Importance of Employee Motivation in Consumer Durable Industry

 

Employee Motivation is a extensively practiced exercise across all corporate sectors and the idea of motivation is derived from a Latin word “movere” which means “to move” and motivation is what moves the employees from weariness to attention (Mohsen et al., 2004).Employees are guided by four basic emotional drives that are a product of common human evolutionary heritage and those four drives are, the drive to acquire, bond, comprehend and defend, and these drives are the base for employee motivation (Lawrence and Nohria, 2002). Reward systems accomplish the drive to acquire, culture accomplish the drive to bond, job design accomplish the drive to comprehend, and performance management and resource allocation processes manage the drive to defend (Lawrence & Nohria, 2002). If the organization manage to retain employees through employee motivational systems, organizational performance will maximized.

Building a committed and motivated workforce is well-chosen as the main objective, and a key to success in the competitive environment (Mohsen et al., 2004). Engaged employees have a knowledge of energetic and successful connection with their work activities and see themselves as capable to deal well with the demands of their job (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004). Moreover, employee engagement almost always advances to higher productivity and it is an umbrella that classify many different concepts like attitudes, behaviour, dispositions relevant to the performance of the individual or the organization as whole (Mone & London,2010). For that reason, organizations give more attention and resources into employee motivation. Employee motivation is important to an organization in many ways. Some of them are,

•  Motivation helps change negative attitude to positive attitude

Organizational commitment has been globally accepted to be advantageous for both the organization and its employees as motivation can reinforce the feelings of belongingness, security of the job, career development, improved earnings, and higher intrinsic rewards (Azeem & Akhtar, 2014). An organization must differentiate between good, average and poor performers by tying rewards clearly and transparently to performance and giving the best employees opening for advancement. The reward systems must provide competitive employee remuneration relative to the industry.  As a result of that, these reward systems improve employee engagement and gratification (Lawrence and Nohria, 2002).

• Motivation improves performance level of employees

Maintaining a higher employee motivation, commitment and job involvement is always profitable to a business; as motivated and committed employees are more productive (Denton, 1987). Motivation can be improved through the training and help employees to upgrade their knowledge and skills, and develop positive behaviour through learning experience that is expected to help employees to achieve exceptional performance (Buckly & Caple, 2009). The top motivators for employees were; good remuneration, good working conditions and appreciation for a job well done (Charles & Marchall, 1992). 

• Helps in achieving the organizational goals

Motivation is very important in the achievement of every organization’s growth (Geomani, 2012). Highly committed and loyal employees are very significant in order to achieve organizational goals (Locke & Latham, 1990). Motivate employees in order to survive and complete in high-powered corporate environment successfully as motivation puts human resources in to action, improves level of efficiency of employees, enables the organizations to attain imperishable competitive advantage and ultimately leads to attain organizational goals (Mohsen et al, 2004). 

• Motivation creates supportive work environment

Employees with strong motivational commitment are likely to develop emotional bond to their organization and feel happy with greater aspirations to make meaningful contributions (Sagoo, Behera, and Tripathy, 2010). As per Mowday et al., (1982), commitment means the bond and loyalty and they have described three (03) aspects of commitment;

·  A recognition with the goals and values of the organization.

• An aspiration to belong to the organization.

• An enthusiasm to display efforts on behalf of the organization.

• Reduction in employees’ turnover

Employees with exceptional level of organizational commitments are likely to recommend others to the organization to become a part of the members of the company (Sahoo et al., 2010). It is a psychological state that is interested about how individuals feel about their organizational engagement, and the preference to remain and continue with the organization (Meyer and Allen, 1997).

•  Motivation helps the managers to introduce changes

In modern days, Companies are operating in a very changeable environment, so it needs to change its manager’s role, and extend its employee’s capabilities, responsibilities and power; in order to deal with such changes (Alkhaffaf, 2011). Employees with higher degree of dedication toward the organization are perceived to be more productive, amicable, have better loyalty towards their work, and possess higher responsibility and job satisfaction (Karim & Rehman, 2012).

In consumer durable industry, employee motivation plays a crucial role. This industry mainly build upon on Consumer behaviour and aspects. Because of that, delivering a better customer service is very important. Skilled, smart and supportive staff will decide the future of the organization. Employee empowerment considered as a motivational practice and empowered employees are likely to develop feelings of motivation that will help them to gain the authority and control and apply the influential knowledge and skills for dealing with customer needs (Jacquiline, 2014).

 

Here is an example for customer service excellence delivered through motivated employees who are prepared to go the extra mile to satisfy clients, that result in positive world of mouth and repeat business.

{Source – Social Media on Carolyn Melissa Wijegoonerathne > The EFPS (Electronic Position    Fixing System) Community}.

Reference:

Alkhaffaf, M. (2011), The impact of empowering employees on organizational development: A case study of Jordan ICT Sector, Journal of US-China Public Administration, 8, 7, 808-814.

Azeem, S. M., & Akhtar, N. (2014). Job satisfaction and organizational commitment among public sector employees in Saudi Arabia. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 5(7), 127-133.

Buckley, R., & Caple, J. (2009). The theory and practice of training. Kogan Page Publishers.

Charles, K. R., & Marshall, L. H. (1992), Motivational preferences of Caribbean hotel workers: an exploratory study, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 4, 3.

Denton, K. (1987), Effective Appraisals: Key to Employee Motivation. Industrial Engineering, 19, 12, 24.

Geomani, (2012), Impact of Motivation on Employee Job Performance, p 46.

Jacquiline, F. N. (2014). Employee empowerment and job satisfaction. Research journali's journal of human resource, 2(2), 1-12.

Karim, F., & Rehman, O. (2012). Impact of job satisfaction, perceived organizational justice and employee empowerment on organizational commitment in semi-government organizations of Pakistan. Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, 3(4), 92-104.

Lawrence, P. R., & Nohria, N. (2002). Driven: How human nature shapes our choices. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (1990). A theory of goal setting & task performance. Prentice-Hall, Inc.

Meyer, J. P., and Allen, N. J. (1997), Commitment in the Workplace: Theory, Research, and Application, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Mohsan, F., Nawaz, M. M., Khan, M., Shaukat, Z., & Aslam, N. (2004), Are Employee Motivation, Commitment and Job Involvement Inter-related: Evidence from Banking Sector of Pakistan. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 2, 17, 226-233.

Mone, E.M., & London, M.(2010).Employee engagement through effective performance management: A practical guide for managers.(pp 5-10). Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2010.

Mooday, R.T., Porter, L.W., & Steer, R.M. (1982). Employees organization linkages, New York: Academic Press

N. Nohria, B. Groysberg and L. Lee (2008) Employee motivation: A powerful new model. Harvard Business Review, 86 (7/8) (2008), pp. 78-83).

Sahoo, C. K., Behera, N., & Tripathy, S. K. (2010). Employee empowerment and individual commitment: an analysis from integrative review of research. Employment Relations Record, 10(1), 40-56.

Schaufeli, W.  B., & Bakker, A.  B.  (2004).  Utrecht work engagement scale:  Preliminary manual. Utrecht university, 3-60.