Motivation is a conscious or unconscious drive that arouses and directs action toward the achievement of a desired goal. There are many theories and views on the issue of motivation. Here are some of them:
Concept
- Motivation is a conscious or unconscious drive that arouses and directs action toward the achievement of a desired goal.
- There are many theories and perspectives on the issue of work motivation. Here are some of them.
Taylor's Classical Theory
The author of this theory is Frederic Wilson Taylor and the scientific management theory school.
This method is developed based on the view that:
- lazy worker,
- managers know more than workers;
- Therefore, workers should be taught how to work best and motivated by economic factors.
Classical social psychology
This theory has the following general content:
- Recognizing the social needs of workers;
- Make employees feel proud of their usefulness in the common work;
- Give workers more freedom to decide on assigned work;
- Pay more attention to informal groups;
- More information for workers.
Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Theory
According to Abraham Maslow, human needs have 5 levels, from low to high. When people are satisfied with a need at a certain level, they will want to rise up to satisfy the needs at a higher level. Those needs are:
- Physical and biological needs;
- Need for security or safety;
- The need for affiliation and acceptance;
- The need for respect;
- The need for self-motivation.
Managers must clearly understand people's needs that need to be satisfied and create conditions for them to satisfy those needs.
Mc. Gregor's Theory of Human Nature
– Mc. Gregor proposed the view that workers have two different natures, called nature X and nature Y.
– People with nature X are people who:
- don't like to work,
- lazy at work,
- don't want to take responsibility,
- and only work when forced by others.
– On the contrary, a person with Y nature is a person
- love to work,
- know self-control to complete goals,
- willing to accept responsibility, and
- have the ability to be creative at work
– Mc. Gregor advises that managers should base on the nature of the workers to have appropriate motivation policies:
- For people with X nature, it is advisable to emphasize with material things, assign specific tasks, and regularly urge and check.
- As for people with Y nature, we should let them make more decisions, respect their initiatives, and let them demonstrate their abilities instead of checking and urging them.
Herzberg's two-factor theory
Normal factor: Will not bring more enthusiasm, but without it, workers will be dissatisfied and less enthusiastic.
Motivational factors: Will motivate workers to work harder, but without them, they will still work normally.
From there, Herzberg advised managers that they should pay attention to two different levels of employee work attitudes and not confuse motivational measures, and pay attention to normal measures first.
Theory of miracles
In the process of forming and promoting work motivation, there are four basic elements: encouragement, effort, efficiency and reward. Managers always expect that the above cycle always happens continuously and do not want any incident to happen that causes the above cycle to be interrupted.
Hackman and Oldham's view
The work itself has its essential characteristics. These characteristics will probably make the work itself have an intrinsic motivation, and the worker will be stimulated to increase productivity depending on each job itself. Therefore, to increase the meaning of work, it is necessary to:
- Increase job variety and enhance job significance
- Turn tasks into opportunities for workers
- Empower workers
- Quick and direct feedback mechanism for employees.
