How well employees know about your Organization? Now, this is a million dollar question and a prominent issue that has to be taken care of when it comes to motivating your employees. Transparency is a booster pack that works out wonders in the area of motivation. 25 Great Motivational Quotes to Kickstart Your Life How can a management be transparent in key areas like finance and business deals, my question is WHY NOT? The success of operations of a firm relies solely upon the performance of individuals who work towards the accomplishment of goals. They are the key persons who should be kept abreast about the activities of the firm.   What makes some organizations stand out? When the Boss wants each and every employee to be truthful and loyal to him, the same expectancy would be there on the part of the workforce –Why don’t the bosses understand this? Integrated Organizational Development I would cite TVS Group as a classic example that commands respect from the employees and many a times I’ve heard people say that they are proud to work for TVS. What makes the employees so motivated to work for certain firms overlooking the pay scale and perks? One should deeply delve into the psychological theories that support motivation, perception and attitude. Etiquette of the company: This is one thing that a firm has to clearly communicate to its work force. The ideology and principle behind the running of the business should be genuine and authentic. The pathway to achieve those missions should be realistic and achievable-to put it clearly a firm should have its business roots stemming out from clear cut intent and purpose. When JRD Tata wanted to start a steel plant in India, not many believed it to be a possible venture. The business legend had clear cut intent of installing a steel plant to utilize the resources available in India and to pass on the proceeds for the economic benefit of the country. Nobody suspected his intent; such was his determination and resolve.   This infographic beautifully portraits the scenario of how the future employees would be:    Communication of Goals: The management will have clear plans of production target which has to be communicated properly to the lowest level with the same amount of clarity. This has to be done via channels or different levels of management and executives have to play their roles properly. Nobody needs to show their prowess or power; only thing needed is proper delegation of authority and responsibility. This gives clear direction to the work force and when their immediate boss sits with them for periodic discussions to decide on the short term as well as long term objectives, they feel part of the show which immensely motivates them. Ethical Standards of the company: This again adds image to the company and “As is the Leader so is the Employee.”  The management should not involve itself in any kind of lobbying – When there is political corruption, malpractices become the order of the day.   What Kind of a Leader Are You?   A country like India needs more educated leaders who can bring awareness on the importance of economic independence and even distribution of wealth to the masses. If people clearly know what is right and what is wrong, the unwanted elements cannot take them for a ride. Given the population, India though marching towards becoming a developed nation, the growth is hindered by poor policy decisions and sky rocketing inflation. Clarity in Structure: Ego clashes start when the organizations have more number of levels and generate chaos in communication. Misunderstanding creeps in because there...

Herzberg and Victor’s Motivation Models Herzberg’s Hygiene Factor Theory Psychologist Fredrick Herzberg asked a basic question to 200 accountants and engineers in firms in and around Pittsburg-“What do people want from their jobs’? He used the critical incident method of obtaining data for analysis. “Think of a time when you felt exceptionally good or exceptionally bad about your job, either your present job or any other job you have had”. The responses obtained were fairly consistent in that, good feelings were associated with job content and bad feelings with job context. The ones on the right side of the table are intrinsic factors leading to job satisfaction and acted as motivators and ones on the left side lead to job dis-satisfaction and were termed as hygiene factors. Hygiene Factors: One has to understand that hygiene factors need not always cause dis-satisfaction; when the managers handle the situation in an amicable manner in terms of company policy, supervision, working conditions, salary and administration, things will be in the right direction but, even if they are adequate, people are never satisfied. These are called Hygiene factors and managers must try to eliminate factors that create discontent among the workers. If we want to motivate people, the real motivators are achievement, recognition, responsibility and growth. We must change the job design in such a way that the work arising out of the job should be challenging, exciting and should offer them a sense of achievement, recognition and growth. HYGIENE FACTORS MOTIVATORS Company policy  Achievement Relationship with superiors   Recognition Working conditions   Work itself Salary   Responsibility Relationship with peers   Advancement Personal life   Growth Relationship with subordinates Status Security CRITICISM: The factors which one particular group of individuals finds to be dis-satisfying may not be applicable for everybody. Factors which are beyond the scope of employees such as policy formulations cannot be considered as hygiene factors. VICTOR H. VROOM’S EXPECTANCY MODEL Valency*Expectancy=Motivation By increasing the positive value of the outcomes through such means as better communication about the outcomes, values and actually increasing them, i.e., the rewards and also by increasing the expectancy of the person by making him believe that the work will really lead him to the desired outcome, organizations can make a strong connection between the work and the...

