Techniques of Motivation

1. Financial Motivation:

Techniques for financial motivation are rewards that have a financial component, either directly or indirectly. The most powerful and significant source of motivation is money. Because money has the ability to buy things, it may be used to fulfil a variety of needs, desires, comforts, and indulgences. By acquiring the goods and services associated with prestige, it may also satiate the demands for status and prestige.

A large number of goods that are status symbols may be acquired with financial assistance. Recent studies from behavioural experts indicate that money is no longer seen as the primary drive. Financial motivators include things like compensation and salary, bonuses, paid time off, health and housing benefits, profit-sharing, car allowances, etc. The level of living and general state of the economy are two variables that determine how important this kind of incentive is.

Money becomes even more crucial for an individual in situations when living standards are poor. However, the value of money as a motivator declines as living standards rise and the economy strengthens. The wealthy managers do not see financial compensation as an incentive. For them, incentives include status, prestige, power delegation, job enrichment, evaluation, high-quality working circumstances, etc. Employees will only perform better if they get a higher monetary compensation; otherwise, they will choose to continue their leisure activities over working.

Financial motivators will likewise be ineffectual if superiors evaluate performance discriminatorily. Instead of working hard in this situation, workers will seek to placate their bosses. The way that individuals see money and prosperity also affects how successful money is as a motivator.

Giving a job winner their money right away serves as a powerful incentive as well. It is rather difficult to evaluate the impact of money as a motivation as “Money is so delicate an instrument that the final impact of money itself is not simpler to recognise than is an egg in an omelette,” as Saul W. Gillerman correctly noted.

2. Non-Financial Drive:

   As the name implies, this kind of motivation is unaffected by money. Incentives that are not monetary have a psychological basis. They provide the workers psychological fulfilment. Some examples of non-financial motivators include status, respect, prestige, involvement, work enrichment, recognition, job safety, responsibility, and competitiveness. These rewards meet demands related to sociopsychology. Below is a brief summary of several non-financial motivators.

I Status: Increasing status satisfies egoistic demands. Organizations intentionally endeavour to elevate the prestige of their executives and workers by providing them with exquisite furnishings, well-decorated offices and work spaces, phones, laptops, and internet access, among other amenities. Not only do they feel comfortable working there, but they also take pride in their employer. Being employed by the company becomes a prestige symbol. They are inspired to work hard and provide their best efforts as a result.

(ii) Participation: Since it boosts workers’ self-esteem, allowing them to participate in decision-making processes acts as an incentive. They work with great morale and grow to feel like they belong to the organisation. They get emotionally and physically involved in the organization’s operations. By creating joint consultation committees, works committees, etc., employees’ involvement may be solicited. Additionally, this makes industrial democracy stronger.

(iii) Job enrichment: Enriching the work environment by adding challenges and intrigue will help to further inspire employees. Enhancement of a job entails increasing its level of responsibility and adding challenges. The work is made difficult. It implies that it gives workers the opportunity for development, progress, responsibility, and recognition. Modern manufacturing strategies including specialisation, division of labour, and job simplification have rendered work tedious and dull. Because they have to do the same tasks every day, people get bored in them. They want dynamism and change.

Humans are risk-takers and responsible individuals by nature, and they embrace a challenge. Job enrichment expands and makes a work environment more engaging and demanding. An expanded role gives the worker a chance to demonstrate his administrative abilities by organising and supervising his workload. It is a development of Herzberg’s motivation theory. Adding extra motivators to a work makes it more fulfilling; this is known as job enrichment.

Work enrichment is characterised by the following traits.

(a) Greater Authority and Direct Communication: Giving a job holder greater authority enhances the position. Additionally, an enhanced position enables direct communication between the employee and those in higher positions within the firm, as well as with coworkers and customers.

(a) Retaining Accountability while Removing Control: The job holder is given more freedom to interact with people by eliminating unnecessary controls. He will become even more motivated and productive as a result. However, he is also responsible for the task that his superior completes. Thus, responsibility is maintained.

