Motivation illustrates the reason behind why people act in a particular manner. Motivation can be seen as the determination and path of action to have an outcome of achieving a certain goal to gain some kind of necessity or prospect.
There are a number of motivation theories that relates with me as a person but the handiest one is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory. He defines human beings as having eight key needs in order to be motivated but only the hierarchy is normally shown as having five main stages and these are, ranging from the lowest to the highest level: physiological needs, safety needs, love needs, esteem needs and self-actualisation needs. With physiological needs, the reason why I am working part time at present while studying in university is so that I can wear the clothes that I desire, the foods that I wish to eat, go to places I’ve never been to and to obtain other sensory pleasures in my life. After gaining all the physiological needs, my safety is the next level to be concerned about to feel the secureness of what I am doing and to be free from the threat of any deprivation in my surroundings. Love needs is on the third level , which massively affect of the way I behave as having people beside you give you someone to be inspired to work harder and to reach success. Also, having various number of people to work with, gives a smooth environment to work more peacefully and the workplace more enjoyable. The fourth stage is the esteem needs where it involves self-respect and approval of others. This gives an individual more confidence and strength to be independent as for having the freedom and to be trusted on and to be appreciated by everyone around you. Lastly , self-actualisation needs is the development as a person and the recognition of own prospective , as Maslow states ‘ becoming everything that one is capable of becoming’.
In all honesty, taking up accounting and finance in university was not well thought about. Three main motivations gave me the urge to choose this course which are my dream to be successful, family and money. My future aspirations have been the major motivation that pursued me to continue studies in higher levels. In my point of view, by having enough knowledge and qualifications, my experience as an individual will extend and turn me into an independent civilized woman in the future. This reflects Maslow’s view of Self-actualisation needs and esteem needs as having the vision of being more confident and believing that I can fulfil my ambitions. In addition to this, having my parents expectations aside gives me such a gigantic drive to work hard in every way I can and to behave in a suitable way in order to fulfil my dreams as an accountant. Returning to Maslow’s idea of Love needs and esteem needs as having close people to give you reassurance to do better is a substantial motivator. Most of us see money as the key motivator for all the hard work that we insert from the beginning of our lives. As in my point of view, to consume more money, I, as an individual see all the effort to be worthy. Therefore, choosing accounting and finance as a course gave me the outlook of earn a lot of money in the future to pursue my needs and my family. This considers Maslow’s idea of physiological needs and safety needs as having money gives me a chance to purchase all the needs to prevent hunger and thirst and also to feel the secureness of myself and the people important to me.
At the moment, I am working as sales consultant in a private company called Censura Consulting. The company does not have a proper motivation techniques to ensure that their employees are satisfied therefore, various employees leave continuously instead, the company focuses on making profit only, not realising , that they are losing staff, week by week, and suddenly pressurised on how to handle other jobs as for the lack of employees. They demotivate us employees as I believe that the rate of pay they give us is not worth of how much work we do.In addition to this, the way they communicate with their employees are inappropriate and instead of getting motivated from harsh words, most employees instead depart from the company. I believe that it would be a good idea for them to utilise Herzberg’s two factor theory which are the hygiene and motivating factors. Hygiene factors are served to prevent discontent and motivators for the growth of the individual relating to their job. Hygiene factors can be likened to Maslow’s lower level theory and motivators to the higher level theory of Maslow’s theory. Hygiene factors should be used to preclude distastefulness at work and biased treatment , an example would be to think about how the employees are supervised, as having more freedom will make them work harder and building up good working relationships means having a better communication skills on both sides preventing disagreements. While motivators, looks upon how the individual have the quality experience at work and to gain the advancement and recognition from the management.
In conclusion, Maslow’s theory gives an idea of where an individual is working at and how the management can help build the satisfaction of the employee by focusing on their needs compared to the levels of the pyramid , however, there are doubts and limitations whether Maslow’s idea is significant to apply in work situations as there are differences in an individual’s motivational gratification regarding on the culture there in. Herzberg’s theory has its criticisms and supporters. Some people criticises that his theory only applies on monotonous ,unskilled jobs and is limited in range as some workers are not troubled with job contentment and motivators. On the other hand, Crainer and Dearlove states that rewards and remuneration gave a helping hand to the employees to impel them to work harder and happier.
References:
Mullins, L.(2010) Management & organisational Behaviour : ninth edition. Harlow : Pearson Education Limited.
O'neil,H.,Drillings,M.(1994)Motivation:Theory and Research.New Jersey:Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
McClleland,D.(1987).Human Motivation.United States of America:Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge.
Tutor2u Website. Motivation Theories [online] Available from: http://tutor2u.net/business/gcse/people_motivation_theories.htm [Accessed on 12 December 2010]
Well done for posting your first blog and for such a good blog. You did miss out one section about a time when you were demotivated, but you can add this in when you have time.
ReplyDeleteThe only other comment I have is that you need to include references throughout the blog, as if it was a piece of academic work you were due to hand in. Otherwise, a very good blog