Motivation and Influencing Others: Power and Politics

Welcome to Topic 2:  Motivation and Influencing Others: Power and Politics. During this topic, you will have a better understanding of the importance of motivating employees and how you could do it in a very effective way. We will take a look at a number of motivational theories that could be implemented in organisations and why it is essential to ensure a positive attitude among employees in a workplace.

In this topic you will learn about:

• Work attitudes
• Work behaviours
• Motivating employees
• Need-based theories of motivation
• SMARTER goal setting.

These relate to the Subject Learning Outcomes:

1. Assess the key principles and theories underlying strategic people management and explain how their application enhances organisational and individual performance.
2. Evaluate the effectiveness of different approaches of leadership and the relationships between effective people management and organisational performance.
3. Reflect on the roles and functions that managers perform in the context of the challenges and risks they experience in the changing environment.

Welcome to your pre-seminar learning tasks for this week. Please ensure you complete these prior to attending your scheduled seminar with your lecturer.

Click on each of the following headings to read more about what is required for each of your pre-seminar learning tasks.

Work attitudes

Why is attitude so important? Behaviours with a workplace depend on how the individuals within, feel about the workplace. In order to have a good working relationship and a work environment, it is important to have a good understanding of the work attitude employees have.

Work attitude is connected with a number of other factors. These key factors are described as follows:

Job satisfaction refers to the feelings people have toward their job. It relates to both positive and negative feelings about an employee’s job or work experience (Locke 1976). A positive feeling towards the job indicates job satisfaction, while a negative feeling towards the job can indicate dissatisfaction (Armstrong 2006). Research shows that job satisfaction is one of the most important indicators of job attitude (Aziri 2011; University of Minnesota 2015).

Organisational commitment is the emotional attachment or bond employees have toward the company they work for (University of Minnesota 2015; Jay n.d.). For example, it may be an employee that is highly committed to their job and accepts and believes in the company’s values. As a result, they put in greater effort to meet these goals and they have a strong motivation to remain with the company (University of Minnesota 2015).According to Jay (n.d.), there are three stages of organisational commitment including:

1. Affection for your organisation (affective commitment).
2. Fear of loss (continuance commitment).
3. Sense of obligation to stay (normative commitment).

Affective commitment refers to the feelings you have about the organisation. This can often be witnessed by how employees respond in meetings as they will appear happy, engaged and participate in discussions. They are doing this because they want to be part of the organisation (Jay n.d.).

Continuance commitment means that the employee is balancing between staying and leaving the organisation. For example, they might be considering leaving, but know it would be costly because they have invested a lot of time and energy into building relationships and increasing their salary. On the other hand, if they were to leave, it would impact them on a personal level (Jay n.d.).

Normative commitment is the stage where employees feel obligated to stay with the organisation. They feel the need to stay because “it is the right thing to do”. For example, they might have family ties to the organisation, or feel the company has treated them well so there is a need to stay. Normative commitment is the final stage of organisational commitment (Jay n.d.).

When examining both job satisfaction and organisational commitment it is important to note that there is a high level of overlap between the two factors. If you have ever had a job, think about what made you happy with that job. For example, this could be the people you worked with, the tasks you completed or the income. Often these are also the things that would make you feel committed to the company. Research shows that the things that make people happy with their job are also what makes them more committed. Organisations keep track of these so that they can continue to move forward without problems from employees (Sanderg 2008).

Now that you have thought about what makes you satisfied with a job, think about what other factors there may be that make people satisfied. Research shows that there is more than one reason people are satisfied with their work, these include the function of the job, how they are treated, the relationships with colleagues and managers, and the level of stress a job entails (Mathieu & Zajac 1990).

To summarise, attitudes displayed at work can help an organisation better understand the stance that each employee has with regard to the organisation. To do this as effectively and efficiently as possible, it is wise to keep track of work attitudes. This can be achieved through the likes of exit interviews and attitude surveys. Attitudes and behaviours reflected at work can also be related to personal life/ external factors (University of Minnesota 2015).

Work behaviour

It is important to have a good understanding of each employee's behaviour at the workplace and what leads to certain behaviours, the good as well as the bad. We will be looking into the four (4) key areas of behaviours (University of Minnesota 2015).

Key areas of behaviour

The following are the four (4) key areas of behaviour:

1. Job performance
2. Organisational citizenship behaviours
3. Absenteeism
4. Turnover.

The first two (2) behaviours (job performance and organisational citizenship behaviours) are desirable ones, whereas the other two (2) (absenteeism and turnover) are often regarded as undesirable.

Job performance

Job performance refers to the level to which an employee successfully fulfils the factors included in the job description. The content for each job performance can be different and is clearly stated in the job description. There are many factors included in measuring job performances and it includes quality, quantity, speed and accuracy. The job performance leads to the organisation recognising if an employee should be given a promotion, pay rise, additional responsibilities or fired from the job (Riketta 2002).

Organisational citizenship behaviours

Organisational citizenship behaviours (OCB) are voluntary behaviours employees perform to help others and benefit the organisation. This could include volunteering to organise the annual departmental Christmas party or even helping out a newly joined employee. These behaviours contribute to the smooth operation of the business. Unlike performance, citizenship behaviours do not depend so much on one’s abilities (University of Minnesota, 2015).

