What is The Role of Managers in Motivating Employees?

 
 
 
 
 

University of Maryland   

Adelphi 

Management and Organization Theory (BMGT 364) 

What is the role of managers in motivating employees?

by

Margarita Filatova

for

Deforest Bud Colegrove  
 
05.07.2009 
 
 
 

 

      
 

     This paper I begin with some definitions of its key ideas.

     Managing is working with and through other people to accomplish the objectives of both the organization and its members. So, we can say that the main task of a manager is to lead people. And the goal is to make productive the specific strengths and knowledge of each individual.

     The best way to make people do something is to understand what they want to do, and lead them to their dreams. That is why motivation is getting others to do something because they want to do it.

     Motivation is the process of stimulating an individual to take action that will accomplish a desired goal. Highly motivated individuals can bring about substantial increases in productivity and job satisfaction and substantial decreases in tardiness, grievances, absenteeism, and so forth.

     In other way, management is a part of organization and its main instrument. And the main goal of a manager is to make the work of organization more effective and successful. Today talented and empowered human capital is becoming the prime ingredient of organizational success. To unleash the power of the organization and achieve exceptional results, manager must empower employees and motivate them to follow the strategic focus of the organization.

     For the manager who knows how to energize people and maintain their enthusiasm, the art of motivating is one of his success secrets. If one understands what motivates people, he has at his command the most powerful tool for dealing with them to get them achieve extraordinary results. "Motivation and power are so closely linked together that one can say there is power in a motivated person¹".

     That is why the role of the manager in motivating employees has acquired greater importance in building a modern organization. Next see how manager can motivate employees and combine their personal goals into a multiple target or even into a company strategy.  

     Main principles in motivating employees in modern companies 

     Two points of view on motivation exist in psychology. According to the first of them personality structure has a special block creativity that has its own triggers, that start up creative process and stop it when it is necessary. The second point of view expresses the idea that there are special motivation structures that regulate and influence all life of a certain individual. These motivational structures stimulate creative activity in particular conditions. ‘The last theory has more support than the first one because of its consistency and adequacy in accordance with new scientific data’².

     The most successful companies have a good employee motivation program. One of the manager’s tasks is to develop this program. As a rule, a good employee motivation program is based on understanding how human nature works. All humans are motivated by two things -- pleasure or pain. If we find something pleasurable we will continue to seek it out. If we find something painful we usually avoid it. So, how can an effective manager put these principles into an employee program?

     The focus needs to be on the positive. Gone are the days when effective management meant a tyrant of a boss running an organization by intimidation and fear. Today manager should see the real ability of people. Ability is a person's aptitude to perform a task. Either they have the skills to perform a given task or they do not. Ability can be improved with training and education. This can be a time consuming process, but it needs to be included in the total program. Also a manager should remember that impossible targets, or targets that are actually out of an employees control actually de-motivate instead of increasing motivation. 
 
 

     What tools can manager use to create an effective motivation program? 

     An effective manager may build a motivation program on the realization of personal goals of employees. To make these goals clear a manager can use employee motivation surveys. These surveys are useful in tracking a number of key employee areas such as employee satisfaction, changes in this satisfaction, and employee retention.

     Using employee motivation surveys to monitor employee satisfaction involves simply asking employees how happy and satisfied they are with their current job. Many questions can be designed to find out exactly what the employees like and dislike about their current employment situation.

     The results of such surveys help to know why employees are leaving. Is it a skill issue, a pay rate issue, are they moving, etc. Improving employee retention is a great way to improve a company's bottom line. It is always less expensive to train and retrain current employees that to recruit, and train new ones. New employees always have a learning curve that current ones do not.

     Using these surveys over time will show a manager how employee satisfaction is changing over any given time period. This is especially useful to see if satisfaction improves after a motivational training effort or by changing employee motivation techniques.

     Though a manager can make an effective motivation program, the main thing is to carry it out and get good results. In this process the importance of the manager’s role can scarcely be overestimated.   
 
 
 
 
 
 

     What qualities of character needs an effective manager to be a great motivator?  

     The first and main quality is the ability to be a leader. “Leading involves an understanding of motivation”³. Leadership is imperative for molding a group of people into a team, shaping them into a force that serves as a competitive business advantage. ‘Leaders know how to make people function in a collaborative fashion, and how to motivate them to excel their performance’⁴. Leaders also know how to balance the individual team member's quest with the goal of producing synergy - an outcome that exceeds the sum of individual inputs. “Leaders require that their team members forego the quest for personal best in concert with the team effort”⁵.

     For example, some people may work for the final result, plan and have a free schedule. In such companies, a manager may ask people how to decrease working time and increase profitability.

     Besides remuneration there are several basic personal needs that motivate. The first of them is being a part of the group. The task of a manager is to provide employees with a sense of comfort, security, and partnership. Also an effective manager should help employees to expand their personal and professional skills, knowledge and abilities.

     “Today managers assume more coaching tasks and work hard to provide employees with resources and working conditions they need to accomplish the goals they've agreed to”⁶.

