Human Resources Management

Human Resource Management

What makes an individual work hard? Draw on your knowledge of relevant motivation theory for your answer.

The success of any business depends largely on the motivation of the employees. Human resources are essential to the prosperity, productivity and performance of any company. Motivation is the key to creating an environment where optimal performance is possible. So how do you ensure that individual motivation is at its peak within your workplace?

Every person has their own set of motivations and personal incentives to work hard or not as the case may be. Some are motivated by recognition whilst others are motivated by cash incentives. Whatever the employees motivation, the key to promoting that motivation as an employer is understanding and incentive.

Employee incentive programs go a long way towards ensuring employees feel appreciated and worthwhile. This alone can help with employee motivation across the board. The great thing about these programs is they are very individualized. That is you tailor your programs to suit the needs and wants of your employees. Incentive programs increase motivation because they are not only encouraging productive performance but also show employees the company cares.

There are a number of different views as to what motivates workers. The most commonly held views or theories are discussed below and have been developed over the last 100 years or so. Unfortunately these theories do not all reach the same conclusions!

Taylor

Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856 - 1917) put forward the idea that workers are motivated mainly by pay. His Theory of Scientific Management argued the following:

Workers do not naturally enjoy work and so need close supervision and control

Therefore managers should break down production into a series of small tasks

Workers should then be given appropriate training and tools so they can work as efficiently as possible on one set task.

Workers are then paid according to the number of items they produce in a set period of time- piece-rate pay.

As a result workers are encouraged to work hard and maximise their productivity.

However workers soon came to dislike Taylor's approach as they were only given boring, repetitive tasks to carry out and were being treated little better than human machines. Firms could also afford to lay off workers as productivity levels increased. This led to an increase in strikes and other forms of industrial action by dis-satisfied workers.

Mayo

Elton Mayo (1880 - 1949) believed that workers are not just concerned with money but could be better motivated by having their social needs met whilst at work (something that Taylor ignored). He introduced the Human Relation School of thought, which focused on managers taking more of an interest in the workers, treating them as people who have worthwhile opinions and realising that workers enjoy interacting together. From this Mayo concluded that workers are best motivated by:

Better communication between managers and workers ( Hawthorne workers were consulted over the experiments and also had the opportunity to give feedback)

Greater manager involvement in employees working lives ( Hawthorne workers responded to the increased ...