Foundations of
Employee Motivation
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
McShane/Von Glinow OB 5e
Copyright © 2010 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Employee Motivation and
Engagement at Rackspace
Rackspace hosting has a
highly motivated and engaged
workforce by rewarding
performance, fulfilling personal
needs, and providing
strengths-based feedback.
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Motivation Defined

The forces within a person
that affect the direction,
intensity, and persistence of
voluntary behavior

Exerting particular effort level
(intensity), for a certain
amount of time (persistence),
toward a particular goal
(direction).
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Employee Engagement
Emotional and cognitive
motivation, self-efficacy to
perform the job, a clear
understanding of one’s role
in the organization’s vision
and a belief that one has the
resources to perform the job
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Drives and Needs

Drives (aka-primary needs, fundamental needs,
innate motives)
• Neural states that energize individuals to correct deficiencies
or maintain an internal equilibrium
• Prime movers of behavior by activating emotions
Self-concept, social norms,
and past experience
Drives
(primary needs)
Needs
Decisions and
Behavior
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Drives and Needs

Needs
• Goal-directed forces that people experience.
• Drive-generated emotions directed toward goals
• Goals formed by self-concept, social norms, and experience
Self-concept, social norms,
and past experience
Drives
(primary needs)
Needs
Decisions and
Behavior
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Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy Theory
Seven categories
capture most needs
Five categories placed
in a hierarchy
Selfactualization
Need to
know
Need for
beauty
Esteem
Belongingness
Safety
Physiological
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Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy Theory
Selfactualization
Need to
know

Lowest unmet need has
strongest effect
Need for
beauty

When lower need is
satisfied, next higher need
becomes the primary
motivator

Self-actualization -- a
growth need because
people desire more rather
than less of it when satisfied
Esteem
Belongingness
Safety
Physiological
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Evaluating Maslow’s Theory
Need to
know
Selfactualization
Need for
beauty

Lack of support for theory

People have different
hierarchies – don’t progress
through needs in the same
order

Needs change more rapidly
than Maslow stated
Esteem
Belongingness
Safety
Physiological
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What Maslow Contributed to
Motivation Theory

More holistic
• Integrative view of needs

More humanistic
• Influence of social
dynamics, not just instinct

More positivistic
• Pay attention to strengths,
not just deficiencies
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What’s Wrong with Needs Hierarchy
Models?


Wrongly assume that
everyone has the same
needs hierarchy (i.e.
universal)
Instead, likely that each
person has a unique needs
hierarchy
• Shaped by our self-concept --
values and social identity
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Learned Needs Theory

Needs are amplified or suppressed through
self-concept, social norms, and past
experience

Therefore, needs can be “learned” (i.e.
strengthened or weakened through training)
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Three Learned Needs
Need for achievement
• Need to reach goals, take responsibility
• Want reasonably challenging goals
Need for affiliation
• Desire to seek approval, conform to others wishes,
avoid conflict
• Effective executives have lower need for social approval
Need for power
• Desire to control one’s environment
• Personalized versus socialized power
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Four-Drive Theory
Drive to Acquire
• Drive to take/keep objects and
experiences
• Basis of hierarchy and status
Drive to Bond
• Drive to form relationships and
social commitments
• Basis of social identity
Drive to Learn
• Drive to satisfy curiosity and
resolve conflicting information
Drive to Defend
• Need to protect ourselves
• Reactive (not proactive) drive
• Basis of fight or flight
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Features of Four Drives
Innate and hardwired
• everyone has them
Independent of each other
• no hierarchy of drives
Complete set
• no drives are excluded from the model
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How Four Drives Affect Motivation
1.
Four drives determine which emotions are
automatically tagged to incoming information
2.
Drives generate independent and often
competing emotions that demand our
attention
3.
Mental skill set relies on social norms,
personal values, and experience to
transform drive-based emotions into goaldirected choice and effort
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Four Drive Theory of Motivation
Drive to
Acquire
Drive to
Bond
Drive to
Learn
Social
norms
Personal
values
Past
experience
Mental skill set resolves
competing drive demands
Goal-directed
choice and effort
Drive to
Defend
Social norms, personal values, and
experience transform drive-based emotions
into goal-directed choice and effort
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Implications of Four Drive Theory
Provide a balanced opportunity for employees
to fulfil all four drives
• employees continually seek fulfilment of drives
• avoid having conditions support one drive more
than others
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Expectancy Theory of Motivation
E-to-P
Expectancy
P-to-O
Expectancy
Outcomes
& Valences
Outcome 1
+ or -
Effort
Performance
Outcome 2
+ or -
Outcome 3
+ or -
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Increasing E-to-P and P-to-O
Expectancies