Reinforcers and Behaviour Changes   Reinforcers induce and enhance the association between the cue and the expectancy. This leads to increased performance levels and positive attitude development. This is an effective and efficient strategy that has been proved to be successful. Reinforcement is inevitable for learning process and in a dynamic corporate business environment, unlearning the old things and learning and adapting oneself to satisfy the needs of the changing environmental and economic factors is the critical success factor that serves as the backbone of the success of the company.     Significance of Learning: Learning is not the only attribute that gets enhanced by reinforcers; as a result there is a repetition of desirable behavior that helps in maintaining the consistency, cordiality and climate of the organization. Reinforces increase the strength of response leading to desirable or undesirable consequences depending upon the kind of reinforcer, which might be a reward or a punishment. Either way it elicits response that gets strengthened in course of time. Mindset of People: The management side that is the deciding authority has to come to clear terms with the kind of treatment applicable on specific situations; say for instance when there is a need to complete a project in the stipulated time or achieve quantifiable targets which may prove very challenging or increase the production capacity in order to retain a major market share.     Whatever be the case, the morale of the workers down the line, executives who coordinate the process, the managers who manage and report has to be maintained in the highest order. The mind set of the people working for you is very important as it encompasses the quality of work done, commitment to duty and determination to reach the target on time. Rewards: Rewards always make people happy and are found to be positively reinforcing. If you feel that monetary rewards are always a better stimulus, you are wrong. Money is always considered to be a reward; to consider it as a reinforcer cannot be neglected but at the same time it definitely is not a positive reinforcer.Feedback on performance is rated high on the reinforcer scale which takes you to the next level as a performer. Modern organizations have understood the system’s anomaly that gives undue importance to the huge amount of data that speaks volumes about people and their merits and achievements. Is it really enough to know things about people? People expect feedback about their performance and people with some degree of achievement definitely have an intense desire to know how they are doing? The more specific your feedback is, better the impact and greater the delay between the performance and feedback, the less the effect. Work Environment: The work environment itself can serve as a very good positive reinforcer provided there is freedom of expression, liberty to participate and an open door policy adopted by the managers and superiors. The top level management must take utmost care to design the reward system in such a way that it warrants fairness and equity. Employees are motivated to go for self appraisals with goal setting that is the biggest reinforcer of all times. Recognition: Recognition, rewards and praise tend to boost the ego of individuals which you can work it up to your advantage. Punishment is one of the most used and convenient but least understood and badly administered aspect of learning and reinforcing. Punishment equally alters the behavior of your subordinates which becomes more complex in course of time. Positively dealing with your subordinates by giving them one more chance, of course with a warning might serve the purpose. If punishments modify the behavior...

