Non-financial motivation

Non-financial motivation

1. Job rotation

   • Switching jobs to provide variety
   • Benefits
     • Relieves boredom
     • Wider range of skills
       • Flexible
     • Greater sense of participation
   • Problems
     • Retraining costs increase
     • Less specialisation = fall in output
     • Just more boring tasks
     • Lose social benefits as groups change constantly

2. Job enrichment

   • Giving greater responsibility and challenges
   • Should ideally
     • Introduce new tasks at different ability levels
     • Give complete unit of work
     • Provide feedback
     • Increase accountability
   • Benefits
     • Develop unused skills
     • Greater contributions to decisions
     • Enhance promotional aspects
     • Ensures abilities and potential are exploited
     • Self-control over setting goals
   • Problems
     • May find challenges intimidating
     • May be seen as delegating responsibility to delayer
     • Costly
     • Benefits only seen long term
     • Not all jobs lend themselves to enrichment

3. Empowering employees

   • Giving employees power over their working lives
   • More autonomy
   • Informal/formal systems
   • Involves
     • Recognising workers can do more
     • Making them feel trusted
     • Recognising achievements
     • Creating an environment where workers wish to contribute
   • Benefits
     • Improved motivation
     • Reduced labour turnover
     • Reduced absenteeism
     • Increased productivity
   • Problems
     • Greater training costs
     • Managers must be good delegators
     • Risk for the employer

4. Working in teams

   • Production organised into large units of work
   • One large task, rather than fragmented small ones
   • Benefits
     • Motivated + flexible
     • Cover absences easily
     • Relieve boredom
   • Problems
     • Conflict
     • Time consuming decision making
     • Free-riding
     • Collective resistance to leadership

5. Influences on choice of motivation

   • Organisational design
     • Tall/flat
     • Lines of accountability
     • Delegation & empowerment
   • Nature of the job and employees
     • Routine jobs = money
     • Creative = autonomy
     • Intrinsic motivation makes it interesting
   • Clarity and nature of business objectives
     • Understand objectives to see how their job effects these
   • Quality of communication
     • Good communication = valued
     • Feedback
   • Timescale
     • Financial easier short term
   • Culture
     • Formal = financial
     • Rigid so less autonomy
   • Size of organisation
     • Large = more difficult to motivate
   • State of the economy and success
     • Economic difficulty = job insecurity as motivation
     • More for less
     • Counterproductive

6. Money as a motivator

   • Rewards fluctuate, so uncertainty in budgeting
   • Quality may be sacrificed
   • May cause conflict
   • Bonuses to those who learn new systems may reduce resistance to change
   • Managers may see it as a form of control
   • May help reach short term goals
   • Motivation as efforts are recognised