Tuesday 20 October 2009

Week 3 Motivation again

There are two parts to the motivation; Content and Process.

Content theory assumes there are needs which they try to satisfy. It is the "What" of motivation. As previously mentioned in the previous post the content theory consists of Maslows Hierachy of needs, Aldefer's ERG theory, Herzberg's two factor theory and McClelland's achievement motivation theory. It is the concept of what motivates individuals, i.e at a basic level the pay and safety of the job (existance in Aldefere's theory or the bottom two factors of the pyramid for the hierachy of needs for Herzberg).

Process theory assumes that individuals choose their own goals and calculate how to achieve them. It is the "How" of motivation. It consists of the expectancy theory, the equity theory and the goal theory, which have been theorized by Vroom, Porter and Lawler, adams and locke respectively. This is how individuals are motivated rather than what is motivating them, i.e if an individual applies more effort to a task they expect a greater rewared (the expectancy theory).


Innocent

Innocent are very staff orientated, they provide many motivational ideas and benefits.

Their employees earn more money if they perform better. This provides a very productive and competative environment. It motivates people by addressing the expectancy theory where if they apply more effort to the task they will recieve a greater reward.

Innocent also offer social events i.e "Annual Nature Week" (http://www.innocentdrinks.co.uk/careers/your_career/life/, accessed on 20th october). These bring the workforce together so that they work capably with eachother to improve productivity. They also offer many clubs like "Martial arts", "Climbing" and "wakeboarding". All of these perks not only motivate the workforce to work hard so that they can keep enjoying these perks, but also encourages the public to get involved with innocent. Another great scheme is the childcare health scheme, it provides "£243 per month tax-free from your pay to go towards the cost of your childcare". This will motivate the members that are expecting children or wishing to have some. The free breakfast scheme motivates the employees to be on time because they can eat a ready made, free breakfast from work. The "Lord or Lady of the sash" is also a very good motivational tool due to the fact that it gives recognition to workers that show increased performance. Overall innocent work very hard on bringing the employees together socially so that they will be motivated to do better.


According to Maslow's hierachy of needs the order of needs are as so;







Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Abraham Maslow, Motivation and Personality, 2nd ed., Harper & Row, 1970


Innocent pay their employees, they also provide a free breakfast and provide opportunities to increase their salary through hard work, which improves productivity, which satisfies Maslow's Physiological needs.

They provide private health care, also the job itself is not actually dangerous, this is just a precaution and also due to the many activities and clubs provided by innocent. This satisfies the Safety need.


Annual Nature Weekend, Friday beers and other events ensure that their is positive correlation between the members of the workforce and also fulfils the Social needs.


The Lord or Lady of the sash and potential increase in pay through hard work fulfil the Ego/Esteem needs.


Self actualisation can also be achieved by promotion and also by the company meetings in which the employees are involved in the decisions of the business.


Herzberg's Hygiene factors



Innocent have ensured that all the factors leading to dissatisfaction are accounted for to eliminate employee demotivation.


Company policy is their ethics. They concentrate on "Keeping things natural, using responsible ingredients, using sustainable packaging, being a resource-efficient business and sharing the profits".
Innocent keep a close eye on their staff because they want to reward their workers for their effort. Also they want them to feel appreciated and want to recieve some recognition.
The two annual meetings with the leaders of the company ensure a friendly and usefull relationship with the superiors.
The company is very established and have very well sanitized, good working conditions.
The salary is, as explained earlier, relatively high with opportunities to rise with increase productivity.
As mentioned earlier, Innocent take a great deal of effort to ensure good peer correlation. The activities and weekend trips are great for group bonding and will increase peer relations.

Innocent also have put in place many schemes to try and encourage a strongly motivated workforce.

Workers from Innocent are given a weekly one to one meetings with their managers to ensure that they get feedback and appraisal for their efforts. Also the profit related pay also rewards employees for their hard work. The lord or lady of the sash award also gives the workers a sense of achievement. Recognition links quite a lot with achievement and therefor many of the methods used are the same, but recognition is given as the two annual meetings in which the employees have a say in the decision making of the company.

The work itself is good and due to the fun atmosphere created by the staff and their supperiors due to their serious but also very friendly relationship.

There are many advancement opportunities to the employees that work to try for it. Naturally this brings new responsibilities and new priviledges. This means there is a lot of opportunity for growth and personal developement.

Overall I have found that Innocent have such a motivated workforce because they cater for all their need, they lack factors that may dissinterest their workers and have many methods of providing factors that will interest thus making the staff motivated to succeed.










Thursday 8 October 2009

Week 2 of the big bad blog!

This weeks lecture has been about motivation.
Motivation theories are split up into to main headings; content and process.

The content side of the Motivation theories says that people have specific needs which they need to persue.
Included in this is the;
Maslow's hierachy of needs,
Aldefer's ERG theory,
Herzberg's two-factor theory
and McClelland's achievement motivation theory.

Personally I identify closest with Aldefer's ERG theory. It sorts the employee's needs into three different levels of needs.
The E stands for existance. These are the neccessaties that you require to survive, i.e. money for food and drink and safety during the job.
The R stands for relatedness needs. These are social needs occuring during working hours, i.e. social interaction with collegues, the work force needs to work together.
The G stands for growth. This is the basic need to want to achieve. After a certain time people want to attain greater responsibility and have a higher status, title and pay.

Aldefer states that employees will have these needs in that order. Existance. Relatedness. Growth.

I initially was motivated to do this course because I was told that this subject suited me. I looked it up and saw it was well paid and safe in terms of physiological safety (E). This was the initial motivator. After that I read more into the subject and started to like what it was about and what kind of people participated in it (R). After that I started to look at the potential job prospects and how quickly I could advance (G).
Aldefer's ERG theory displays my motivation for this course.

I am here because I didn't work hard enough to get into a different university and therefor came here through clearance.

My motivation for the next 2-3 years is the fact that if I start something I have a need to finish it. I will work to finish the 3 years with a pass, maybe high, maybe low but I will not fail.

I haven't really been demotivated during work (just lazy at times unfortunatly) but I have been in sport.
Three years ago my school team played a rugby match against Bishops. I was demotivated becasue I had a shoulder and a foot injury but wanted to karry on, but I wasn't motivated to give 100%. As a consequence we lost 50-0 in the first 10 minutes of the second half and the game had to be stopped.
According to Aldefer's ERG theory the safety aspect in Existance that may have demotivated me.
The year after we were annihilated we were told that we had three more training sessions untill the rematch. All of us were riling with excitement and we trained untill pucked, fainted or just couldn't stand anymore. We used the remaining training session as a recovery to be on top form for the match.
We felt safe together as a unit (E).
We were a team and had been through alot together (R).
We wanted to beat then because they humiliated us (G).
We won 50-0 after 37 minutes.
Any time I'm hurting in training or in a match I visualise that feeling, that moment when we were on top of the world with that win that we had worked so hard for.

I have found that Aldefer's ERG theory is the motivational theory that suits me the most. Also I think that due to its simplicity it can be applied to many situations and different types of people.
It is an allround sound theory.