Recent Challenges faced by Employers in Motivation

Recent Challenges faced by Employers in Motivation

Introduction

On a very general level, motivation may be understood as the desire of a person to achieve or gain something. This desire is so strong that the person is willing to work towards achievement of his goal. In the organization setting, employee performance is closely related to level of motivation (Armstrong, 2010). High performers have the desire and the energy combined in the form of high level of motivation through which they are able to achieve the goals they set for themselves. Hence, motivation is considered an important determinant of creativity, energy, and commitment that is brought by employees to their job. Most performance issues in work settings arise because employers for the larger part of their work remain unclear as to what is expected of them (Javitch Associates, 2012). The paper discusses some of the challenges that relate to employee demotivation and suggests measures managers can take to overcome the issue. It also sheds light on the issues in organizational behavior.

Challenges faced by managers

In order to understand the challenges faced by employers in motivating their employees, it is imperative to disuses the sources of demotivation (Campion & McClelland, 1991). Demotivation can be a consequence of lack of skill variety, low task identity whereby a person is performing a task but is not being associated with or rewarded for it, low task significance, poor feedback about results and lack of autonomy (Judge & Thoresen, 2001). These five factors have been identified as Five Dimensions of Motivating Potential by Hackman & Oldham and are collectively called MPS.

One of the major challenges of employee motivation is that different people are motivated by different things. This is linked with what a person seeks or what may be called as the reason for the person to come for work each morning. While some look for material reward for performance par excellence, others may be happier with an exchange of a few positive words from the reporting authority (Armstrong, 2010). For yet another recognition and appreciation is all it takes to motivate. This makes motivation very difficult in that no one thing can be applicable to all the employees of the organization. Customization has a cost associated with it in terms of time and money and has to be aligned with the policy framework (Campion & McClelland, 1991).

Another major difficulty in motivation ...