Absenteeism

Absenteeism refers to unscheduled absences from work. These unpredictable absences create costs to the organisation. This is because when an employee has an unscheduled absence from work, the organisation struggles to find replacements at the last minute.

Turnover

Turnover refers to an employee’s leaving an organisation. Employee turnover can have drastic effects on the organisation image. It could lead to poor customer service as well as poor company-wide performance issues. In order to fill the void created by employee turnover, organisations need to conduct recruitment processes and train new employees. This in return costs the organisation (Zimmerman 2008).

Motivating employees

Are you a motivated employee? How do we understand if an employee is motivated? In order for an individual to perform well, there needs to be motivation. Other factors which can impact an individual motivation either positively or negatively are:

• Ability
• Environmental factors.

Need-based theories of motivation

Motivation is involved in understanding individual needs. There are a few major theories in the need-based category: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, ERG theory, and Herzberg’s dual-factor theory.

The following video provides a sound overview of these needs-based theories of motivation.

SMARTER goal setting

Goal setting is known as one of the most influential and practical methods to motivate employees. When conducting goal setting within an organisation, it is important to note, that an employee’s goals should ideally align with organisational goals.

According to research, goal setting is most effective when designed using the SMARTER principle:

Sometimes goal settings can have a negative impact as well such as hampering an employee performance if employees lack the skills and abilities to reach the goals. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, ERG theory, and Herzberg’s dual-factor theory are not effective in isolation, they are, however, a wonderful set of tools when used in conjunction with each other where appropriate. These theories provide a framework to ensure and assist with managing, employee behaviour (University of Minnesota 2015).

Welcome to your seminar for this topic. Your lecturer will start a video stream during your scheduled class time. You can access your scheduled class by clicking on ‘Live Sessions’ found within your navigation bar and locating the relevant day/class or by clicking on the following link and then clicking 'Join' to enter the class.

Click here to access your seminar.

The learning tasks are listed below. These will be completed during the seminar with your lecturer. Should you be unable to attend, you will be able to watch the recording, which can be found via the following link or by navigating to the class through ‘Live Sessions’ via your navigation bar.

Click here to access the recording. (Please note: this will be available shortly after the live session has ended.)

In-seminar learning tasks

The in-seminar learning tasks identified below will be completed during the scheduled seminar. Your lecturer will guide you through these tasks. Click on each of the following headings to read more about the requirements for each of your in-seminar learning tasks.

Welcome to your post-seminar learning tasks for this week. Please ensure you complete these after attending your scheduled seminar with your lecturer. Your lecturer will advise you if any of these are to be completed during your consultation session. Click on each of the following headings to read more about the requirement of your post-seminar learning task

Each week you will have a consultation session, which will be facilitated by your lecturer. You can join in and work with your peers on activities relating to this subject. These session times and activities will be communicated to you by your lecturer each week. Your lecturer will start a video stream during your scheduled class time. You can access your scheduled class by clicking on ‘Live Sessions’ found within your navigation bar and locating the relevant day/class or by clicking on the following link and then clicking 'Join' to enter the class.

Click here to access your consultation session.

Should you be unable to attend, you will be able to watch the recording, which can be found via the following link or by navigating to the class through ‘Live Sessions’ via your navigation bar.

Click here to access the recording. (Please note: this will be available shortly after the live session has ended.)

These are optional readings to deepen your understanding of the topic material:

• Allan-Moon, C 2016, The three types of organizational commitment of employees, Linkedin.
• Bowman, R 2016, Motivation theory and practice: equity theory vs expectancy theory, Linkedin.
• Indeed Editorial Team 2021, What is organisational commitment, Indeed.
• Strum, RE & Antonakis, J 2014, ‘Interpersonal Power: A Review, Critique, and Research Agenda’, Journal of Management 41(1):136-163.

References

• Armstrong, M 2006, A handbook of human resource management practice, Kogan Page Publishers.
• Aziri, B 2011, ‘Job satisfaction: A literature Review’, Management Research & Practice, 3(4):77-86.
• Herzberg, F, Mausner, B & Snyderman, B 1959, The motivation to work, New York: Wiley.
• Jay, S n.d., Organizational commitment: 7 ways HR can contribute, AIHR, https://www.aihr.com/blog/organizational-commitment/
• Locke, EA 1976, The nature and causes of job satisfaction, in M. D. Dunnette (Ed.), Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology, Chicago: RandMcNally, pp.1297–1347.
• Maslow, AH 1943, ‘A theory of human motivation’, Psychological Review, 50(4):370-396.
• Mathieu, JE & Zajac, DM 1990, 'A review and meta-analysis of the antecedents, correlates, and consequences of organizational commitment', Psychological Bulletin, 108:171-194.
• Riketta, M 2002, ‘Attitudinal organizational commitment and job performance: A meta-analysis’, Journal of Organizational Behavior, 23(3):257-266.
• Sandberg, J 2008, For many employees, a dream job is one that isn’t a nightmare, Wall Street Journal, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB120820207360513617
• University of Minnesota 2015, Principles of management, University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing Edition.
• Zimmerman, RD 2008, ‘Understanding the impact of personality traits on individuals’ turnover decisions: A meta-analytic path model’, Personnel Psychology, 61(2):309-348.