Motivating employees is a very crucial step for both the employees and the company since it encourages and promotes production. Employees who are motivated would feel more encouraged to increase their input since they feel appreciated. Employee motivation also builds on the relationship between the employees and the organizational management. Employees who feel protected by the company always tend to build positive and healthy interactions with the management. This kind of a relationship is essential since it makes it facilitates supervision. Employee motivation boosts the trust and confidence a workforce has in their employer. This is critical in building loyalty in the workforce which gives the company a competitive advantage over its competitors. The organization stands to gain from increased productivity an improved profitability due to the level of enhanced production an innovation realized by the employees.
Non-Monetary Incentives
Having figured out the importance of employee motivation and some of the methods an organization can use to motivate its employees, this paper will narrow down to one particular way because it is relatively the easiest to implement, cost effective and above all very useful in its results. This is the issuance of non-monetary incentives mainly through promotions and awards. This form of motivation has an advantage over any other in the sense that it is all inclusive and gives all employees the equal opportunity to be beneficiaries. Rewarding employees makes them more active as they know that they will get a reward on top of what they usually earn. Giving employees rewards helps in building an effective working relationship by helping them realize they are part of the company and good results depend on their overall performance.
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Promotion implies that those employees who perform well are given a higher position, and their salary increased from then. It creates a culture in the company that good work is rewarded and everyone will need to perform well to be promoted. Even though such a system in most cases is associated with employee competition and might trigger a culture where employees shun away from teamwork to build on their personal strengths to increase their chances of being spotted and promoted for their exemplary services, it will play a significant role in ensuring innovation. Such a reward system appreciates excellent performance which in most cases is attributed to innovation, employees coming up with new ideas of doing things, better ways of boosting productivity while lowering the production cost per unit. In the end, this move plays a significant role in ensuring dynamic productivity which reflects well on the company's profit margin.
Rewarding performance and behavior is another aspect of the reward system that applauds employees for their exemplary services. The company could come up with categories like the employees who serve the customer efficiently according to the customer feedback. This is a very critical step in ensuring that the right attitude towards customer service is cultivated. To this end customer feedback and reviews plays a critical part in rewarding employee interactions with the clients. The clients who feel like they were handled correctly by a given employee are allowed to write a review of the service and comment on the employee’s social interactive skills and their ability to listen and address the various issues raised by the client. In this case, such an employee would deserve to be awarded as a diligent worker whose exemplary dedication to the company plays a significant role in ensuring the organization meets its objectives.
Another form of reward is the systematic annual rewarding of all company employees for their achievements in the various departments. When rewarding employees for this reason; the company could plan for them a trip or a team-building activity. It is essential to maintain an attractive reward system to increase the chances of a company building its competitive advantage through an effective organizational culture capable of attracting more skilled employees from competing companies. Employee motivation is an integral component that the management should ensure they do for the success of the business (Karikari, Opoku Boadi, & Sai, 2018). Motivated employees perform exemplary, and it is for the benefit of the whole company. When the employees are productive, the company grows in all the sectors.
Cost/Benefit Analysis of the Idea
Rewarding employees through awards and promotions are associated with both cost and benefits as the organization could suffer sunk cost, or end up reaping more benefits than anticipated. If employees do not take measures to improve their performance, the sunk cost will be felt by the organization. An organization in a diverse industry could for instance gift the employees with its latest products as part of its trial market (Osabiya, 2015). In this case, instead of working with a small targeted group to try the product before it is officially launched into the market, the company could select a few employees to be rewarded with the product while at the same time acting as the trial market for the company’s product whose reviews would be as effective as the real trial market. In this case, if the value of these products amounted to 5000 dollars, the company would incur a cost of the similar amount sink it would have spent $5000 to motivate the employees through the gifts. The sunk cost, however, could be lower depending on the level of productivity output made by employees.
Promotions, however, could portray the same effects to the company production wise but not cause sunk cost. This is because not all reward systems are economically viable. For instance, promotions as a means of reward do not bear an economic cost though it has a direct effect to production, same as economically viable means of rewards. When an individual is promoted to a higher rank for motivation, the organization expects payback through loyalty and quality performance. However, these individuals may achieve their senior position and relax since their goals have been reached. If an employee adopts this mentality, the opportunity cost of having made an alternative decision to promote a different individual will be experienced (Butt et al., 2015). Some individuals also are more motivated than others hence, benefits sought from motivating a person will match their personality and character. To reap the best benefits from employees through motivation, it wise that an organization should ensure the right person is promoted and to a respectful rank. In this case, the benefit of the program would be enhanced leadership and increased productivity.
Risk Analysis of the Idea
The significant risk of rewarding employees through promotions is enhanced unhealthy competition between workers. Even though employee competition can motivate some employees and lead to improved performance, it is also linked to some challenges that can affect individuals and the organization at large. Employees who feel that they are lagging and cannot catch up with high-performing colleagues may resort to undesirable behaviors such as fraud and lying to customers (Steinhage, Cable, & Wardley, 2017). Stiff employee competition can also trigger excess anxiety, which may end up affecting the health of employees. Rewarding employee through promotions can also result in some risks that are associated with cultural diversity. Employees in a collectivist culture, for instance in Asian countries like Indonesia believe in teamwork and collaboration to achieve the set goals and objectives (Gunkel, Schlaegel, & Taras, 2016). Therefore, by rewarding employees through promotions, a company may end up affecting the spirit of teamwork within the workplace. Other employees may also feel the company is engaging in unfair promotion practices. To effectively mitigate this risk, the company should motivate employees in a collectivist culture by providing group incentives instead of individual rewarding of employees. Rewarding loyalty and long-term service can reduce performance because some employees will stay put as they wait to be rewarded. Employees will stay for long because they are comfortable but not because they are productive (Steinhage, Cable, & Wardley, 2017). Secondly, a company faces the risks of reduced creativity when it rewards loyal employees. Long-term employees would tend to run out of innovative ideas, leading to reduced creativity and innovation. To effectively answer this, it is vital that the company emphasizes on productivity and loyalty in as much as it appreciates long-term service. To reward long-term service, the organization should come up with rewarding only the exemplary services of its seasoned employees.
Conclusion
Employee motivation is essential and should never be overlooked. Importantly, the motivation technique in question has more benefits than the potential risks. It is also a cost-effective method for companies that wish to cut down on costs since it does not directly involve the issuance of monetary incentives. Thus, because the motivation program is linked to some risks, the organization should always evaluate or assess the effectiveness of the programs as frequently as possible to mitigate its negative impact on employees, the organizational culture and the societal values in general. Employee motivation is a very crucial step in promoting the workforce productivity.
References
Butt, M., Hu, P., Shafi, K., & Malik, B. H. (2015). Study of organizational environment, incentives, and promotion and its effect on employees' motivation. International Journal of Academic Research in Accounting, Finance and Management Sciences, 5(3), 91-99.
Gunkel, M., Schlaegel, C., & Taras, V. (2016). Cultural values, emotional intelligence, and conflict handling styles: A global study . Journal of World Business, 51(4), 568-585.
Karikari, A. F., Opoku Boadi, P., & Sai, A. A. (2018). Rewarding employees for corporate performance improvements. Human Systems Management, 37(3), 311-317.
Osabiya, B. J. (2015). The effect of employees' motivation on organizational performance. Journal of Public Administration and Policy Research, 7(4), 62-75.
Steinhage, A., Cable, D. & Wardley, D. (2017). The pros and cons of competition among employees . Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2017/03/the-pros-and-cons-of-competition- among-employees