MBO BY PETER DRUCKER Peter Ferdinand Drucker was an influential writer, management consultant, and self-described “social ecologist. Harvard Business Review honored Drucker in the June 2004 with his seventh McKinsey Award for his article, “What Makes an Effective Executive”, the most awarded to one person. The Concept of MBO: Management by objectives was a concept introduced by the doyen of management, Peter Drucker. This concept involves formulation of objectives for the entire organization and which are then broken down into divisional, departmental and finally individual objectives. Objectives are decided on the basis of mutual consultation between managers and employees at the departmental and divisional levels and thus it can be appropriately called an integration of top down and bottom up approaches in management. The specific aim is to make the employees participate in decision making and thus motivate them to perform better. Management by objectives follows a step-by-step procedure that ensures the feasibility of the action plans decided upon. Realistic and achievable plans are set. Activities to be preformed are identified. Logical relationship between the sequences of activities is laid down. Time frame and cost frame are fixed. Resources to be allocated are decided upon. Salient features of the process: Self control and Self direction: The workers exhibit keen self control in that, they self appraise their performance that results in intrinsic motivation. Setting short goals and periodical review to match the current performance with the expected standards greatly boosts the performance of each and every individual and gives him the necessary drive to accomplish the assigned tasks. Periodic progress review: This helps to correct errors and deviations if any. This review is done by managers of higher levels in a constructive way and adequate counseling and guidance can be given to the subordinates to bridge the shortfall if any, in performance. This is possible only when there exists a mutual understanding between the superior and subordinates to find reasons and solve problems together. Reviews need not necessarily pinpoint errors but also revise future plans and actions. The major emphasis of management by objectives lies in its result oriented approach. What is the relationship between management by objectives and motivation? Motivation of an employee can be brought about by financial incentives such as bonus, increments, pay and perks or non-financial incentives such as recognition, appreciation and additional responsibilities. But nothing can equal self-motivation which makes an employee perform with aplomb. As management by objectives is directly linked with goal-setting, performance becomes better and better as the goals are set at a higher level. It involves complete participation from the employees’ end and when specific goals are set by mutual consent of workers and management, the results are magnificent. Many firms practice management by objectives to promote harmony and sense of belonging in the minds of employees as a result of which there is remarkable improvement in performance and productivity. The focus is on improving the job design and work module to make the jobs more meaningful, interesting and...

Definitions of Human Resource Management:  1. “A series of integrated decisions that govern employer-employee relations. Their quality contributes to the ability of organisations and employees to achieve their objectives.” (Milkovich & Boudreau, 1997). 2. “Concerned with the people dimension to management. Since every organisation comprises people, acquiring their services, developing their skills, motivating them to higher levels of performance and ensuring that they continue at the same level of commitment to the organisation are essential to achieving organisational goal. This is true, regardless of the type of organisation: viz. government, business, education, health, recreation, or social action.” (Decenzo & Robbins, 1989). 3.”The planning, organising directing and controlling of the procurement, development, compensation, integration, and maintenance of human resource to the end those individual, organisational, and social objectives are accomplished.” (Flippo, 1984). 4. “The organisation function that focuses on the effective management, direction, and utilisation of people; both the people who manage produce and market and sell the products and services of an organisation and those who support organisational activities. It deals with the human element in the organisation, people as individuals and groups, their recruitment, selection, assignment, motivation, empowerment, compensation, utilisation, services, training, development, promotion, termination and retirement.”(Tracey,1994 ) Knowledge Workers Human resource management is therefore understood as the all significant art and science of managing people in an organisation. Increasing research output in behavioral sciences, new trends in managing ‘knowledge workers’ and advances in training methodology and practices have led to substantial expansion of the scope of human resource management function in recent years. HRM is not just an arena of personnel administration anymore but rather a central and pervasive general management function involving specialised staff as assistants to main line managers. Managing employee relationships is the role of the Human Resource department Human Resource Management is a process of valuing and developing people at work, this includes: Recruitment and selection Employee communication and engagement (participation) to increase employee retention Training and development  Leadership WHAT IS YOUR GREATEST WEAKNESS Labour turnover & staff retention Labour turnover refers to the proportion of a workforce that leave during a period of time (usually one year) Labour turnover =  number of staff leaving during the period x 100 average number of staff Staff retention refers to the ability of a firm to keep its workers. The disadvantages of having a large proportion of staff leaving each year include: The cost of recruiting replacement workers The cost of training the new workers  Loss of productivity whilst replacements are found  Loss of experienced workers  Negative impact on reputation WHAT IS YOUR GREATEST STRENGTH Methods to control turnover: 1. Financial methods of motivation Bonuses Profit share Fringe benefits 2. Non financial methods of motivation Employee engagement and empowerment Training and development Promotion opportunities 3. Improved Human Resource Management procedures  Four Fundamental Principles of HRM: Human Resource is the organisation’s most important asset; Personnel policies should be directed towards achievement of ENTERPRISE goals and strategic plans; Corporate culture exerts a major influence on achievement of excellence and must therefore be    strengthened with consideration of employee welfare. Whilst integration of corporate resources is an important aim of HRM, it must also be recognised that all organisations are ‘pluralist societies’ in which people have differing interests and concerns, which they defend and at the same time function collectively as a cohesive group. →Evolution of...