The existence of a positive psychological capital possesses the four major characteristics which include hope, efficacy, resilience, and optimism. Having a high level of psychological capital leads to increased job satisfaction and personal well-being of an individual while at the same time enabling one to minimize job-related stress as well as behaviors that are counterproductive. I agree with my result because of the following reasons. First, I have a high level of efficacy. I always believe in myself and my ability to succeed in certain specific situations or accomplish a task. I always feel that I can handle many things at one during my job, and high levels of efficacy make me to always believe in my abilities even under difficult situations. Whenever things get uncertain to me during my job, I usually expect the best. Also, I have a high level of resilience. Whenever I have a setback in my work, I always bounce back and recover. Whenever there is any problem that I face at my job, I can always recover very fast and move on with my job. This has helped me to always deal with challenges at my workplace. Another area that I have strength is being a hopeful person. Whenever I experience difficulty in my job, I always have hope that I will get through it as I had done before. Hope is what has helped me and kept me going. However, I am never very optimistic about what will happen about my job in the future.
From the assessment of myself, my strengths are based on my abilities to show high levels of efficacy, hope, and resiliency. Since I already have high levels of efficacy, my strategy is to keep it high always by ensuring that I retain and even increase the spirit of believing in my abilities even if I am faced with very challenging and tough situations. I will always ensure that I feel positive about any task that I have however challenging it could be because this will help me retain high levels of efficacy. My next strength is having high levels of resiliency. I will always maintain high levels of resiliency by setting a mindset never to give up even after facing a challenge in my career. Whenever I go through a problem, I will never allow it to bring me down or demoralize me, but I will always bounce back and start a fresh with high determination. Having this mindset will help me remain highly resilient even after being faced with a problem that might otherwise be discouraging. My last strength according to the assessment is being hopeful. I always believe in the best and my desires and expectations are always high. I will ensure that I always maintain this high level of expectations so that I remain hopeful in my job.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Using goal setting to increase motivation and improve job performance can occur in many ways. Goal setting is important in keeping one motivated because one always has something to work towards. As I set goals, I will always be working towards meeting that goal, and the closer I move towards accomplishing the particular goal the more I get motivated to work extra hard. Working towards something can be the most motivating thing in life, and as one gets motivated to work towards the goal, performance will improve due to that urge and feeling that I need to meet this goal. Goals are motivators that make people work towards a purpose, and as this happens, performance will improve.
Employee engagement is the emotional commitment that an employee has towards the organization and its goals. An engaged employee is one who cares for the organization and works on behalf of that organization due to emotional commitment and not due to the monetary rewards expected. When an employee is engaged in the job, such an employee will develop job satisfaction. Job satisfaction is the feeling of fulfillment that a person derives from a job. When an employee has a feeling of job satisfaction, such an employee will be determined to work hard and help the organization achieve its goals. When an employee gets compassionate about their job, they will become satisfied with their work and will develop a feeling of fulfillment and emotional commitment. Such an employee will work passionately without any supervision because of the feeling of commitment to help the organization achieve its goals. An employee who is not satisfied or not happy with the job is more likely to have low motivational levels which will then have negative impacts on the performance.
Motivational Theories and Job Performance
Extrinsic Motivational Theory
The extrinsic motivational theory states that workers get motivated with external rewards. The theory refers to the behavior of the employees that are driven by external rewards such as money, promotion, praise, and fame. When employees expect to receive an external reward for achieving certain work goal, such an employee will get motivated by the expectation of an external reward. For example, an employee may work extra hard because of the expectation that they will be promoted. In this case, the external reward is the promotion and this motivates an employee to work hard. In this theory, employees’ performance will increase if an employee expects to get a reward. This is because the expectation for the rewards will lead to motivation and hence high work performance.
Intrinsic Motivation Theory
Intrinsic motivation is a motivation that is driven by the internal rewards rather than the external rewards. It is a motivation that engages in the behavior that arises from within an individual because the job is satisfying or due to the expectation of internal reward. Internal rewards may include things like an expectation to learn, explore or even actualize one’s own potentials. When an employee knows that the job will lead to the actualization of own potential and achieve personal growth, such an employee will be motivated by his/her work. Intrinsic rewards can lead to employees’ motivation and subsequently increased work performance.
Equity Theory of Motivation
This theory identifies fairness and equity as the key components for making individuals remain motivated. The theory is based on the idea that people get motivated when fairness exists, and whenever they identify any inequities in the output and the input ratios, they will seek to adjust their input to reach what they perceive as equity. According to Adams, when there are high levels of equity as perceived by the employees, the employees will be more motivated with their work. If an employee has a perception of some kind of unfairness, they will be demotivated in their work. Employees will always compare the work they do and the pay they receive with that of other colleagues. When employees believe there is equity, they will be motivated and their work performance will be high. At the same time, when employees have a perception that there is unfairness, they will be demotivated and their work output will decline. The role of the management is therefore to ensure that there is always equity so that no employee feels some form of unfairness as this will negatively affect their performance.
Expectancy Theory of Motivation
This theory assumes that the behavior of individual results from the conscious choices made from among the alternatives with the aim of minimizing pain and maximizing gains ( SUCIU, Mortan & LAZĂR, 2013 ). The performance of an employee is based on the certain individual factors which can include skills, knowledge, experience, and personality. The employees’ efforts, motivation, and performance are related. It is based on the idea that when one does a good job, there will be something. This relies on how well the employees understand the relationship between the performance and outcomes. When employees expect something for their efforts, they will be motivated to work hard towards meeting the goals of the organization and this will lead to increase in performance.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Abraham Maslow proposed that employee’ motivation results from their ability and attempt to fulfill the five basic needs ( Anderson , 2014). These five needs create an internal pressure on an individual which then affect the behavior of an individual. The needs that he identified included the physiological needs, safety needs, social needs, esteem needs and self-actualization. Physiological needs are the basic needs that are required for one’s survival. Managers must help the employees get their physiological needs because this will affect their motivation and work outcome. The next level of needs is the safety needs. This involves a sense of security and well-being. These include things like job security which will impact on the motivation levels of the employees and thus work outcome. The third level of needs identified by Maslow is the social needs. These are needs to feel loved and a sense of belonging. This can be provided by the employer in terms of safe working environment and job security. Self-esteem is another level of need that can impact the motivation and work performance of the employees. This is the need for respect and recognition. The final need that Abraham identified was the self-actualization needs. This can come in the form of inviting employees to take part in decision making as well as autonomy. Employers must try to provide employees with these needs if they are to remain motivated and increase their work performance.
References
Anderson, A. (2014). Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. The Prairie Light Review , 36 (2), 7.
SUCIU, L. E., Mortan, M., & LAZĂR, L. (2013). Vroom's expectancy theory. An empirical study: Civil servants performance appraisal influencing expectancy. Transylvanian Review of Administrative Sciences , 9 (39), 180-200.
