Employee Motivation Theories in Customer Service

Employee Motivation Theories in Customer Service Work is very important for every individual infect it is inevitable in the life of every person and every one want satisfaction in the work. Employees need satisfaction in the job and it is the responsibility of manager to understand their problems and find the way to satisfy them. The assumption is that a motivated worker will give his best performance to the organization as a result productivity of organization will increase and poor performance will be a forgotten issue in the organization. Managers can adopt different ways to motivate employees and managers who are successful in motivating employees providing an environment in which incentives are available for them which are much needed for the satisfaction of employees. Employees should have enough pay which motivate them and push them to work hard. Today manager cannot solely motivate employees through pay, benefit and reward to encourage them to work hard and efficiently. It is the responsibility of manager to develop environ ment in which employees motivated to become productive members of organization. This literature review will determines the main aims and objectives of the research considering a variety of literatures. It will provide us brief overview regarding extensive research in the field of employees motivation and its factors affecting the organization. This research is helpful to find out employees motivation of Sainsbury through different means. There are lots of researchers carried out the research in the field of employees motivation. Some of methods and ideas presented in literature review given theses researchers This literature review will give us the concept of employees motivation its importance and factors staff motivation and organization performance. Although many others researchers also conducted their research in this field but it was out of scope and i selected only those researches which were directly or indirectly related to my topic. In this chapter secondary research is mostly used the information is taken from books and journals. It will discuss the re levant theory on the topic and give the opinion that relate to employees motivation and commitment. Employees motivation and commitment is the most important topic in the field of Human Resource Management. In this chapter first we discuss the HR theory to understand about HR and then focus on employees motivation to increase customers services HR Research conducted in organizations suggests that HR affects organizational outcomes by shaping employees attitudes and behaviours. The high commitment of HR increases organization performance by giving environment in which employees are involved in organization and they work hard to achieve organization goals. (Whitener, E 2001) Research suggests that employees interpret organisational actions such as human resource practices, as symptomatic of the personified organisations commitment to them. They reciprocate their perceptions accordingly in their own commitment to the organisation. It is seen that high commitment to motivate employees work well for organization. Such organizations have high productively as compared to those which has low commitment. Before that Dean and Lepak also said the same opinion. According to Dean and Lepak (1996) HR is classified as control practices and its main purpose to increase efficiency and reduce labour in organization. Its aim to increase productivity and provide the environment for employees that help to achieve the goals of organization. The high commitment strategy of HR includes selective staffing development appraisal competitive packages and training of staff. According to Foot and Hook in 1999 the employees are most important resource which contributes to achieve organization goals. HR is very important in decision making process and it comprises a range of issues employee development, recruitment and reward schemes. Recruitment will give us qualified employees in order to achieve corporate goals in an efficient manner. But Beardwell (2004) has different opinion. He linked the organization performance to changes in different business environment including micro and macro contexts. He said our HR strategy must fit the Organization strategy According to Mullins successful HR has proactive role in organization. HR creates values by providing opportunities and his values are crucial for organization future success. It will increase the skill of current workforce and will recruit the highly skilled workforce 2.2Recruitment Recruiting the correct employees is important in employees motivation and they fit in the organization and have skills to fulfil the commitment. If an organization ignore the correct employees for the correct role than its economic cost can be immense. Beardwell (2004) and then Mullins (2005) emphasis on recruitment process of employees. Both said that employees should be technically fit to any given rule. Best companies are doing this for long time and ensure that selection process full assessment of candidates abilities, values, interest and careful review how they will match the organization culture. The ability to achieve competitive advantage in market is dependent on composition of workforce According to Armstrong (2001) there is pressure on organizations to recruit right people for right job. If they fail to does this then it will adverse effect on the budget of organization. There are number of factors which should consider in recruitment process including the culture of organization, legal implications, attracting and employing the correct candidate and the cost in time and resources. Before the Armstrong the Holden in (1994) emphasised on good HRM practice in recruitment and selection. The organization can use recruitment process to continue or even change the organization culture. When a change of strategic direction is required, recruiting the right candidates is an important factor to increase the chance of success Team working and job rotation Team working is important in organization. When employees in organization work together they share the ideas, motivate each other and help to increase the sales of organization. According to Cohen (1996) cited in Bacon, N Blyton, p 2003:14) when the human work together they create