
value of the work
• Responsibility – control over one’s job, or being in
charge of a team
• Advancement – an upward change in job status
• Growth – learning and trying new skills or experiences
On a daily basis, a supervisor has much more control over
In the day-to-day grind, we often
don’t think enough about enriching
job satisfaction.
motivational factors than maintenance factors. A supervisor
can arrange to give workers a sense of achievement and positive
recognition for good work. A supervisor can empower
team members with greater responsibilities and provide
opportunities for professional growth.
Keep maintenance factors as stable as possible to prevent
dissatisfaction, and load the work environment with motivational
factors. Think of the work environment as a ship. The
ship has to float on the water; a watertight hull is the nautical
equivalent of the maintenance factors. However, a ship
that sits at the pier won’t do much, so you need motivational
factors, a propulsion device and rudder, to maneuver.
In the day-to-day grind of trying to keep ahead of things, we
often don’t think enough about enriching the job satisfaction of
our subordinates. If you lead people, focus on providing at least
one of the following things to everyone on your team:
• Meaningful work – purposeful tasks that are perceived
to be important
• Responsibility – an appropriate level of autonomy in
how a person carries out a task
• Knowledge of the results of their efforts. Provide either
direct feedback about how a specific task was completed
or enable the worker to see how their efforts fit into the
larger picture.
Tom Moriarty, P.E., CMRP, is president of Alidade MER Inc.
Contact him at tjmpe@alidade-mer.com and (321) 773-3356.
www.PLANTSERVICES.com APRIL 2009 19