Increasing E-to-P Expectancies
• Assuring employees they have competencies
• Person-job matching
• Provide role clarification and sufficient resources
• Behavioral modeling

Increasing P-to-O Expectancies
• Measure performance accurately
• More rewards for good performance
• Explain how rewards are linked to performance
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Increasing Outcome Valences

Ensure that rewards are valued

Individualize rewards

Minimize countervalent outcomes
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Making Every Day Count in NYC
New York City mayor Michael
Bloomberg has challenging goals
to accomplish, and he doesn’t
want any of his remaining tenure
wasted. Bloomberg had special
clocks installed in a dozen city
government offices that count
down how many days remain in
his mayoral term.
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Goal Setting
The process of motivating
employees and clarifying their role
perceptions by establishing
performance objectives
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Effective Goal Setting Characteristics
Specific -- measureable change
within a time frame
Relevant – within employee’s control
and responsibilities
Challenging – raise level of effort
Accepted (commitment) – motivated
to accomplish the goal
Participative (sometimes) –
improves acceptance and goal
quality
Feedback – information available
about progress toward goal
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Characteristics of Effective Feedback
Specific – connected to goal details
2. Relevant – Relates to person’s behavior
3. Timely – to improve link from behavior to
outcomes
4. Sufficiently frequent
1.
• Employee’s knowledge/experience
• task cycle
5.
Credible – trustworthy source
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Feedback Through Strengths-Based
Coaching
Maximizing the person’s potential by focusing
on their strengths rather than weaknesses
 Motivational because:

• people inherently seek feedback about their
strengths, not their flaws
• person’s interests, preferences, and competencies
stabilize over time
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Multisource Feedback

Received from a full circle of people around
the employee
 Provides more complete and accurate
information
 Several challenges
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Evaluating Goal Setting and Feedback

Goal setting has high validity and
usefulness
 Goal setting/feedback limitations:
• Focuses employees on measurable
performance
• Motivates employees to set easy
goals (when tied to pay)
• Goal setting interferes with learning
process in new, complex jobs
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Keeping Pay Equitable at Costco
Costco Wholesale CEO Jim Sinegal
(shown in this photo) thinks the large
wage gap between many executives
and employees is blatantly unfair.
“Having an individual who is making
100 or 200 or 300 times more than the
average person working on the floor is
wrong,” says Sinegal, whose salary
and bonus are a much smaller
multiple of what his staff earn.
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Organizational Justice
Distributive justice
• Perceived fairness in
outcomes we receive relative
to our contributions and the
outcomes and contributions of
others
Procedural justice
• Perceived fairness of the
procedures used to decide the
distribution of resources
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Organizational Justice Components
Distribution
Principles
Distributive
Justice
Perceptions
• Emotions
• Attitudes
Structural
Rules
Social
Rules
Procedural
Justice
Perceptions
• Behaviors
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Elements of Equity Theory
Outcome/input ratio
• inputs -- what employee contributes (e.g., skill)
• outcomes -- what employee receives (e.g., pay)
Comparison other
• person/people against whom we compare our ratio
• not easily identifiable
Equity evaluation
• compare outcome/input ratio with the comparison
other
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Correcting Inequity Feelings
Actions to correct inequity
Example
Reduce our inputs
Less organizational citizenship
Increase our outcomes
Ask for pay increase
Increase other’s inputs
Ask coworker to work harder
Reduce other’s outputs
Ask boss to stop giving other preferred
treatment
Change our perceptions
Start thinking that other’s perks aren’t
really so valuable
Change comparison other
Compare self to someone closer to your
situation
Leave the field
Quit job
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Equity Sensitivity

Outcome/input preferences and reaction to
various outcome/input ratios
 Benevolents
• tolerant of being underrewarded

Equity Sensitives
• want ratio to be equal to the comparison other

Entitleds
• prefer proportionately more than others
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Evaluating Equity Theory

Good at predicting situations unfair
distribution of pay/rewards

Difficult to put into practice
• doesn’t identify comparison other
• doesn’t indicate relevant inputs or outcomes

Equity theory explains only some feelings of
fairness
• procedural justice is as important as distributive
justice
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Procedural Justice

Perceived fairness of procedures used to
decide the distribution of resources
 Higher procedural fairness with:
• Voice
• Unbiased decision maker
• Decision based on all information
• Existing policies consistently
• Decision maker listened to all sides
• Those who complain are treated respectfully
• Those who complain are given full explanation
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Foundations of
Employee Motivation
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
McShane/Von Glinow OB 5e
Copyright © 2010 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
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