Content Motivation Theories (Essay Sample)

Content Motivation Theories:
Application in Managers’ Employee Motivation
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Research centered on the relationship between worker satisfaction and performance in an organization reveals that the higher the level of satisfaction, the higher the productivity of workers. Organizations with satisfied workers stand to benefit through increased efficiency from the workforce. The role of motivation to organizational staff has been the subject of research for decades with the aim of determining whether a happy and content employee is more productive than a less motivated one. Two major schools summarize mainstream motivation theories: content and process motivation. The essay focuses on content motivation theories: Maslow Hierarchy of Needs, Alderfer's ERG, Herzberg's Two Factor, and McClelland 3 Needs theories (Thompson 1996). The paper discusses how these theories help managers to motivate their employees more effectively.
Contemporary theories of motivation base their design on the principle that individual needs are the basis of motivation. Deficiency in satisfaction and fulfillment of individual needs creates an urge to fill the void influencing an individual to devise mechanisms that will fill the gap by satisfying those needs. This leads to the conclusion that a high degree of individual needs is directly proportional to a high degree of motivation to satisfy them. Conversely, when the level of individual needs is low, motivation is also low. Content theories of motivation deal with what constitutes motivation to people concentrating on individual goals and needs.
Abraham Maslow came up with the hierarchy of needs, one of the earliest and most influential motivation theories. The basic principle behind it is that motivation springs from unfulfilled needs. It follows that the fulfillment of lower needs motivates an individual to pursue that of higher needs. Once an individual satisfies a lower need, it ceases to be a source of motivation and he/she shifts focus to a higher need (Thompson 1996). Maslow also designed this theory around the idea that human motivation is largely instinctive and a subconscious process. The theory consolidates the numerous individual needs into five broad categories: psychological, safety, belonging, self-esteem, and self-actualization needs, in that order of priority.
In an organization, employee behavior may be motivated by more than one level of needs simultaneously. The greatest motivation to behavior lies at the lowest unsatisfied need. The next higher need in the cycle is always the source of motivation upon satisfaction of the one directly below it. When an employee is unable to satisfy a higher need to immediately, he/she remains motivated until fulfillment of the task. A practical demonstration is a jobless candidate seeking employment. At the unemployment stage, his/her main source of motivation is the desire to raise money for food, clothes and payment of bill. Upon securing a job, the initial factors cease to become the source of motivation, and he/she derives motivation form the desire to work in a safer environment.
Frederick Herzberg suggested that two factors affect motivation: hygiene and motivating factors. Administration, job satisfaction and remuneration, company policies and working condition are key examples of hygiene factors (Steele 2010). Herzberg promotes the idea that these factors have the greatest impact on employee dissatisfaction especially is seen as inadequate. It follows that absence of these factors is likely to boost employee motivation and their presence in the initial stage of an employee’s interaction with the working environment may form a strong basis for motivation. For instance, a manager offering low remunerations for a highly skilled job position is likely to yield an extremely low probability of motivating the employee.
McClelland suggests that individual needs are driven by culture, and categorized into three primary needs: the need for power (n Pow), need for affiliation (n Aff), and the need for achievement (n Ach) (YourCoach 2010). The desire to establish social relationships with others drives the need for affiliation. That of performing difficult and challenging tasks drives the need for achievement. The desire to lead others drives individuals with the need for power. Power may be either personal or institutional, making individuals to seek either of the two categories of power. In an organization, a personal-power driven individual wishes to lead and direct others (YourCoach 2010).
It is upon managers to discover the needs that drive and motivate their employees. It may be one need or a combination of needs. For instance, an employee driven by the need for power is likely to be less motivated when assigned tasks that immerse him/her in a subordinate position. A manager’s realization of this may influence him/her to assign the employee a supervisory position where he/she is capable of leading, boosting motivation. Managers can assign team-based tasks to employees with the need for affiliation because such roles create an environment conducive for interaction between the employee and others, boosting his motivation to work in that environment. Similarly, a manger can assign difficult and challenging tasks to employees driven by the need for achievement because such challenges are bound to boost their motivation with or without the satisfaction of successful completion.
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