EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION
Final Paper
MAY 15, 2015
RANJAN THAPA
ENG 101E
PROFESSOR CHOCOS
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Employee Motivation
Employee are workers who work part-time or full-time under an agreement on the
job, whether it is oral or written, express or implied. Those agreements have perceived
rights and duties for them to work. Work is a means of income for our life hood. It is
certain that the vast majority of us work in order to earn money, while others accomplish
for self-improvement and for the contribution to the society. The work furnishes us with
an inner creative joy. Work saves us from the dullness and boredom in our everyday life.
Each individual needs to work for different reasons, regardless of whether he is the son of
the millionaire or of the laborer battling with poverty. “Hard Work is a key to success”, is
a well-known proverb. Hard work helps us to develop our potential to the maximum and
strive for excellence in various fields. The most common reasons for employee to work are
to acquire enormous money, self-improvement, fulfill dreams, personal goals and in search
of a better future and opportunities.
Motivation comes from the Latin word ‘movere’, which means impetus or driving
force. Motivation is vital in any work. The motivation of each individual is his willingness
to work hard and enthusiastically to achieve ultimate goal. In other word, Motivation is an
inner desire to achieve a goal combined with the energy to work towards that goal. There
is an old saying, you can take a horse to the water yet you cannot constrain it to drink. It
will only drink if it’s thirsty, so with individuals. We can show employees how to work,
provide them with the opportunity to learn or do some things, but we can never force them
to act or accept opportunity provided. For instance, when an egg break from outside force
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the life ends, but if it breaks from inside force the life begins, the great thing always begins
from inside, so with individuals and employees. In order to achieve goals, there should be
hard work along with inner stimulus. The inner force that makes employee work and gives
them inspiration to accomplish the job. It also increases employee commitment and performance towards work. Employee work, yet the effort they put into their work depends
on how motivated they are.
Today, Money isn't clarify as a green piece of paper that has a worth any longer.
The word Money characterizes a reason and a required component to discover satisfaction
and happiness. As a result, today's people work to accomplish the desire of money. Employee envisions that higher pay should give best results, yet logical confirmation demonstrates that the connection between pay is significantly more unpredictable. In reality, many
research proves that even if we let employee choose how much they should earn, they
would probably not enjoy their job more. For instance, in ted talk feature by Dan Ariely,
Ariely gave participants paper and guidelines to assemble a structure. Those Participants
were asked toward the end the amount they'd pay for the item. In a second trial, Ariely
conceals the guidelines for a few members, resulting about a harder process and coming
about uglier item. In the first experiment, the developers paid five times as much as those
who just evaluated the product. In the second experiment, the lack of guidelines exaggerated this difference developers valued the ugly items even more highly than the simpler,
prettier ones, while observers valued them even less. This test demonstrates that our valuation of our own work is specifically attached to the exertion we've used. The inner effort
and hard works make the work valuable it’s not just about money. Money is one of the
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major factors that motivates employee their day to day decision at work. Who doesn't like
rewards? Everyone does, therefore money inspires employee to increase their creativity
and productivity. Yet money is not only motivator that inspire employee to try their hardest
work.
I found the article named “MONEY ISN'T ALWAYS THE ONLY MOTIVATOR
FOR WORKERS” in database of library. The article examines the May 2013 World Conference on Quality and Improvement that was held in Indianapolis, Indiana by the American Society for Quality. As per the article, the event involved a lecture on employee motivation from the author Daniel Pink, a panel discussion, and the release of a Global State of
Quality report. Daniel Pink, who disclosed what motivates individuals to act, and to try
their hardest work. "Pay people enough to take the issue of money off the table," Pink said.
The employee should be paid enough so that they can stop thinking about how to make
money for themselves and start thinking about their work. This will ultimately leads to
better performance and better execution of the job. Obviously, money still inspires employees, but it’s not only the motivator. Pink claims that money plays a small role in making the work place happier and more productive. Engagement weights more than money in
term of motivating workers to do their best job. He gave an example of FedEx, where
employees are given a short period of time each week where they can work on whatever
they want. It has led to great innovation. Pink believes the best motivator in day to day
work is, making progress on meaningful work, which definitely increase happiness and
productivity in the workplace. Therefore, employee fulfillment, independence, authority,
and reason are not just about money that results employee best performance.
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In today’s world, it is hard to discover inspiration at our working environment.