meaningful work. When humans work in a team they got higher job satisfaction according to job characteristics and management theories. The different tasks in team encourage workers to use different skills and rotation in job reduces in boredom of repetitive work. This helps team members to share the responsibility of work in their area and develop the skills essential for effective team work. In team employees participate in goal setting thereby motivation for team members According to Friedrich (1998) Job rotation is long term planning but it can be organized at short notice. Job rotation will support the employees abilities and interest but also their prospects for promotion. Task of job rotation should be explained to employees who can only be justified by corresponding benefits. Some employees will give resistance and refuse to give up job in which they are comfortable This happened during the research which I conducted in Sainsbury. Some employees were happy with their current position in Sainsbury while others were not happy with their role in Sainsbury. The first one will give resistance to give up their position Empirical Evidence on Employees Motivation Employee motivation is the biggest factor in the success or failure of an organization. Motivated workforce will give best output and productivity while without motivated workforce productivity, profit; morale, product and service all suffer. An organization should have effective strategy to motivate the staff and to stay competitive in the market. There are different factors to motivate individuals and all of them are motivated differently. Some of them are motivated by money other by the opportunity for professional development and job satisfaction. It is the responsibility of managers to understand what factors will motivate their employees to increase productivity. Employees motivation is closely linked to employees performance. By conducting the search in this manner the resultant articles were specific case studies of employee motivation in various organizations. The resultant case studies looked at a range of topics on both employee motivation and employee performance and how these constructs can be connected. One particular study looked specifically at the followers of an organization and what key factors a leader needs to know about the various types of followers. The case studies in this review expand upon the work of Maslow, Taylor, and Herzberg. Simms in (2007) discusses how various organizations utilize tailored versions of non-cash e rewards as employee incentives. Simms suggests that Herzbergs view of salary as not being a motivator holds. The ability to hold up an incentive that doesnt get absorbed by the employees monthly bills has a larger effect on employee motivation. He also suggests it may be more acceptable to boast about a special award or party rather than an employees salary raise. Simms then goes on to expand the discussion of non- cash rewards such as flex time, employee of the month, and tailored goal incentives. Simms argues it is important for employers to communicate these benefits to employees because many employees dont understand their total compensation package. By communicating the total package, the employer reinforces their commitment to the employees and helps to motivate the employee. This motivation leads to greater employee satisfaction and performance. The case study of the Harrahs Entertainment sales teams lays out the use of team incentives to increase sales across the various branches of the Harrahs Entertainment family of products. However, the core to the incentive packages, that Jakobson discusses, is the use of Merchandise Awards. Jakobson states that Merchandise Awards are even more effective than Top Seller Trips. Harrahs also uses simple employee motivation tactics such as recognition at weekly and monthly sales meetings of the top sales teams. Whiteling in (2007) looks at the cases of Reuters and supermarket giant Sainsburys to show how important it is to create a culture where employees become directly involved in suggestions for change. By creating a culture where employee input is valued and the changes faced by the organization are better understood and receive the support of the employees. This also has the side effect of creating employee motivation to support and accomplish the organizations goals and change efforts (Whiteling, 2007). Silverman in (2006) utilizes a similar strategy to create a high-performance workforce. Silverman suggests keeping employees engaged by working with storytelling. Employers can systematically ask employees to tell their story for good or not-so good situations. In this way, an employee/employer relationship can be forged which can help foster mutual support and idea sharing. Similar to Whiteling, Silverman suggests that the organizations culture needs to be developed around the concept of storytelling. Employees need to feel their stories are being heard, understood, and valued by those requesting the stories. By forging these relationships, the employee feels valued by the employer, supervisor, and organization as a contributor. This value translates into higher work performance and stake within the organization (Silverman, 2006; Whiteling, 2007). Sharbroughs (2006) study looks at the correlations between leaders use of Motivating Language (ML) and employee job satisfaction and the perception of a supervisors effectiveness. In both cases, there was a statistically significant correlation in this study between a leaders use of ML and employee job satisfaction and the perception of a supervisors effectiveness. This correlation can be utilized by organizations to measure a leaders use of ML and determine levels of employee satisfaction as well as determine the perceived effectiveness of a supervisor Kellerman (2007) has expanded the work of Zaleznik, Kelley, and Chaleff to create what he calls a level of engagement to classify the followers of an organization. This employee continuum ranges from feeling and doing absolutely nothing to being passionately committed and deeply involved. In this way, a leader can assess their subordinates and tailor a leadership approach to maximize the affect a particular effort will have on employee motivation. A common thread of communication between employers and employees emerges as a requirement