Thursday, April 25, 2024
Our psychological reactions affect our behaviors and actions and sets path for what we get from others. It is hence significant for organizations to tap on the knowledge of the human mind and its motivators to grasp good output from the workforces.
Abraham Harold Maslow was an American psychologist who did a tremendous amount of work in the area of psychological health. In one of his works published in the year 1943, he mentioned, “people work to survive and live through financial compensation, to make new friends, to have job security, for a sense of achievement, to feel important in the society, to have a sense of identity, and most specially to have job satisfaction. All employees that have job satisfaction are high performers in their respective workplaces.” Since lots of stress has been added to job satisfaction, organization’s need to understand the mantra for that.
Research indicates that positive feedback and developing employees through training and coaching enhance productivity. Successful leaders back up this idea too as they have reaped success on basis of the above two factors. Enhancing productivity means keeping the employees motivated to work. In this context, the Frederick Herzberg Theory is of great importance.
Frederick Irving Herzberg is another American Psychologist who did immense work on motivation. According to his Motivator-Hygiene Theory, the motivating factors of a person changes from one phase of his life to another. However, there is one motivational factor that stays there with the individual forever. That factor as indicated by him is “respect for me as a person.” Organizations should consider “respect” as a simple strategy to make their workforces more productive. In this theory Herzberg describes four significant states of the employees’ mind:
“1. High Motivation/High Hygiene: Perfect state of happy, motivated employees
2. High Motivation/Low Hygiene: Motivated employees who love the work but have lots of Complaints
3. Low Motivation/High Hygiene: Bored employees punching a clock for a pay cheque
4. Low Motivation/Low Hygiene: Total mess of bored, unhappy employees,” mentions Herzberg.
The crux of the issue is that if organizations and supervisors at different levels of the hierarchy groom, coach and provide feedback of doing better at work in respectful manner, they would be enabling organizational growth. This behaviour would psychologically nurture the minds of the employees enabling them to reach their full potential and result in
collective development in terms of productivity.
