The incorporation of positive psychology in the area of work assessment provides a new way of assessing people’s capabilities within the workplace. Positive psychology as explained by Luthans, Avolio, Avey & Norman (2007), encompasses discovering what works for an individual by relying on the traits that they have and making them aware of them. With the interaction of motivational elements such as intrinsic factors, self-determination, and justice, positive psychology aims at ensuring that the above domains have a positive orientation. Through the study of the positive psychological constructs that determine work behavior, the utilization of the psychological capital tool is possible. With it consisting of various constructs such as self-efficacy, optimism, hope, resilience, they aim at determining if individuals possess the above traits.
Interpretation of Results
From the PsyCap assessment, I scored high on self-efficacy. Concerning this, efficacy beliefs find a basis for people’s confidence in their ability to carry out a particular task, (Avey, Luthans, Smith, Palmer 2010). By very definition, self-efficacy emanates from the work of Albert Bandura in his social cognitive theory. I agree with the results because from childhood; I have stood firm in my ability to get things done, inspired by my family background. My father always gave us responsibilities around the house and once we fulfilled them, we would get rewards. Being in such an environment fostered self-confidence and having a high sense of accountability. As explained by Avey, Avolio et.al (2007), efficacy is the active psychological construct that has extensive research and support. The idea with this is that self-efficacy affects performance and outcomes in that an individual attains motivation from it.
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Strategies for Career Advancement
Self-efficacy is an essential element in work performance and career advancement. As explained by Stroh, North Craft, Neale, Kern (2002), workers with increasing levels of self-efficacy surge on in the event of failure and can provide successful strategies for controlling the poor performance. On the contrary, those with low self-efficacy regularly depend on external solutions to solve the impending problem instead of generating solutions.
A way to encourage career advancement on self-efficacy is goal setting. According to Latham (2013), where managers set challenging organizational goals, they can work towards them and improve their sense of self-efficacy in the process. Goals in themselves are motivating as they direct behavior, encourage task persistence and development of work strategies to accomplish the goals. As such, employees can challenge themselves and work towards becoming better with the various goals they set. For example, an employee working at the marketing department can set a goal to reach an audience of over one hundred customers through online advertising. By having such a goal in mind, the employee can work each day to increase the numbers so that he or she can achieve the target. Where the employee has high self-efficacy, despite the challenges encountered, he or she believes in their ability to overcome the challenges and attain their goal, which is necessary for efficient performance.
Effect of Employee Engagement and Job Satisfaction on Job Performance
The level of engagement employees’ display in the workplace is essential to job performance. As explained by Markos (2013), many researchers have tried to identify aspects that encourage employee engagement with engagement having a close association to job satisfaction. Meaning that employees find engagement in jobs, they love. A model that posits the importance of employee engagement is that of hierarchy engagement, synonymous with the hierarchy of needs by Maslow. In this case, the bottom line represents pay and benefits here where the satisfaction of such needs triggers needs relating to development opportunities, a leadership style that affects the employees’ performance.
A strong correlation exists between employee engagement and increased job performance as participation encourages the retention of employees, increased productivity, profitability, customer loyalty, and safety. Engagement of employees encourages employers to enjoy outstanding benefits by having a reliable workforce.
Self-efficacy encourages employee engagement in that when an employee believes in their ability to accomplish the tasks given, they can work towards them without faltering. Where employees have high self-efficacy, they are passionate and can find meaning in the tasks they carry out.
Theories of Motivation and their Effect on Job Performance
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation
Intrinsic motivation traces its roots to the reliance of internal rewards to energize the desired behavior. Employees, in this case, rely on their internal resources to achieve higher levels of performance with goals setting and self-determination being a critical component in the process. Intrinsic rewards as explained by Hartzell (2015), encourages individuals to be self-sufficient and be their leaders within the work environment.
Extrinsic motivation on another hand centers on external rewards for instance, praise, salary increments, awards, promotions that encourage individuals to improve their performance. It is an important aspect of motivation as most organizations tailor the employee reward systems to incorporate external motivators. For example, where the custodian in a fortune five hundred company has entitlement to benefits similar to those of an administrative employee in a startup, the custodian is more motivated to enjoy his tasks as opposed to the employee in the startup.