Every day, we confront the same environment, same workers and same task which makes
us psyche dull and exhausting. An employee with a good job have abundant opportunity to
improve themselves with experience, ideas, and skills from what they do. A job that drives
employee to improve themselves are more preferable than a job without any improvement
opportunities. In Studs Terkel’s “Who Built the Pyramids?” a character Mike Lefevre
works in a steel factory as a laborer. It’s obvious that Lefevre is negative towards his work,
he thinks “how are you going to get excited about pulling steel? How are you going to get
excited when you’re tired and want to sit down?” (38). In reality he is gloomy and he thinks
he can’t get better. He knows he will confront the same workers, the same boss and does
the same work every day. His work is boring, exhausting, and he loses his passion about
his job. He seems hopeless about improving himself from his pathetic job. He can’t find a
good job where his mental strength would be equally valued as his physical strength due
to lack of education and skills and knowledge. If his job was challenging and he had to
involve his mind along with muscles, then he would probably love his job. When the job
is challenging and have opportunities to improve employee then job are likely to be more
productive and have positive impacts on employees idea and credibility. If we don’t work
to improve our self every day, then we are wasting our life.
Everyone has dreams that they would like to see come true whether they are enormous or little. Dream gives us hope and makes us optimistic towards better tomorrow.
Unlike dreams, goals are something we aim and desire for. Goals play important role in
helping us achieve our dreams. The bitter truth is a goal without an action and effort is just
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a wish. In this present reality, wishes don’t come true. “A dream doesn’t become reality
through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work.”(Colin Powell) is a wellknown proverb. Hard work with inner desire and resolution turns our dream and goals to
reality. The employee is motivated at work which ultimately leads them to active their
goals and dreams. In order to motivate employee positively, we need to figure out what
they are keenly interested in and what are their overpowering burning desire. It’s not always about money or just fun, it's also directly related to their goals and desire. For instance, we come to college with certain goals and future dream. We have many to choose
elective subjects, but among them, we choose the one in which we are keenly interested
and which will support and will have plus points towards our future dreams. We work hard
and give our best in those subjects because they have great impact towards our dreams and
goals. Therefore, dreams and goals motivates employee to improve their performance and
productivity.
Who doesn't want to have a better future and opportunities? Everyone does. Better
future and better opportunity encourage employee to work hard. Providing employee an
idea of their potential career in future motivates employee. This encourages employee and
make them realize that their position is a step for better future and opportunity and is not a
dead end. Employee with career path are satisfied and are the best performed. However,
Lefevre doesn't think so, because he is not satisfied with his work. His work is too exhausting and boring. He thinks “If you can’t improve yourself, you can improve your posterity.
Otherwise life isn’t worth nothing. You might as well go back to the cave and stay there”
(38). He seems hopeless about better future and better opportunity from his job. But he also
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thinks he can improve his son's future by providing him with a quality education which
finally will lead him to a better future and better job. If Lefevre has given an idea of his
potential that he can get better future and opportunities from his work, then probably he
would be satisfied and would have good work ethics. The aim of having a better future and
getting better opportunities in job motivates employee and ultimately leads them towards
success.
To sum up, motivating employees is no easy feat, but it is a vital part of an employer’s role. Money, self-improvement, achieving goals and dreams for the better future
and opportunities are some factors that motivates employee in their day to day decision at
work. Other than these factors, there comes meaning, creativity, challenges, ownership,
identity, pride and so on which have positive impacts on motivating employees. Creating
a good working conditions, establishing good relation between coworkers and boss can
also enhance the morale of employees. If we deeply think about these and implement them,
we can make employee and workplace happier, more productive and successful.
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WORKS CITED
Bowe, Jon. "Gig." Work and Play. Boston: UMASS, 2015. Print.55-57.
Pink, Daniel. "Money Isn't Always the Only Motivator for Workers." EBSCO Link Source. 1 June
2013. Web. 1 May 2015.
Rose, Mike. "The Mind at Work." Work and Play. Boston: UMASS, 2015. Print.1-22.
Terkel, Studs. "Introduction: Working." Work and Play. Boston: UMASS, 2015. Print.22-36
Terkel, Studs. "Mike Lefevre." Work and Play. Boston: UMASS, 2015. Print.37-44.
"The Quotable Coach." The Quotable Coach. Web. 29 Apr. 2015. .
< http://www.thequotablecoach.com>
“What Makes Us Feel Good about our Work?” Dan Ariely: .Web. 1 Oct. 2012. 19 May 2015.
< http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_what_makes_us_feel_good_about_our_work >
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