What is Personnel Psychology?

Overview 

Employees and project team members receive recognition from the owners of a business in the modern setting. Organizational leaders identify the importance of ensuring employee motivation in successful performance of tasks. Managers have to depend on the capabilities of their subordinates to realize the goals and objectives that the company sets. The senior executives are aware that motivation is an integral factor in realizing this success. However, the seniority status that comes with corporate hierarchy and compulsion to control the people may cloud the judgment of the leaders. The modern organizations particularly in the Western nations are abandoning the autocratic style of leadership to increase involvement of employees in decision-making practices. Cultivating motivation among staff members is an important activity in every organization providing an improved sense of a team attitude. The following discussion identifies the practices that employers and team leaders incorporate to improve motivation and satisfaction among workers. 

Normative Practices 

Communication between the employers and the staff members is one of the norms of cultivating motivation. The organizations recognized the negative impacts of brutal and hard-hitting managers on staff. The practice of ordering employees to perform objective tasks brings about condescension and strains the relationship with leaders. The poor management practices greatly diminish the productivity and achievements of the group. In this regard, the organization looks into providing the workforce with appropriate autonomy in the operations and activities of the company. The most successful managers are those who identify their roles as catalysts for problem solving rather than the actual solution to the arising issues. The development of open communication channels between team members and their leader helps establish such cohesive bonds. The interpersonal interaction encourages employees of the importance of their roles at the organization. The practice often involves worker recognition and acknowledgement from the senior executives at the firm. 

Financial incentives and benefits have played an important role in cultivating motivation among employees. Since the early decades of the 20 th Century, employers recognize the importance of offering appropriate wages to its employees as recognition to their efforts in the organization. According to research on business management, financial benefits are one of the most important strategies that employers use to motivate employees. The incentives offered to the workers include salary bonus and prizes for an employee’s input in the organization. The senior leaders within the company usually identify the need to increase compensation for the most productive workers. The practice has also provided much needed competition between staff members. In this case, with financial benefits serving as the ultimate goal, the workers are driven towards improving their operations and input in the business to achieve recognition. However, employers should recognize the negative aspect of high levels of competitive practices among employees that may strain relationships. 

Best Practices 

For employers and managers to achieve the highest level of success for the business they must retain their best workers. Retention practices involve identifying the employees whose skills and competences align with the vision, mission, and ultimate goals of the company. Organizations usually invest considerable time and money on recruiting, training, and development of workers. Therefore, the employers have a burdensome task of recognizing the valuable ones to the company. The practice is an effective measure of improving employee motivation and loyalty to the organization. The strategic management enables the firm to stabilize its expenditures on recruiting and training new workers. 

Sound management plans are an effective measure that employers can undertake to improve productivity and morale of the workers. In this practice, the managers recognize the employees’ personal career objectives and provide opportunities for ensuring growth beyond the current role. The management practice incorporates assurances of upward mobility and promotions in the future. In this effort, the employer identifies the importance of the workers’ personal goals over financial incentives as an effective motivation in current responsibilities. Organizations that provide its employees with a secure career path are likely to succeed using a proven technique of improving morale. The uncertainty in the global economy may be increased by lack of upward mobility in the corporation, which diminishes employee sense of purpose. 

The employers also recognize the importance of workplace culture and atmosphere as driving factors of increasing productivity and morale. The employees may spend nearly 48 hours in a week in single location. After such long periods, the workers may experience boredom and unsatisfied feeling in the workplace. As the organization may find it difficult to change its offices regularly, the managers should develop appropriate measures of improving the appeal of their current location. Creating a positive atmosphere and culture that goes beyond the daily tasks helps employees look forward to going to the office and prevent turnover rates. 

Emerging Practices 

Workplace flexibility has come up as an effective measure of increasing employee morale in the organization. In this regard, the corporations recognize the changing labor population. With the increased domination of millennials in the workforce, managers have a mammoth task of handling them appropriately to realize the highest outcome. One of the effective measures of helping them achieve their potential involves providing challenging and fulfilling projects. The millennials identify the importance of performing tasks closely related to their passion as an effective means of keeping them motivated. Interesting work projects does not mean increased tasks as the latter will only lead to job related stress and fatigue. 

In the modern organization, employers recognize the importance of balance between the work and social lives of the employee. In this case, sitting in a cubicle, office, or behind a computer does not identify as a social life. The worker should be able to strike a balance between the workplace and the social life. Cases of burnout have become very real occurrences that greatly affect ambition and performance of the workers. As a result, corporations have recognized the importance of providing incentives like company sponsored vacations, motivational trips, and policies that foster family interaction. The practices provide subtle psychological incentives that prompt the worker to perform better in the future. 

The nature of interaction between the manager and his subordinates significantly determines the level of motivation in the workplace. Leaders may prefer to distance themselves from the workers as a measure of maintaining a professional relationship. However, the practice only diminishes the employee morale and could have damaging impact on performance standards. Managers should take up the role of mentors whereby, frequent and regular interaction becomes a norm. The leader should listen to the struggles and difficulties they experience. This practice is not to create judgment, but as a source of inspiration through personal experience. Mentoring employees who have a high potential for success in future provides the manager with personal fulfillment and harnesses the relationship with the followers. 

Evaluation of Effectiveness 

Maslow’s theory of needs is an effective contributor to practices that cultivate employee motivation at the workplace. The hierarchy of needs, provided by Abraham Maslow, represented the desires of human beings that must be fulfilled before others emerge. The five levels of needs include physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization with the order representing importance from highest to lowest. For instance, at the bottom of the pyramid are the physiological needs, which include food, water, air, and shelter. The organization cannot provide opportunities for employees to achieve self-actualization when the salary provided cannot fulfill the physiological needs. In this regard, the managers should take into consideration the needs of the individual before developing motivation plans. Maslow’s theory recognizes that a higher need cannot be felt until desires of the current level are satisfied. Managers and the employers alike can play a critical role of satisfying these needs by recognizing the struggles that employees experience. 

Frederick Herzberg developed the two-factor theory of motivation as an appropriate measure that managers can use to influence employee morale. The theory incorporates two factors including motivators and hygiene that affect employees in the workplace environment. The motivating factors provide the workers with satisfaction while the hygiene factors lead to dissatisfaction. According to the theory, the tasks should be challenging enough such that they enable the staff to utilize their full ability. Additionally, the managers should develop effective and non-biased recognition practices. In this effort, the employees who have high ability levels should have increased responsibility within the organization. The employer also has responsibility of recognizing the hygiene factors that may include supervision practices, work conditions, relationship with bosses, salaries, and company policies. The firm will then undertake appropriate measures to reduce the effect of these factors that diminish employee morale. 

Conclusion 

Cultivating employee motivation in the modern organization is a crucial practice of realizing the goals and objective visions. Autocratic leadership style and salary benefits have served as a significant practice in the traditional organization. However, with continued changes taking place in the labor population, corporations have developed better ways of improving employee motivation. Talent retention, job security, and positive culture at the workplace serve as the effective measures of helping workers achieve their potential. There are expected changes in the management of employees that prompt workers to change their plans for motivation. The two-factor and Maslow’s needs theories provide an effective measure of evaluating efforts for cultivating morale among workers. 

References 

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