Challenges to Employee Motivation in Consumer Durable Industry

 

The basis of motivation is to give employees what they really want from their work (Dell, 1988). Employee retention is the strategy take on by the employer to prevent talented employees from quitting their jobs (Fox, 2012). Factors such as salary, flexible working hours, appreciation and rewards for excellent performance, growth opportunities and job security are critical for reducing the rate of turnover (Patgar & Kumar, 2015). The standard of motivation and involvement offered to the employee were found to be the big reason for retention (KM & Christopher, 2015). Employees favour to stay longer in the organization when they feel involved in their work (Mttoi, 2013). Employee retention strategies should be beneficial and should be highlighted in comparison with other policies and procedures (Twum, 2015). Employee retention methods are common to managers and are not depend upon the company’s size, technology and market focus (Manzoor, 2011). Organizations found difficult to motivate employees because of several characteristics and most powerful factors which challenges employee motivation are as follows.

 

• Workforce of the organization

According to Sengupta & Gupta (2012), individual employees have different beliefs, behaviour, values, backgrounds and thinking. But all the organizations are not aware of the variety in their workforce and are not and clear about different ways of motivating their diverse workforce. Monotonous work and low perceived value were found to be the very first reason for attrition followed by high salary expectation and unusual working hours as second, third was demoralize employees; fourth was tire work environment and lack of motivation. Finally, fifth was equally shared by privation of job security and social interaction.

To retain employees, organizations must inspire the employees in the sense of achievement and esteem, autonomy while performing a task, job rotation to avoid boredom, exciting and challenging tasks (Sengupta & Gupta, 2012). Interesting and challenging work has an minor relationship with employee retention when compared with other motivational aspects (Kassa, 2015). Employee feels independently motivated to work and also engenders a sense of belongingness and involvement with his work, he is likely to stay longer with the organization (Sengupta & Gupta, 2012).

Human resource has become an organization’s main asset; its success is dependent on the employee performance. Employee performance can be expressed as a mutual factors of ability and motivation  (Devadass, 2011).

Majority of today’s organizational workplaces are represented by four different formations of employees, namely traditionalist (Matures/Veterans), Baby Boomers, Generation X and Generation Y (Millennial) (Gladwell & Dorwart et al., 2010). Managers must understand the usefulness and attitudes of each generation to successfully influence the different generations’ satisfaction (Gladwell & Dorwart et al., 2010). Employees from different formations require different management strategies when it comes to recruiting, retaining and motivating employees (Glass, 2007).

Managers must take to account the diverse values and attitudes of each generation that may influence different generations’ drive in the workplace (Gladwell & Dorwart et   al.,   2010). When employees are motivated, they turn out to be responsive to the organization’s goals and objective and can efficiently direct their talent towards achieving them (Manzoor, 2011).

Organizations have used mostly external rewards (increased pay, bonuses, promotion) as a management tool to inspire high employee performance as well as maintain high employee motivation (Ali & Ahmed, 2009). Also, Nohria & Groysberg et al., 2008   defined   a   new   model   of   employee motivation concluding that managers try to increase employee motivation by satisfying the four fundamental emotional drives; that is the desire to acquire, the desire to bond, the desire to comprehend and the desire to defend. In modern day, monetary rewards have become less effective in keeping employees motivated and the younger generations of employees are driven by carrier development opportunities (Wong & Gardiner et al., 2008).

• Organization considerably change the job role

It was notice that the employees’ level of satisfaction does not depend on such demographic factors like gender, age and length of service with retention factors in the organization. Lack of training and development and work-life balance was found to be a vital aspect in high employee turnover (Tiwari, 2015). Likeliness of an employee to leave; rely upon the satisfaction with rewards and recognition, task identity, opinion, number of positions, age, and satisfaction with position offered by the organization (Ramlall, 2003). Low pay go along with by lack of growth and development of employees were the major causes of attrition (Twum,2015). Career advancement opportunities and challenging work to be the most remarkable motivators for employee retention (Patriota, 2009).

• Work Environment

Social intelligence can be defining as the ability to work effectively with others in any social situation (Crowne, 2009). According to Emmerling and Boyatzis (2012), social intelligence define as the ability to be aware of, understand and act on social information about others that leads to productive achievements.

People with low social surveillance are found as ‘toxic’ people (Karl Albrecht, 2009). They make others feel angry, inadequate, frustrated and degrade through their toxic behaviours that directly contribute to conflict, disaffection and worse animosity in the workplace (Wawra, 2009).

On the other hand, people with high social intelligence have a ‘nourishing’ personality and apparently own magnetic powers that attract others to them (Albrecht, 2009). Workplace friendship affects the task and contextual performance, job satisfaction and turnover desires (Amjad, Sabri, Ilyas & Hameed, 2015). Employees participation in a corporate social initiative was clearly associated with retention rates (Bode, Singh, & Rogan, 2015). Socially intelligent employees exhibit confidence in social situations, demonstrate a real interest in their fellow workmates, are confident and appropriate in expressing their feelings and emotions, are capable of adapting, understanding and responding effectively, and show a great level of conscious (Joseph and Lakshmi, 2010).

 

Challenges in employee motivation instantly affect the Consumer durable industry. During the operation; failure to attract, retain, develop and motivate the best employees across all showrooms and head office may directly affect to deliver the operational and vital objectives of the organization. Labour issues directly influence the quality, output, market share as well as the Company goodwill and reputation. As the business grows in size and geographical scope, the possibility for fraud and dishonest activity of suppliers, employees and customers may increase. As a result of these matters, Organization apply several restrictions and the level of motivation of employees may affect because of them. Figure 02, illustrates the Operational Risk of the Singer (Sri Lanka) PLC.

Figure 02 – Operational Risk - People  

(Source - Singer (Sri Lanka) PLC Annual Report 2019/20 p63-65)

Current pandemic situation of COVID-19, directly influence all the business functions of the company. In this situation employees as well as customers’ safety became the top preference aspect. All the retail showrooms need to closed in curfew-imposed areas & all the back-end work which should operate in any circumstance. Work environment directly relate with the consumer motivation. Figure 03 illustrates the safety measures taken by Singer (Sri Lanka) PLC for their employees.

Figure 03 – Risk Measures take for COVID-19 impact 

(Source - Singer (Sri Lanka) PLC Annual Report 2019/20 p63-65)

 

When considering which motivation aspect that motivates an employee better, it is important to identify the level of the need of an employee. This leads to study of Theories of Employee Motivation.

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