What motivates people to work for an organization Essay

High work motivation of employees results in better productivity, lower turnover and absenteeism rates and in greater employee involvement. There are different theories and approaches to work motivation. Arnold outlined three components of motivation: direction, effort and persistence (Woods, West & West, 2010). There are two types of factors affecting work motivation: intrinsic – the ones which depend on the individual, and extrinsic – actions of company’s management (Woods, West & West, 2010). For example, in the Western society intrinsic motivation is used by many S&P 500 companies; e.g. at Google employees are given a lot of freedom and are allowed to spend 20% of their time on personal projects. This is clearly intrinsic motivation. On the other hand, Japanese companies often use the principles of extrinsic motivation, as they rely on family traditions and prolonged profit sharing as the sources of motivation for their employees.
According to the theory of needs, people are motivated to work by their needs and wants, and if the work satisfies these needs, motivation is high. Maslow identified five levels of needs: physiological needs, safety, social needs, self-esteem and self-fulfillment (Woods, West & West, 2010). According to Maslow, people are trying to secure the lower levels, and once the needs of the lower levels are satisfied, the needs of employees focus on higher levels. Here both Western and Japanese styles address the lower needs first (e.g. payment and incentives factors for Western companies and lifelong employment for Japanese companies). Overall, the approaches to motivation discussed above match Maslow’s scheme as well, and it is optimal for companies to consider the lower levels of Maslow’s pyramid first of all, and then to address higher levels for reaching higher employee motivation and loyalty.