Self-Determination Theory
According to the theory, individuals rely on the job content as a motivating factor to complete the tasks allocated to them. Meaning that individuals have to find purpose in the work, they are doing to stay motivated. For example, where an employee is simply working to get a salary increment, they are likely to carry out their tasks hazardously and are unable contribute to the achievement of the organization’s goals. The approach as explained by Jex & Britt (2008), calls for the internalization of the goals outlined which then encourages goal commitment. Where employees show commitment to the goals, they work towards making sure they accomplish them increasing their productivity in the process. With self-determination being a component of self-image, it is possible to encourage employees through training interventions to learn to be accountable and team players to encourage achievement of laid down goals.
Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory
The theory was instrumental in providing an attractive interpretation of some of the factors that influence motivation in the workplace. He argued that motivation centers on two factors including hygiene factors, which covers aspects such as pay, fringe benefits, and relationships with coworkers. It also consists of motivational factors such as levels of challenge, responsibility, recognition, autonomy and opportunities for creativity, (Jex & Britt, 2008). The interaction between the two aspects is what determines if the individual gets motivated or not. For example, where a sales manager feels as though they are in the wrong job, they do not put as much effort as required. He or she also feels as though they have no purpose in helping the company fulfill its goals through the tasks assigned to him or her.
To boost job performance, the nature of job design has to change in a way that there is an incorporation of motivating factors. With the focus of employment centering on performance, once individuals find an aspect they are passionate about, they can contribute significantly to it. By relying on the theory, employers can tailor the work environment in a way employees enjoy the work they are doing. This is possible through carrying out effective job placement procedures before allocating duties and responsibilities to the employees. Where hygiene factors are favorable, employees are equally able to boost their performance.
Expectancy Theory
With the expectancy theory, individuals strive to exercise the greatest effort if they expect the effort to lead to a performance that triggers a reward, (DuBrin, 2009). It integrates important ideas found in other motivation theories such as behavioral theories and need-based theories. Expectancy in this sense centers on ensuring putting efforts into tasks leads to favorable performance and for it to be high, an individual has to have the competence, past experience and the required tools to carry out tasks. Within the work environment, where the objectives meet the expectations of the employees, they can work on them to achieve them.
By relying on the premise of the theory, it is also possible to have employees design and formulate their expectations for the company and their contribution towards their achievement. As such, employees improve their performance and tailor it to achieve their goals.
Conclusion
The development of tools designed to improve employees’ performance within organizations is a growing area of concern. The PsyCap tool, for instance, provides a platform to enable employees to gauge their skills and abilities based on the constructs in the tool. Such tools coupled with using theories of motivation helps to improve the efficiency of employees in the workplace by encouraging employee engagement, improved job performance, and growth of organizations.
References
Avey, J. B., Luthans, F., Smith, R. M., & Palmer, N. F,. (2010). The impact of positive psychological capital on employee well-being over time: Journal of occupational health psychology , 15 (1), 17.
DuBrin, Andrew. (2009). Essentials of Management Eighth Edition: Southwestern Cengage Learning.
Hartzell, Sherri. (2015 ). Reward Systems & Employee Behavior: Intrinsic and Extrinsic Rewards . Chapter 10 Lesson 10 Web Retrieved from www.study.com/academy/lesson/reward-systems-employee-behavior-intrinsic-extrinsic-rewards.html on 21 June 2016.
Jex, Steve & Britt, Thomas,. (2008). Organizational Psychology: A Scientist- Practitioner Approach. Second Edition London: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
Latham, Gary. (2013). New Developments in Goal Setting and Task Performance New York: Routledge.
Luthans, F., Avolio, B. J., Avey, J. B., & Norman, S. M. (2007). Positive psychological capital: Measurement and relationship with performance and satisfaction Personnel psychology , 60 (3), 541-572.
Markos, S., & Sridevi, M. S. (2010). Employee engagement: The key to improving performance. International Journal of Business and Management , 5 (12), 89.
Stroh, Northcraft, Neal, kern,. (2002). Organizational Behavior; a Management Change: Third Edition New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.
