Employee Motivation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Employee Motivation - Essay Example Besides, Taylor was the first to identify other than material the needs of the employees and tried to include them into motivational process. Among the other, he hired doctors, nurses and psychologists to his company (Miner, 2005). 4 Maslow's theory of motivation: a revolution in organizational science. During 1950s the diverse approaches to human nature were united into a broad organizational approach. This period was the heyday of organizational science as during that time major concepts that motivation were developed. The most important of such theories is obviously Abraham Maslow's (1954) theory of motivation. Maslow's "hierarchy of needs" provided a framework for analysis why people work and how they may be motivated in the best way (McShane and Von Glinow, 2001). 6 Goal-setting theory, developed by Edwin Locke and Gary Latham, implies that the goals are the most important factors affecting the motivation and behaviour of employees. This theory emphasizes the importance of specific and challenging goals in achieving motivated behaviour. Specific goals, observing Locke and Latham, usually imply quantitative targets that motivate people to work more effectively. These goals are usually rather achievable, though not easy to achieve. Challenging goals, in their turn, are difficult but not impossible to attain. Empirical research supports the proposition that goals that are both specific and challenging are more motivational than vague goals or goals that are relatively easy to achieve (Miner, 2005; McShane and Von Glinow, 2001). 9 Several factors moderate the relationship between specific and challenging goals as well as with high levels of motivation, i.e.: 10 Goal commitment, which means that the more dedicated an individual is to achieve the goal, the more he/she will be motivated to exert effort toward goal accomplishment. 10 Self-efficacy that is an employee's belief that he/she can successfully complete a particular task. If individuals have a high degree of self-efficacy, they are likely to respond more positively to specific and challenging goals than if they have a low degree of self-efficacy (Miner, 2005; McShane and Von Glinow, 2001). 10 Conclusions 10 FACTORS AND PROCESSES THAT AFFECT EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION IN ORGANIZATION Introduction Effective motivation is a corner stone of organizational functioning, development, competitiveness and, yet, effectiveness. Over the past decades, the way in which people are managed, promoted and stimulated at workplaces has become a primary key to assess and improve organizational efficiency and marketability and became a part of a general organizational strategy. In terms of globalization and rapidly changing business environment, as well as growing competitiveness on the market modern companies increasingly need to rely rather of skilled and motivated employees then on pure technologies and products. As Steve Jobs, CEO of legendary Apple Computers states, "in terms when technologies may be

401k pension Plan Research Proposal Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

401k pension Plan - Research Proposal Example It is a retirement savings plan and its only funds are through the employee’s contributions which are done at the agreed time period and also may involve some contributions from the employer. The advantage with this pension plan is that the contributions which are made to it are from the pre-tax salary hence meaning that they are portable. Over the past decades, it has had a lot of importance in most of the employees working in the private sectors in US. It is due to the increased demand by most of the employees working in the private sectors that it has served as the most popular defined contribution plan which having the largest number of participants and assets. For example, research tells us that by the year 2006, around 50 million people that is the American workers participated fully at the 401K action plan and by the end of the same years, it was also found that the number of invested assets also grew hence representing 15% of all the retirement assets in US hence this in terms of US dollars can be around $2.7 trillion in assets only. The 401K has its rules and regulations are these rules are constructed by the US tax code hence this pension plan takes its name from the Internal Revenue Code of the year 1978 that created them. So you will find that the activities of the pension plan can be regulated by the employee benefits security administration in US department of labor. (Ben, 2005). At 401(K) investment plan, you find that there are a number of investing options whereby the participants in this case can fall in the category of their choice. You find that these investments options are grouped in to eight categories. One of the investment options is the equity funds whereby under this investment, it only involves a pooled investments inform of stocks only and an example of such investments may include stock like life insurance, some