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Motivating Employees: Theoretical Models and Strategic Uses
Business Essentials · Chapter 10: Human Resource ManagementSection 10.2 · lesson 50 of 10514 min · free with a free account
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In this lesson
How the HR system turns motivation theory into conduct.
- Explain how HR practices put motivation theory to work
- Design recognition, development, and job design well
- Spot HR practices that contradict each other
- Diagnose a motivation problem as a system problem
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Human Resource Management
Motivating Employees: Theoretical Models and Strategic Uses
Chapter nine explained what drives effort. This section asks a question of design. Given what we know, how should an organization arrange the way it hires, develops, recognizes, and rewards? We will work through four things. First, how HR practices put motivation theory into operation. Second, how to design recognition, development, and job design so they actually work. Third, how practices can quietly contradict one another, and cancel out. And fourth, how to diagnose a motivation problem as a problem of the system. Keep one idea in mind throughout. A practice can exist on paper, and still do nothing.
From Explanation to Design
A Theory Does Nothing on Its Own
Start with the distinction this section rests on. Explanation is one thing, and design is another. The content theories in Chapter nine identified the needs people bring to work. The process theories described how people weigh expectations, and how consequences shape what they do next. We will not restate any of that. We will refer back to it by section number. The new term is the HR system. It is the set of practices, policies, and routines through which an organization acts on its people. And it is the means by which a theory becomes conduct. Here is why that matters. A theory, on its own, does nothing at all. A manager who understands expectancy perfectly still needs an organization whose training, targets, and feedback make expectancy real. Without that system, her understanding stays in her head.
Motivational Weight
Every Practice Acts on a Mechanism
Several HR practices carry motivational weight, whether or not the organization thinks of them that way. Selection establishes the fit between person and role. Person-role fit is how well a person's abilities and needs match what the job demands and offers. It decides whether the job provides what the employee values. That is valence. Onboarding starts expectation setting. That means early, explicit word on what is required, and how performance is judged. It also covers what the employee gets in return. The result is clarity of direction. Job design shapes the meaning, autonomy, and feedback in the work itself. Development and career opportunity speak to growth needs, and to expectancy. Performance management converts standards into feedback and decisions. Recognition supplies consequences that follow good work. Reward attaches pay to performance. Empowerment rounds out the list. It acts on autonomy, meaning, and the belief that effort can matter.
Table 10.2.1
How Each Practice Fails, and How to Tell
The section's main table takes six of these practices, and asks two hard questions of each. What design error would neutralize it? And what measure would show that it is working? Selection fails when it looks only at skills, or oversells the role. Watch early turnover. Onboarding fails as a single day of forms and policies, with expectations left implicit. Test whether new hires understand expectations at thirty and ninety days. Job design fails when a redesign changes nothing about authority or feedback, or adds tasks without responsibility. Measure how employees rate the job dimensions, along with quality and initiative. Development fails when only the promotable get it. Check participation by all groups. Recognition fails when it is insincere, inconsistent, or aimed at the wrong thing. Ask whether employees see it as deserved and timely, and whether the recognized behavior repeats. Empowerment fails when responsibility comes without authority, information, or tolerance for good-faith error. Track the share of decisions made at the front line, and the speed of resolution. That last column is the point. Only the measure shows whether a practice is doing anything.
Job Design in Practice
The Biggest Lever, and the Least Used
Job design is the practice with the largest motivational effect, and the least use. Chapter nine gave the five job characteristics. Skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback. It also defined three responses to a poor design. Enrichment, enlargement, and rotation. So the real question is this. Why does so little redesign take place? The obstacles are organizational. Jobs are usually designed once, often when the work was different. Then they are tied to pay grades, titles, and appraisal forms. Changing the job means changing all of them. Managers are reluctant to give up control over decisions they have always made. Enrichment needs training, and may slow output for a while. That hurts a manager judged on this quarter. Underneath it all is an asymmetry. The benefits are diffuse and delayed. The costs are immediate and concrete. So redesign gets postponed, even where the diagnosis shows the work itself is the problem. HR can help in two ways. First, make the job characteristics visible, by asking employees to rate them. Second, run small experiments. Redesign a single team's job, and compare its results with a similar team's.
Development
Growth for the Many Who Won't Be Promoted
Development acts on growth needs, from section nine point one, and on expectancy, from nine point two. Employees who can see how new skills lead to better performance have a reason to invest in learning. But there is an honest constraint. Most employees will not be promoted. Organizations are shaped like pyramids, with fewer positions at each higher level. For most people, the next step up either does not exist, or will not open for years. A system that speaks only to promotion speaks to a minority. The rest hear they have no future. Career support for that majority is the neglected half of the problem. It can mean lateral moves that broaden skills, or more responsibility within the current role. It can mean projects and task forces, mentoring, and learning useful now and later. And it means honest conversations about what growth is realistic. The aim is to let a person keep developing, without needing a higher title. Organizations that manage this lose less talent, because staying no longer depends on a scarce vacancy.