for employee motivation (Simms, 2007; Jakobson, 2007; Whiteling, 2007; Silverman, 2006; Sharbrough, 2006). Many of these case studies link high employee motivation with increased employee performance. By first utilizing Kellerman level of engagement classification, an organization can tailor the use of ML and motivational lltechniques in the organization. In this way, employee motivation can be maximized to increase employee performance by focusing the use of ML and motivational techniques Theories of motivation As we discussed that there are number of ways to motivate employees. Lots of researchers gave the theories of motivation. I will discuss most common theories. These theories will give us idea how we can motivate employees. All these theories have some common points to motivate employees but these theories also have different opinion Fredrick Winslow Taylor and Elton Mayo Theories of Motivation Fredrick Winslow Taylor (1856-1917) said that employees are mainly motivated by pay. His theory argued that workers need supervision because naturally they do not enjoy work therefore manager should break their work in small tasks and training and tools so they work efficiently on given task. They are than paid according to number of items they produced in a set period of time-price-rate pay. This will motivate them to work hard and maximise their productivity. Taylor method work well and different organization adopted this method to increase productivity level and lower unit cost. The most notably advocate was Henry Ford who used them to design the first ever production line, making Ford cars. This was the start of the era of mass production. Taylor theory has close links with autocratic management styles and Macgregor theory X approach. Taylor theory failed soon as workers became bore on repetitive tasks and they were treated like human machines. Elton Mayo than gave better theory he said workers are not only motivated with money by they could be better motivated if we met their social needs whilst at work. Taylor ignored these second points which cause adverse effect on his theory. He also conducted an experiment on two groups and examines the effect on their productivity levels of changing factors such as working condition. From Mayo theory we can conclude that employees are best by better communication between them and managers. Employees are also motivated by involvement of managers in their working lives. They are also motivated when they work in a team. Therefore Sainsbury should use team working and introduce personal department to involve managers to look employees to motivate them the increase the production Maslow theory of motivation Maslow in (1943) gave hierarchy of human needs based on two groupings: deficiency needs and growth needs. Within the deficiency needs, each lower need must be met before moving to the next higher level. According to Maslow employees have five levels of need physiological, safety, social, ego, and self- actualizing Once each of these needs has been satisfied, if at some future time a deficiency is detected, the individual will act to remove the deficiency. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/60/Maslows_Hierarchy_of_Needs.svg/450px-Maslows_Hierarchy_of_Needs.svg.png Figure: Maslows Hierarchy of Needs (1) Physiological needs These include homeostasis such as need for oxygen satisfaction of thirst and hanger. It also include sleep and sexual desire (2) Safety needs These include security and safety. It covers security in all aspects of life. It also include security of family, property and morals (3) Love needs These include affection, sense of belonging, social activities, friendships, and both the giving and receiving of love. (4) Esteem needs These include both self-respect and the esteem of others. Self respect covers the strength independence and freedom and achievement. While esteem of others include status, reputation, appreciation and attention (5) Self- actualization needs This need includes the realization of potential of an individual. In this need we consider what is the potential of humans and what are they capable of becoming. These needs may vary widely from one individual to another. Maslow conceived a human being developing five groups of needs, in sequence, from one to five. The survival needs start at birth. During childhood everyone aware all groups of needs. If a manager wants to motivate his employees he should satisfy all five needs in his employees In Maslow theory once we achieved lower level needs like physiological and safety levels others does not provide same level of motivation. There are problems in Maslow theory relating to work situation. The higher level needs do not satisfy their needs because of work situation. It is the responsibilities of managers to understand their needs in private and social life not just their attitude at work. There is no time frame in Maslow theory when the satisfaction of lower level needs and emergence of higher level needs. Even the people within the same level of hierarchy there have different motivation factors. There are lots of ways in which people seek satisfaction for example their esteem needs Fredrick Herzbergs theory of motivation Fredrick Herzberg the friend of Maslow introduced two factor theory of motivation. He believed that there are certain factors that business can introduce which will directly motivate employees and work hard to increase productivity. He named such factors motivation and hygiene Motivator or intrinsic factors, such as achievement and recognition, produce job satisfaction. He said there are others factors which will not motivate them or they will not work hard. He named such factors hygiene factors. Hygiene or extrinsic factors, such as pay and job security, produce job dissatisfaction. According to Herzberg all these factors must present in any job because their absence will give dissatisfaction and decrease productivity and lead to strike in organization. Their presence will yield average productivity but not necessarily above the average. The challenge is that their presence does not motivate in a special way. Herzberg referred this group as dissatisfies. However second group existence will yield satisfaction and this include achievement, recognition, advancement and growth in job. According to Herzberg only way to