Handout 4

FOUNDATIONS OF EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION
Motivation – the forces within a person that affect the direction, intensity, and persistence of
voluntary behavior. Motivated employees are willing to exert a particular level of effort (intensity),
for a certain amount of time (persistence), toward a particular goal (direction). Motivation is one of
the four essential drivers of individual behavior and performance.
EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
Employee Engagement – the employee’s emotional and cognitive motivation, self-efficacy to

perform the job, perceived clarity of the organization’s vision and his or her specific role in that
vision, and belief that he or she has the resources to get the job done.
Employee engagement is a hot topic among executives and consultants. One report estimates that
one in every four large organizations has a formal employee engagement program, and three out of
five intend to develop plans to improve employee engagement. Some companies even have employee
engagement departments or managers. The popularity of employee engagement is partly due to
preliminary evidence that it improves organizational effectiveness.
EMPLOYEE DRIVE AND NEEDS
Drives – also called primary needs or innate motives. Drive is defined as hardwired characteristics
of the brain that correct deficiencies or maintain an internal equilibrium by producing emotions to
energize individuals. Drives are the “prime movers” of behavior because they generate emotions,
which put people in a state of readiness to act on their environment. Although typically overlooked
in organizational behavior, emotions play a central role in motivation. In fact, both words (emotion
and motivation) are derivations of the same Latin word, movere, which means “to move.”
Needs – We define needs as goal-directed forces that people experience. Needs are the motivational
forces of emotions channelled toward particular goals to correct deficiencies or imbalances. So drives
produce emotions, and needs are essentially the emotional experience channelled toward goals
believed to address the source of emotion.
(1) Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy Theory

- Most widely known theory of human motivation.
- Developed by psychologist Abraham Maslow.
- A motivation theory of needs arranged in a hierarchy, whereby people are motivated to fulfil
a higher need as a lower one becomes gratified.
o Physiological. The need for food, air, water, shelter, and the like.
o Safety. The need for a secure and stable environment and the absence of pain, threat,
or illness.
o Belongingness/Love. The need for love, affection, and interaction with other people.
o Esteem. The need for self-esteem through personal achievement as well as social
esteem through recognition and respect from others.
o Self-actualization. The need for self-fulfilment, realization of one’s potential.
- According to Maslow, we are motivated simultaneously by several needs but the strongest
source is the lowest unsatisfied need at the time.
(2) Learned Needs Theory

a. Need for Achievement (nAch)
i. A need in which people want to accomplish reasonably challenging goals and
desire unambiguous feedback and recognition for their success.
ii. Money is a weak motivator, except when it provides feedback and recognition.
b. Need for Affiliation (nAff)

i. A need in which people seek approval from others, conform to their wishes and
expectations, and avoid conflict and confrontation.
ii. People with a strong nAff try to project a favorable image of themselves.
iii. They tend to actively support others and try to smooth out workplace conflicts.
iv. High nAff employees generally work well in coordinating roles to mediate
conflicts and in sales positions where the main task is cultivating long-term
relations.
c. Need for Power (nPow)

i. A need in which people want to control their environment, including people and
material resources, to benefit either themselves (personalized power) or others
(socialized power)
ii. McClelland argues that effective leaders should have a high need for socialized
rather than personalized power. They must have a high degree of altruism and
social responsibility and be concerned about the consequences of their own
actions on others.
(3) Four-Drive Theory

a. Drive to Acquire
This is the drive to seek, take, control, and retain objects and personal experiences. The
drive to acquire extends beyond basic food and water; it includes enhancing one’s self-
concept through relative status and recognition in society. Thus, it is the foundation of
competition and the basis of our need for esteem. Four-drive theory states that the drive
to acquire is insatiable because the purpose of human motivation is to achieve a higher
position than others, not just to fulfill one’s physiological needs.
b. Drive to Bond
This is the drive to form social relationships and develop mutual caring commitments
with others. It explains why people form social identities by aligning their self-concept
with various social groups. It may also explain why people who lack social contact are
more prone to serious health problems. The drive to bond motivates people to cooperate
and, consequently, is a fundamental ingredient in the success of organizations and the
development of societies.
c. Drive to Learn
This is the drive to satisfy our curiosity, to know and understand ourselves and the
environment around us. When observing something that is inconsistent with or beyond
our current knowledge, we experience a tension that motivates us to close that
information gap. The drive to learn is related to the higher-order needs of growth and
self-actualization described earlier.
d. Drive to Defend
This is the drive to protect ourselves physically and socially. Probably the first drive to
develop, it creates a “fight-or-flight” response in the face of personal danger. The drive to
defend goes beyond protecting our physical self. It includes defending our relationships,
our acquisitions, and our belief systems.
(4) Expectancy Theory of Motivation