Recognition Design
Cheap, Common, and Often Done Badly
Recognition acknowledges a contribution through praise, awards, attention, or visibility. It is distinct from pay. It applies the reinforcement and instrumentality ideas from Chapter nine. And it is inexpensive. That is exactly why organizations use it widely, and often badly. Four design errors make recognition counterproductive. The first is insincerity. Generic, scripted praise reads as routine, and breeds cynicism. The second is inconsistency. If recognition follows mood or favorites, people decide it is unrelated to performance. That weakens the very link recognition is supposed to build. The third is recognizing the wrong thing, like visible hours, or heroic last-minute rescues. And it ignores the quiet work that prevented the crisis. The fourth is crediting one person for a team result. That teaches that credit is competitive. What works is the reverse. Be specific about what was done and why it mattered. Be prompt. Follow stated criteria consistently, use a form the recipient values, and credit teams when the work was collective.
Empowerment
When Delegated Authority Is Real
Empowerment means delegating real decision authority, with information, resources, and accountability. It is a practice, not just an attitude. The HR system decides whether it is real. Four conditions settle the matter. First, the authority must be genuine. The decision really is the employee's, and visibly stands. Second, the employee needs the information and skills to decide well. Third, good-faith decisions will sometimes turn out badly. The organization treats those as occasions to learn. Fourth, appraisal and reward have to judge people on the decisions they are asked to make. Empowerment that lacks these conditions is merely rhetorical. Employees are told they are trusted. Yet any consequential decision still needs a signature. So they draw the obvious conclusion. The language is decoration. Notice where that failure sits. Not in the employees, but in the practices around them.
The Manager Relationship
The Most Consistent Driver, and HR's Limits
Of all the influences on engagement, one is the most consistent. The relationship with the immediate manager. In studies of engagement and of reasons for leaving, it recurs as a leading factor. That has a consequence HR cannot avoid. HR can select managers with care, and train them to set expectations, give feedback, and recognize work. It can hold them accountable, through appraisals that count how they treat their teams. It can give employees channels to raise concerns, and intervene when turnover or complaints point to a problem. What HR cannot do is replace the manager's behavior on an ordinary day. It never sees most of that. Nor can HR remove a poor manager alone. That takes a decision by senior leaders. And those leaders may be reluctant, if the manager's results are good. So a well-designed system limits the damage a poor manager can do, and helps good managers do better. It does not make the manager relationship unnecessary.
Engagement Measurement
What a Survey Can and Cannot Show
Employee engagement is the degree to which people are involved in, committed to, and enthusiastic about their work. An engagement survey measures it. It is a structured questionnaire, usually given to all employees at regular intervals. It can show differences between units, changes over time, and which features of work go with high engagement. It also has limits. Response bias means results differ systematically from what employees truly think. People may answer as they think they should, or doubt that responses are anonymous. Disengaged employees may not respond at all, so the results describe only those who chose to answer. Then there is manager pressure. When managers are judged on scores, some coach their teams to answer favorably. The score then measures the manager's influence, not the team's engagement. And in small teams, responses can be traced. The most serious damage, though, comes from surveying without acting. Employees say what is wrong, and see nothing happen. That is Chapter nine's instrumentality problem. Next time, response rates and honesty fall. The organization has paid to teach people their views do not matter. The remedy is to commit, in advance, to sharing results. Choose a few actions, announce them, and report progress.
Figure 10.2.1
Tarn Manufacturing: 2 Practices Cancel 3
Alignment is the degree to which HR practices reinforce one another, and point toward the same behavior. Practices that contradict each other cancel out. A badly designed practice can erase a well-designed one. Tarn Manufacturing, a fictional firm, shows how this happens. At onboarding, Tarn tells employees that prompt reporting of near-miss safety events is expected. Each crew has a safety-review role, and crews that spot hazards early are thanked. Three practices point toward reporting. Now the other two. Supervisors are ranked on the number of incident-free weeks their crews record. And the monthly crew bonus is paid on units shipped without a stoppage. A near-miss report can trigger a stoppage. It may also reset the incident-free count. So the crew that reports a near miss risks the supervisor's ranking, and its own bonus. The two practices that carry money and rank outweigh a welcome talk and a thank-you. Reports fall. The organization concludes that safety is improving, when what has improved is silence. So never ask only whether each practice is sensible alone. Ask whether together they send one message.
Diagnosis
Ask About the System Before the People
Before concluding anything about the people, ask a series of questions about the practices. Does the organization know what behavior it wants, stated specifically? Did anyone tell employees at the start? Does the job as designed allow the behavior, in authority, information, and time? Do appraisal, reward, recognition, and promotion reward that behavior, or something else? Are they consistent? Do employees believe it leads to something they value? Have earlier attempts to hear them led to action? Only when the system is aligned, well designed, and credible does it make sense to look at individuals. Separating ability and opportunity from motivation comes first. These questions come next. Now a composite case, built for instruction. Renata is an HR director at Pinecrest Analytics. Executives issued a memo asking for cross-team work. Six months later, teams still work in isolation. A survey says collaboration is talked about, but not valued. Renata finds that appraisal, bonuses, and promotion count only individual results. Helpers saw their ratings fall. Collaboration training would tell people what they already understand. A teamwork award would be undone by the scorecard. The sound decision is to change what appraisal and reward count, including contribution to other groups' results. It costs more, and needs executive approval. But it points the practices the same way as the memo.
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