BUS272 TB

154 Part 2 Striving for Performance
8 Discuss the ethics
behind motivation
t h e o r i e s .
M o t i v a t i o n f o r W h o m ?
An ongoing debate among organizational behaviour scholars is, Who benefits from
the theories of motivation? 107 Some argue that motivation theories are only intended
to help managers get more productivity out of employees, and are little concerned
with employees beyond improvements in productivity. Thus, needs theories, process
theories, and theories concerned with fairness could be interpreted not as ways to help
employees get what they want or need, but rather as means to help managers get what
they want from employees. In his review of “meaningful work” literature, professor
Christopher Michaelson of New York University Stern finds that researchers propose
that organizations have a moral obligation to provide employees with “free choice to
enter, honest communication, fair and respectful treatment, intellectual challenge,
considerable independence to determine work methods, democratic participation in
decision making, moral development, due process and justice, nonpaternalism, and
fair compensation.” 108
Michaelson suggests that scholars concerned with meaningful work should focus on
the conditions of the workplace and improving those conditions. He also suggests that
researchers have a moral obligation to make workplaces better for employees. While
productivity may be a by-product of better work conditions, the important thing is for
employers to treat employees well, and to consider the needs of employees as an end
in itself. By contrast, he argues, mainstream motivation theory does not consider the
moral obligation of employers to their employees, but it does consider ways to ensure
employees are more productive.
While this debate is not easily resolved, and may well guide the elaboration of motivation
theories in years to come, it does inspire a provocative analysis of why employers
provide the workplace conditions they do.
9 Summarize the essence
of what we know about
motivating employees.
Putting It All Together
While it’s always dangerous to synthesize a large number of complex ideas into a few
simple guidelines, the following suggestions summarize the essence of what we know
about motivating employees in organizations:
• Recognize individual differences. Employees have different needs and should
not be treated alike. Managers should spend the time necessary to understand
what is important to each employee and then align goals, level of involvement,
and rewards with individual needs.
• Use goals and feedback. Employees should have challenging, specific goals, as
well as feedback on how well they are doing in pursuit of those goals.
• Allow employees to participate in decisions that affect them. Employees should
contribute to a number of decisions that affect them: setting work goals,
choosing their own benefits packages, solving productivity and quality problems,
and the like. Doing so can increase employee productivity, commitment
to work goals, motivation, and job satisfaction.
• When giving rewards, be sure that they reward desired performance. Rewards
should be linked to the type of performance expected. It’s important that
employees perceive a clear linkage. How closely rewards are actually correlated
to performance criteria is less important than the perception of this relationship.
If individuals perceive this relationship to be low, the results will be low
performance, a decrease in job satisfaction, and an increase in turnover and
absenteeism.
• Check the system for equity. Employees should be able to perceive rewards
as equating with the inputs they bring to the job. At a simplistic level, this