Expectancy theory offers an elegant model based on rational logic to predict the chosen direction,
level, and persistence of motivation. Essentially, the theory states that work effort is directed
toward behaviors that people believe will lead to desired outcomes. In other words, we are
motivated to achieve the goals with the highest expected payoff.
a. E-to-P Expectancy
This is the individual’s perception that his or her effort will result in a particular level of
performance. In some situations, employees may believe that they can unquestionably
accomplish the task (a probability of 1.0). In other situations, they expect that even their
highest level of effort will not result in the desired performance level (a probability of
0.0). In most cases, the E-to-P expectancy falls somewhere between these two extremes.
b. P-to-O Expectancy
This is the perceived probability that a specific behavior or performance level will lead to
a particular outcome. In extreme cases, employees may believe that accomplishing a
particular task (performance) will definitely result in a particular outcome (a probability
of 1.0), or they may believe that successful performance will have no effect on this
outcome (a probability of 0.0). More often, the P-to-O expectancy falls somewhere
between these two extremes.
c. Outcome Valences
A valence is the anticipated satisfaction or dissatisfaction that an individual feels toward
an outcome. It ranges from negative to positive. (The actual range doesn’t matter; it may
be from 1 to +1 or from 100 to +100.) An outcome valence represents a person’s
anticipated satisfaction with the outcome. Outcomes have a positive valence when they
are consistent with our values and satisfy our needs; they have a negative valence when
they oppose our values and inhibit need fulfillment.
GOAL SETTING AND FEEDBACK
Goal setting is the process of motivating employees and clarifying their role perceptions by
establishing performance objectives. It potentially improves employee performance in two ways:
(1) by amplifying the intensity and persistence of effort and

(2) by giving employees clearer role perceptions so that their effort is channeled toward
behaviors that will improve work performance.
Some consultants refer to these as “SMART goals,” but the acronym doesn’t quite capture all of the
key ingredients identified by goal-setting research. The six key characteristics are specific goals,
relevant goals, challenging goals, goal commitment, participation in goal formation (sometimes), and
goal feedback.
a. Specific Goals. Employees put more effort into a task when they work toward specific goals
rather than “do your best” targets. Specific goals have measurable levels of change over a
specific and relatively short time frame.
b. Relevant Goals. Goals must also be relevant to the individual’s job and be within his or her
control.
c. Challenging Goals. Challenging goals (rather than easy ones) cause people to raise the
intensity and persistence of their work effort and to think through information more actively.
They also fulfill a person’s achievement or growth needs when the goal is achieved.
d. Goal Commitment. Ideally, goals should be challenging without being so difficult that
employees lose their motivation to achieve them.
e. Goals Participation. Goal setting is usually (but not always) more effective when employees
participate in setting the goals. Participation potentially creates a higher level of goal
commitment than is found when goals are set alone by the supervisor.
f. Goal Feedback. Feedback is another necessary condition for effective goal setting. Feedback
is any information that lets us know whether we have achieved the goal or are properly
directing our effort toward it. Feedback redirects our effort, but it potentially also fulfills our
growth needs.

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FOUNDATIONS OF EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION

Employee Engagement – the employee’s emotional and cognitive motivation, self-efficacy to

EMPLOYEE DRIVE AND NEEDS

(1) Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy Theory

(2) Learned Needs Theory

b. Need for Affiliation (nAff)

c. Need for Power (nPow)

(3) Four-Drive Theory

(4) Expectancy Theory of Motivation

(1) by amplifying the intensity and persistence of effort and

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