The Importance of Motivation

Motivating employees can lead to increased productivity and allow an organization to achieve higher levels of output.

Learning Objectives

Identify the importance of generating high levels of motivation in employees within an organizational behavior framework

Key Takeaways

Key Points

  • Motivation is generally what energizes, maintains, and controls behavior.
  • The role of motivation in the workplace is straightforward theoretically but is difficult to actually measure.
  • Salary is often enough motivation to keep employees working for an organization, but it's not always enough to push them to fulfill their full potential.
  • Motivated employees will retain a high level of innovation while producing higher- quality work at a higher level of efficiency.
  • The opportunity cost in motivating employees is essentially zero.

Key Terms

  • productivity: The rate at which products and services are generated relative to a particular workforce.
  • Opportunity cost: The value of investing in the next best alternative; the value forfeited by taking a particular route.
  • innovation: The introduction of something new; the development of an original idea.

Motivation in the Workplace

Generally speaking, motivation is what energizes, maintains, and controls behavior. As such, it is clear why it plays an important role in the workplace. But empirically measuring that role is another matter; it is challenging to capture an individual's drive in quantitative metrics in order to ascertain the degree to which higher motivation is responsible for higher productivity. However, it is widely accepted that motivated employees generate higher value and lead to more substantial levels of achievement. The management of motivation is therefore a critical element of success in any business; with an increase in productivity, an organization can achieve higher levels of output.

Research has shown that motivated employees will:

  • Always look for a "better" way to complete a task
  • Be more quality-oriented
  • Work with higher productivity and efficiency
In summary, motivated employees will retain a high level of innovation while producing higher-quality work more efficiently. There is no downside - i.e., the opportunity cost of motivating employees is essentially zero, assuming it does not require additional capital to coach managers to act as effective motivators.


Internal and External Motivation

Salary is often enough to keep employees working for an organization, but it's not always necessarily enough to push them to fulfill their full potential. Herzberg's theory emphasizes that while salary is enough to avoid dissatisfaction, it is not necessarily enough to propel employees to increase their productivity and achievement. In fact, the output of employees whose motivation comes solely from salary and benefits tends to decline over time. To increase employees' efficiency and work quality, managers must turn to understanding and responding to individuals' internal and external motivations. External motives include work environment (e.g., cramped cubicle vs. airy, open office); internal motivations include thoughts and emotions (e.g., boredom with performing the same task over and over vs. excitement at being given a wide variety of project types).

Internal and external motives: There are four sources of motivation. The three internal motives are needs, cognitions, and em

Internal and external motives: There are four sources of motivation. The three internal motives are needs, cognitions, and emotions. The fourth source consists of external motives.

Source: Boundless, https://www.coursehero.com/study-guides/boundless-management/motivating-an-organization/
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