motivate employee is through job enrichment Herzberg believed that democratic approach is the best approach to motivate employees by improving the nature of job through certain methods. Vroom and Skinner theory of motivation According to Vroom theory (1964) employees effort will lead to performance and performance and then reward should be given on the base of that performance. This reward can be positive or negative depending upon the performance of individual employee. It means that more positive reward will motivate employee highly. Conversely reward is more negative employee will less likely to motivated According to Skinner theory (1953) employees behaviour that lead to positive outcomes will be repeated and negative behaviour will not be repeated. Managers should reinforce employees behaviour that lead to positive outcome. Managers should negatively reinforce employee behaviour that leads to negative outcomes. Reward as motivational tools Payment is not the sole motivator factor for employees. They are more motivated the reward they receive of their hard work we should give employees certain incentives when certain goals are achieved. The two most common types of rewards are extrinsic reward and intrinsic reward. Extrinsic rewards are external rewards that occur apart from work such as money and other things. On the other hand intrinsic rewards are internal rewards in this reward there is direct connection between reward and work and employee feel it during his job. According to Thomas (2000) now rule of motivation has changed. Employees are not motivated through their supervision. They are becoming self managed and they want to demonstrate their own innovation at the work place. Since new motivation factors have emerged so employees want reward of their work. Some of them motivated even they receive positive feedback about their work. Mullins in (2005) said employees have common motivational factors although when satisfied will lead to different level of motivation. If the reward is managed correctly both extrinsic and intrinsic reward will motivate employees. However it is not guarantee that employees will motivated through reward those who receive less reward will feel undervalued and will not be motivated Beardwell and Holden (1994) also emphasised the reward system in the motivation of employees. They said that the payment received by employers is not just one factor which can motivate them. Employees can create an environment that motivate them by providing resources, information and emotional support and some are motivated by fear of loss i.e. they will fired and loss their support if they are late from the job. There are lots of employees which do best when their salary increase According to Redshaw (2001) there are six factors that can motivate employees (1) Training; it is most important to all employees skills replacing job for life time. (2) Financial rewards; employees are motivated through any means which help them financially. It can be useful in Sainsbury. He can give his employees discount vouchers. (3) Recognition; the employees need to know they, reassurance of their role, enforcing corporate norms and values. (4) Communication; managers should regularly communicate with employees. All the employees should have access to managers. Managers should held weekly meeting and regular meeting with employees. (5) Alignment; There is a direct relationship between motivation and an individuals ability to contribute, therefore make all employees aware of the contribution they bring to the organisation (6) Leadership; employees should have their own leader to discuss their concern with him Heap (1987) gave the advantages and disadvantages of the reward system. My companies considered that the reward system has both advantages and disadvantages. In 1999 Thompson and Sanders showed that the companies which give attention to the main objectives of their program like cost, customer service, schedule, environment and quality are deemed success of any incentive programme According to Makenzie and Lee rewards are distribute to those who perform at given level. These rewards should be available to everyone in the organization from top management to workers. These rewards can be linked directly to quality safety, performance and absenteeism. These rewards must be given on successful performance. Different companies motivate their employees through different means. Some companies feel that money is a good motivator. Many companies offer profit sharing plans and offer trips to Europe and other islands Turkson (2002) there are different types of incentives plans which can motivate employees. It can be annual performance bonus. It can also profit sharing plan. Every different kind of incentive plan has benefits and drawbacks. The annual performance bonus is once in a year so it is hard to link it with performance. This type of incentive plan also tends to cause to employees to focus on what makes them look good, sometimes at the expense of what may be best for the companys bottom line These rewards programmes are expansive these programs require careful monitoring. Some companies give reward with an extra day off with pay. Others companies provide good working condition and give reward on top performance. The performance level must be achievable. An incentive scheme may also fail if we ignore the quality or safety. Incentives should be linked with performance but we cannot apply this rule every time. Some incentives are issued on the basis of a subjective assessment by a superior on the merit of particular workers Types of motivation Extrinsic motivation Extrinsic motivation is inspired by outside forces. It includes the money, rewards and people which are close to us. Lots of researchers gave their view about extrinsic motivation and gave different view about it Mullins and Armstrong said that extrinsic motivation can be related to tangible rewards such as security, benefits, promotion, condition of services and environment. These are most likely out of control from managers and determined at the organizational level. This kind of motivation has powerful effect on employees but it will not last long. Bernard and Stoner (2005) said that salary, wages and conditions of services are the incentives for employees. Managers should use four components of salary structure to use