Motivation in the Work Place

Motivation in the workplace is one of the major concerns that managers face when trying to encourage their employees to work harder and do what is expected of them on a day-to-day basis. According to Organizational Behavior by John R. Schermerhorn, James G. Hunt and Richard N. Osborn the definition of motivation is “the individual forces that account for the direction, level, and persistence of a person’s effort expended at work.” They go on to say that “motivation is a key concern in firms across the globe.” Through the years there have been several theories as to what motivates employees to do their best at work. In order to better understand these theories we will apply them to a fictitious organization that has the following three types of employees: salespeople, production workers, and administrative staff. We will discuss which of these theories would or would not be most effective to motivate these employee groups and try to explain why. The motivation theories that will be discussed are: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, ERG (Aldefer), Two-Factor Theory (Herzberg), Equity Theory (Adams),