Organizational Behavior Essay

Applications Paper

Juancarlos Alvarez

Keiser University

Instructor

Organizational Behavior

06-17-13

Paper #1 – Motivation and Rewards

Introduction

An employee’s needs play an essential role in relationship to motivation. Understanding this is crucial in being able to interpret an employee’s level of job satisfaction towards his/her job and understand if there is a need for a change in the job design. An aggregate quality control technician like Juancarlos Alvarez has a high degree of repetitiveness in daily tasks, while the tasks might be for different customers it is essentially the same task. Someone like Juancarlos with a high need for self-actualization will not have this need fulfilled, generating a negative effect on employee’s motivation.

I. Needs Analysis

A. Needs Theories

Jobs such as an aggregate quality control technician are very monotonous and do not leave room for discovering ones potential, leaving Juancarlos’s need for self-actualization unfulfilled. The need for self-actualization refers to A.H. Maslow’s needs hierarchy which states self-actualization as “need for self-fulfillment and the realization of one’s potential” (McShane, Von Glinow). While Maslow’s theory also states four other needs, he also states that the “strongest source motivation is the lowest unsatisfied need at the time” (McShane, Von Glinow). This need could also be viewed as a need for achievement using psychologist David McClelland’s learned needs theory. As people with a high need for achievement seek “unambiguous feedback and recognition” (McShane, Von Glinow) which correlates with the need for self-actualization in Maslow’s theory.

B. Job Design

Job design which “is the process of assigning tasks to a job” (McShane, Von Glinow), need to coincide with employee needs in order to create satisfaction or avoid dissatisfaction. For Juancarlos the core job characteristics that act as motivators are task significance and job feedback, for instance task significance such as completing a job that significantly contributes to the success of the organization fulfills Juancarlos’s need for discovering his potential. Meanwhile job feedback allows Juancarlos to value the significance to his work, as an example negative or positive feedback of the quality of work he completes allows him to gauge his progress and creates responsibility. On the other hand skill variety and autonomy act as hygienes for Juancarlos as they do not create job satisfaction, they simply avoid job dissatisfaction. Autonomy would allow Juancarlos freedom to continue to discover his potential specifically in decision making during the job completion process. As for skill variety it would deter monotony in daily tasks, such as looking at statistical data on daily produced aggregates or performing standardized tests on those produced aggregates.

II. Recommendations

A. Needs Theories

Another form of satisfying Juancarlos’s need for self-actualization would be through a reward system. One idea is to refine the current performance based rewards system, at the present time as long as the department goals’ are reached all employees receive the same financial compensation. While money isn’t his prime motivator, discovering his potential and feeling fulfillment in completed tasks are. With that said performance rewards systems such as the one in place do not take into account of what individual performs at a higher level. In order to correct this and avoid any unethical acts towards employees a yearly performance review before rewards are distributed can separate top performers, satisfactory performers, and poor performers. A more radical approach would be to change the performance rewards system altogether and adopt a competency-based rewards system. Such a system will still account for performance, but will consider other

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