(c) Greater Knowledge and Mental Development: An enhanced position comes with greater authority and less control, but because the employee reports to a superior, he must exercise caution at work and travel to new locations and interact with a variety of people. As a result, he picks up new knowledge that aids in his mental development.

(d) New Task and New Challenge: Taking on new responsibilities, challenges, attributes, and features is linked to job enrichment. Once hired, a worker is required to accept those.

(e) Greater Freedom and Novel Experience: A profession that is more fulfilling offers greater freedom. The employee has complete control over how they interact with others who work under them. He obtains experience since he must interact with a variety of individuals. One key motivational strategy is job enrichment. An employee survey at the American telephone firm AT&T was done to determine the value of this strategy. The results showed that the workers’ performance and job satisfaction had significantly improved. Salespeople, engineers, technicians, and clerks are among the staff members.

For workers who feel that their career is at a standstill, job enrichment might prove to be a successful motivating strategy. Longer hours work means less opportunities for advancement. They get irritated, and the work becomes boring.

With job enrichment, an employee feels somewhat relieved and begins to show interest in his work. However, this is not a long-term fix in such circumstances. There must be an alternative discovered. Huge promises are made in favour of work enrichment, such as improved performance and job happiness as well as increased opportunity for personal development and self-realization.

(iv) Job Enlargement: The practise of adding extra responsibilities and making a work seem more difficult in order to meet an employee’s higher order requirements is referred to as job enrichment. It offers a variety of tasks to do. It’s an attempt to raise the quality of work produced at the office.

Because they must exert more effort in their employment, people benefit from greater job satisfaction. Tasks that are larger in scope are difficult and complicated jobs. As a result, performing becomes more engaging, and the employee is happy with their work when it is over. The person doing the expanded task must get training in order to perfume it. It’s a powerful motivating strategy.

(v) Authority Delegation: Authority refers to the power to give orders to subordinates and demand that they comply. Authority delegation is necessary to achieve performance. His superior’s delegation of power makes the subordinate feel trustworthy, which boosts his morale. He has an incentive to do better.

(vi) Job Stability: For many workers, job security is a source of motivation. Those who want to stay in the same position and company are concerned about its safety. For them, having a stable job is a key to both social and financial stability. If their job stability is guaranteed, they feel comfortable. Their work stability provides them with retirement and health benefits, and they are content. Certain workers express a strong aversion to being relocated. Their motivation is also bolstered by not moving them.

(vii) Job Rotation: This is the process of an employee moving from one position to another. The purpose of work rotation is to release the employee from boredom and repetition. Rotation of jobs occurs at the same level. This helps to vary the activities and maintain the employee’s interest. By taking on a range of tasks, employees maintain a diversity of talents. The organization’s management has little trouble making adjustments or rearranging the workload. Because their jobs have changed and require new performance, employees are happy. It works well as a motivating strategy as well.

(viii) Job loading: This is the process of adding more responsibilities or work at the same level to make a job more interesting.

Task loading comes in two flavours:

(a) Horizontal Job Loading: This refers to growing the workload proportionately.

(b) Vertical Job Loading:\sIt involves increase in work load with change in job and more responsibility. Job loading makes the job more interesting and challenging breaking the monotony and boredom. Employees have to give higher performance and enjoy more responsibility. Employee’s performance is recognised and is held accountable for his own work. More job freedom is given to him. He gets a chance to handle more difficult tasks to learn and grow in efficiency.

(ix) Praise and Recognition:\sPraising an employee for his work done means recognising his performance. Through recognition employees self esteem needs get satisfied. It is a frequently used tool of motivating an employee at work. It is a natural tendency of an employee to get a pat for his work performance from his superior. Praise or recognition is more effective motivator than a financial incentive. Reward of recognising the work performance on some occasions comes in the form of recommending the rise in pay, certificate of better performance etc. In this way the employee enters in the good books of his boss.