salary as motivator effectively. These are (1) job rate: which organization set for each job. (2) Payment: which should be given to individual according to their performance which motivate them and encourage them to work hard (3) Personal allowances: which should be given to those people who have particular skills. . According to Banjoko (1996) most managers use money to reward or punish employees. It can be done through reward on higher productivity and fear to loss job due to poor performance. The desire to earn enhanced pay will motivate employees. In any organization higher productivity depends on level of motivation in employees of organization. We can also motivate staff through training it will give staff the opportunities of self improvement to meet the challenges of higher productivity and new techniques performing a task Intrinsic motivation This motivation is inspired from within a person. This motivation includes personal goals, happiness, morals, eagerness to learn, social and self esteem needs. Both extrinsic and intrinsic motivators push person to achieve the targets. But both these motivators achieved target in different ways. According to Mullins (2005) intrinsic motivation is the opportunity to use the ability of individual. In this motivation sense of challenge, achievement and positive recognition treated with considerate manner. Psychological rewards are usually determined by the behaviour of individual managers. Armstrong (2006) the quality of work life is essential for intrinsic motivators and they have long term effect because they are inherent in individuals and they are not imposed from outside Effect of motivation on productivity Productivity of an organization depends on the motivation of its staff. Organization will achieved its goals through motivated staff and gain market share which will help to increase the production of the organization. Sainsbury can gain market share and increase its productivity through motivation of its staff Mojahed (2005) defined productivity as the ratio of output and input. The economists defined the productivity at industrial level to determine the economy, health and growth rate while at project level it define as and applies to planning, cost estimating and cost control. According to Heizer and Render (1999) numbers of factors affects the productivity of employees and education is one of them. Social overhead and diet of the employees also affect the productivity of employees. But Wiredu (1989) said others factors like team building, motivation job security and training also affect the productivity of employees. We cannot increase productivity of employees without enhancing the skills of them. Working in safe environment and stronger commitment also affect labour productivity Effects of Motivation on Performance The performance of employees is very important for every company. It will make or break a company. It is important to motivate employees and find different methods to motivate them. Stephen Robbins and David A. Decenzo wrote in their book Supervision Today money is most important form of motivation for employees but others motivation factors should also be considered. Every company has different employees and everyone is motivated for different reasons. It is important for managers to know her employees and understand what will motivate them. Managers should understand individual differences if they want successful in motivating people. As we know money is the most important factor to motivate employees but companies should also have other ways to motivate their employees. This involves getting to know their employees and what drives them, then making sure managers utilize appropriate motivational techniques with each employee. The employees performance will improve definitely when m anagers will use appropriate motivation technique Effects of performance management on motivation In every organization team does the work and performance of organization depends on the performance of the team. Therefore it is important for organization to get good performance from everyone. It is the responsibilities of managers to motivate them as a team and each individual separately. The enthusiasm of the manager motivates the team how work will be structured and agreed standard for getting there. The organization manager creates a climate of progress with their behaviour. Sainsbury should consider and evaluate the performance management of its top manager to motivate its employees and increase its productivity. Most organization like Sainsbury has performance management system. In any organization main purpose of performance management assist the management in the determination of pay rises and find how pay system will work in the organization and motivate the staff. Every employee in the organization understands the system and why he or she got the pay rise they did. Aim is that to develop staff and motivate them. The problem rises from this is that if manager want to develop its staff and ask about its weakness the employees will discuss some of its weakness. If the employees feel that manager is gathering the information for the next pay review he will hesitate to discuss its weakness According to Kaplan and Norton (2001) performance management is the backbone of HRM. In performance management we plan and implement the strategies and adopt different approaches to perform tasks. Performance management is beneficial in any business to work according to plan. According to Handel and Gentleman (2004 P.72) said that salary and wage system is big factor that will increase the performance of staff and motivate them. The performance management and production management are closely linked with each other. This is beneficial for staff and motivates them. Staff relationship working environment and culture are vital to motivate staff. It is the responsibilities of performance management to train them and polished their skills according to job requirement. Training is essential for both new and experienced workers otherwise organization can lose its profit and its workers will not be motivated if he did not train the employees. Armstrong and Baron said that prior duty of HRM department is to deal with performance management because performance management is the fundamental of HRM and it is responsibilities of manager to help the emp