     Coaching aims to enhance the performance and learning ability of employees. The coaching approach, generosity, born of maturity, make people want to follow the manager, accomplish their mutual goals. “The more you give in terms of coaching, mentoring, empathizing - the more you will achieve in terms of business goals”⁷.

     Moreover, a good manager drives employees to grow mentally and emotionally. That is also the realization of one of the basic needs. To realize this needs a manager have to improve an agile mind.

     “Agile managers invest more than the average amount of energy, enthusiasm, time, and effort in their work, and they constantly look for ways to motivate their employees to do likewise. They see themselves and their workers as exceptional people”⁸. Every employee wants to do an excellent job and be successful. So, the task of the manager is to make special mention of their advance in the work.

     If manager wants to be a motivating, he or she has to care about employees. How can managers care about employees? There are next ways⁹:

1. Inspire their employees to work harder
2. Make their employees feel good about the work they're doing
3. Find out what their employees are really good at
4. Ask their employees what they'd like to do
5. Encourage a team to do more than all of its members could do as individuals
6. Work with their employees as colleagues, not over them as bosses
7. Excite their employees about doing things they never considered doing
8. Treat people consistently and fairly

     Good managers care is a great part of motivation. “People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care. That's why computers can never replace managers—at least not managers who care about their employees, what they're doing, and how to help them improve”¹⁰.

     To understand the role of manager better we can see the results of the investigation in motivation area.  This investigation revealed that the main goals of employees are

• developing opportunities that allow them to stretch and grow;
• an increment in salary;
• more balance and alignment between their personal and professional commitments;
• tools, training and resources to get their work done more efficiently.

     The fourth  type of answers prevails in motivation sphere of creative employees. This is a motivation of status and prestige. This motivation means not just status and prestige, but other people opinion, desire to be admirable. Explanation of this fact is based on the nowadays demands.

     If an employee just makes his or her work well he or she can get respect. But if a person wants to get admiration he or she has to make something special.

     ‘Some people can be very active but spend this activity not at work productivity, they can be active in the sphere out of work and the work is estimated only as a source of money’¹¹. So they have the first type of motivation. High creative employees often active in many spheres of their life, for example, job, family etc. This is the second type of motivation which include working not only for money, but also for getting respect and self-realization.

“This means that managers will need to become skilled in assessing what motivates their employees and then work to find ways to deliver on these strategies while adhering to corporate policies and budgets”¹².

     The most often demand to modern manager is to be flexible in mind, but structural and analytical at the same time, be creative and really hardworking.

     Leading through example is a brilliant trait of leadership and will be necessary to help motivate staff in a recession environment. That is why if manager wants to stimulate activity of employees he must be active and creative himself.

     In conclusion I can say that responsibility for motivation should be shared between three parties: employee, manager and HR department. But as we can see in this report the manager is the main in this group. In tough times, many managers or business owners start to fill every sentence with 'corporate objective' this and 'shareholders' that. It seems like leaders become more focus on satisfying external stakeholders rather than the employees themselves. It must be turned right around. The key to motivating an individual is to speak in terms of that employee’s deepest wishes and desires. This is a brilliant tip that if used on a personal level - can inspire whole teams of workers, one individual at a time. And this is the most important thing that manager can do for the company.

     “A motivating corporate culture rests on the twin pillars of (1) a motivating organizational environment and (2) the exemplary attitudes of individual managers. Which one comes first might raise a chicken-and-egg debate, but both are necessary if an organization hopes to flourish in the twenty-first century”¹³. 

References

1. Extreme Management, Mark Stevens, 2001
2. Motivation of employeesw ith diversew ork creativity level. Leybina A.V. // http://www.psylab.uniyar.ac.ru/publications/Leybina2007-2.pdf
3. The role of manager // http://www.pentagramma.ru/db/pentagramma/root_id/p_engl/p/1/doc/FBD972B2A37E71EAC3256C53003CEBCD/def.html
4. Motivate to Win, Richard Denny, 2002
5. Motivation Theories // http://www.rfcmd.com/index.php?option=com _content&view=article&id=314:motivation&catid=65:2008-10-17-13-16-20&Itemid=95
6. Ways to Instantly Improve the Motivation of Employees in a Recession // http://zhidao.org.ru/articles/19936/1/6-Ways-to-Instantly-Improve-the-Motivation-of-Employees-in-a-Recession/Page1.html
7. How To Motivate Yourself - Self Motivation // http://bfas.ru/article251324.html
8. The Agile Manager's Guide to Motivating People 
   by Straub, Joseph T.// http://www.netlibrary.com.ezproxy.umuc.edu/Reader/
9. Harvard Business Essentials. Hiring and Keeping the Best People // http://www.netlibrary.com.ezproxy.umuc.edu/Reader/
10. Motivating Employees Briefcase Book by Bruce, Anne.// http://www.netlibrary.com/Details.aspx?ProductId=38788&Terms=motivation&ReturnLabel=lnkSearchResults&ReturnPath=/Search/SearchResults.aspx