What Motives An Employee At An Individual Level, Not As A Group Or Collective

“Incentives are the cornerstone of modern life”(Levitt and Dubner 12). Levitt and Dubner once mentioned in their book “Freakonomics”. According to Oxford dictionary, incentives are something tends to incite to action or greater effort, as a reward offered for increased productivity (“incentives”). In business field, incentives are something given by bosses to encourage their employees to endeavour in bringing benefits to their business. For a simple example, the employee who hits the monthly or year sales target will get cash or prizes as incentives. Apparently, these incentives are something that motivates employees maintains their great performance and also to motivate other employee, whoever wants to get the incentives, work harder.

Motivation is derived from an internal force that provides an individual the opportunity to achieve their needs or goals. People are motivated by a variety of things and often have different motivating factors. Employers should be mindful of individual motivating factors when attempting to motivate staff to increase performance. While some people may be motivated by money, many are motivated by things like: recognition, promotion, and increased responsibility. Once an employer has identified motivating factors they are able to analyze a variety of motivational theories to design and implement a program that will motivate employees to go above and beyond what is expected of them.

We live in a society in which people are believed to be motivated by highly energizing and engaging rewards such as pay, job security, benefits and working conditions, all of which are extrinsic rewards. According to Daniel Pink’s book Drive – The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, he writes that these extrinsic rewards are in fact not the best ways in which to obtain and maintain motivation. Pink gives a new perspective on motivation in the workplace; it is argued that human motivation is largely intrinsic and that the aspects of this motivation can be divided into autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Based on the extrinsic reward motivation theory, low financial compensation can hinder motivation and performance in your profession,

Employees are motivated by both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. In order for the reward system to be effective, it must encompass both sources of motivation. Studies have found that among employees surveyed, money was not the most important motivator, and in some instances managers have found money to have a de-motivating or negative effect on employees.  This research paper addresses the definition of rewards in the work environment context, the importance of rewarding employees for their job performance, motivators to employee performance such as extrinsic and intrinsic rewards, Herzberg’s two-factor theory in relation to rewarding employees, Hackman and Oldman model of job enrichment that

Pay and Rewards – pay and rewards attract, motivate and retain staff. The employment contract which lists rewards, whether it be pay, bonus or benefits, can remove animosity amongst employees and employers. However, recent research reveals that employees are no longer motivated by a financial reward alone, but

The implication of financial rewards are fairly debatable and have gained significant attention through numerous publications. The sizeable influence of this subject has generated major controversy over the potential impact of this trend. Over the decade, many scholars have discussed this phenomenon while citing credible sources.Therefore, I consummately accord with this statement that rewarding an individual for his service is both encouraging and motivating for others. Additionally, employees could also include group rewards such as dinners and holidays.

Motivation is important to keep the employees committed towards their job responsibilities and dedicated towards the corporate wide objectives of their organization. It is one of the core functions performed by the Human Resource Department of an organization. There are different management techniques which can be used by organizations to motivate their employees. These techniques include monetary or financial rewards and non-monetary or non-financial rewards. Monetary rewards are the extrinsic factors of motivation. These rewards include salary, bonuses, periodic or performance based increments, cash rewards, discounted product or service packages, and other financial benefits. On the other hand, non-monetary rewards include all those intrinsic factors that do not involve money; for example performance appraisal, promotion to higher job positions, greater responsibilities, job rotation, etc. Both these types of rewards are given by organizations to motivate their employees and keep them committed towards their job responsibilities. The Literature is full of the researches carried out on different motivational factors and techniques which organizations from all over the world use in different situations. The purpose of this paper is to critically review some recent research studies which compare different motivational techniques and discuss their usefulness and efficacy for the business organizations.

Reward Management (RM) has been defined as the distribution of monetary and non-monetary rewards to employees in an effort to align the interests of the employees, the organisation, and its shareholders (O’Neil, 1998). In addition O’Neil (1998) also suggests that a RM system can serve the purpose of attracting prospective job applicants, retaining valuable employees, motivating employees, ensuring legal requirements relating to direct and indirect rewards are not violated, assisting the company in achieving human resource and business objectives, and ultimately assisting the organisation in obtaining a competitive advantage.

A good manager or supervisor will implement a reward system. Employee award systems are used for motivation to ones employees, with the goal being not to just meet expectations but to exceed them performing at their best capabilities. This system includes all benefits monetary and non-monetary that proves to be worth something to the employee. Implementing a reward system for a human services organization will help ensure basic needs are met, competitive benefits are offered, benefits are equally distributed, and empoyees are treated as individuals. I will include intrinsic and extrinsic rewards in my system. “A suitable reward systems is essential to ensuring that an

In previous chapters, we discussed that pay is not the most important idea that motivates employees. However if you want to keep great talent that employed and working to build the company. Pay is a great way to stimulate performance. In 2006 a study concluded that 45 percent of employers thought the pay was the cause of losing their best workers, 71 percent of these workers specified that it was the number one cause for them leaving (Robbins & Judge, 2009). "Good introductory paragraph

Add to that the global marketplace setting and economy to see that this is not an easy task for managers to pull off. In a peer-reviewed journal article by experts Aguinis, Joo, and Gottfredson entitled, “What Monetary Rewards Can And Cannot Do: How To Show Employees The Money,” a general discourse explains the pros and cons of monetary rewards while giving their best thoughts on how to improve employee performance. Also in terms of employee rewards other related issued are discussed such as timeliness, balance of monetary and non-monetary incentives, precise measurements of performance and provision of offering guidelines for management to implement. All in all each business is individualized and should match a sensitivity to understanding employees' unique expressions, feelings, and talents and reward accordingly.

Ever since the 1930’s there has been a considerable amount of research done to answer one simple question,’Is remuneration the sole motivator in a workplace and if not is it a demotivator’.Even today the question hasn’t had a definitive answer with many arguing for and many against. But in today’s workplace even if opportunities were unlimited it will be especially hard for people to create their ideal salary.In the past people only worked for remuneration as they had much less needs and the remuneration they got was enough to satisfy their limited needs.But in todays world with an unprecedented growth in technology and other areas like the internet has increased our needs drastically .In the past the approach of people towards life and

Consequently, the only way that employees can attempt to satisfy their higher level needs in their work is by seeking more compensation, so it is quite predictable that they will focus on monetary rewards. While money may not be the most effective way to self-fulfillment, in a Theory X environment it may be the only way. Under Theory

An incentive pay program can reward employees who continue to produce superior work or encourage employees who already produce good work to best. Sometimes, use an incentive system when employees are lack of enthusiasm of getting down to work and improving things. If everyone in the same job classification gets the same pay, there is no real incentive to do an outstanding job (French, 1990). Various incentive plans used to motivate all employees such as production staff, sales staff, administrative staff and managerial and professional staff on an individual basis. To be improved employee work performance, the incentive pay programs need to be fairly matched with the employees’ expectation. Properly designed and maintained incentive pay program has the potential to increase employees’ productivity and work performance.

Reward management is related to factors that can indulge the unsatisfied needs of employees. This will encourage employees to deploy themselves towards an organization to achieve organizational goal, building up trust and being committed toward the organization, which can induce them to be retained long term in the organization.