Managing Human Resources Employees Motivation

Question: Discuss about theManaging Human Resourcesfor Employees Motivation. Answer: Introduction A companys overall success depends on employees motivation to work. An employee with the high level of motivation delivers high performance. Also, every worker wants their efforts to be recognised. Mc Donalds Corporation, which is recognised as largest fast food restaurant implements various strategies to motivate and retain its employees such as rewards and recognition scheme. In the context of the given case study, the essay discusses how the recognition scheme supports McDonald's culture and attracts future leaders. It also discusses the theories supporting this scheme. The essay further highlights that why this recognition scheme cannot be applied to the workers in the non-profit organisation. Mc Donald develops its future leaders with its strong culture. It has built a culture of focusing on people through recognition scheme. The high return on investment is due to its investment in people which is reflected in the high quality customer service, better run operations, cleanliness and quality product (Bartlomiejczuk, 2015). This culture is supported by the recognition scheme of McDonald. It is this power of recognition that helped the company to win outstanding achievers award at the corporate level. The company conducts formal annual events as well as develop programs that operate at both corporate and restaurant level. The company has the program for recognising its crew members for their best performance. The employees with significant contribution are nominated by the senior managers and are in turn approved by the senior management team. Employees are motivated by formally recognising them in from of their peers at the bi-annual staff meeting. The employees are awarde d gift voucher of $500 or are recognised as the employee of the month (Karin et al., 2014). Thus, this recognition scheme supports the companys strong recognition culture. This recognition scheme according to L?z?roiu (2015) is fresh and exciting. Introducing appealing schemes for employees the key to maximising the employee's motivation. Azeem (2016), stated that the employee of the month scheme introduce by McDonald into itsOlympic Champion Crew (OCC) initiative has won Most motivational benefits at the Employee Benefits Awards 2013. It can be argued that the recognition scheme is supporting the companys culture that is underpinned by strategies People, products, place, price and promotion. When the employees are appreciated they perform beyond what is expected of them and in turn becomes more productive. Consequently, it may decrease the staff turnover and increase their retention. This scheme attracts future leaders because the employees feel that their hard work is valued. Moreover, this tiny act does not cost huge but give lasting impact such as the increase in staff morale, loyalty, and build supportive work environment (Shields et al., 2015). B ased on the survey conducted on the managers of McDonald, it was found that most of them feel that there are favourable career opportunities and hence support the training and development programs. The culture in McDonalds is highly prevalent as an extrinsic element for creating the motivating work environment for the employees (Emerson Prang, 2016). Hence, such policies and scheme promote a strong team spirit which helps in attracting and maintaining a pool of potential leaders. However, there is also a flipside to this recognition scheme. According to Emerson and Prang (2016), there is a risk of allegation and favouritism when the management selects an employee for recognition. Azeem (2016), argued that this scheme may lead to fractions and discords within the workforce. It has negative implications if members of the same family work together in a company. That may lead to interpersonal conflicts breaking the company's strong culture. Further, by limiting the employee recognition to one occurrence per year may stifle the willingness of the employees to continuously strive for excellence. Also, the lack of funds may turn the employee recognition scheme unproductive. For example, an employee who has managed to increase the number of customer in the store and maximised the productivity does not deserve a simple computer generated the certificate or $500 which the employee end up spending too soon. Therefore, cash is not always the best idea. Instead, the recog nition program should be fair about the potential in each employee and must be based on the job duties. Bartlomiejczuk (2015), suggested team wise or group rewards are better than the individual rewards for building strong team spirit. Though the rewards scheme allows deciding the pay package for the employees, it is not prudent, and it should come during the performance review time else it may cause dissension among the employees. McDonalds recognition scheme can be supported by the Expectancy theory. According to Purvis et al. (2015), the expectancy theory or the process theory proposes that the work motivation depends on the association between the performance and the outcomes. An employee thus modifies his or her behaviour based on the anticipated outcomes circulated in the company. It means that if a person is performing to a particular level, it is because of the leaders in the workplace who has created motivational programs. According to the Expectancy theory, an individual is motivated due to three variables including "expectancy, instrumentality and valence" (Miner, 2015). Expectancy refers to the belief that performance will increase with increased effort. Instrumentality refers to the belief that valued outcome can be achieved by performing well. Valance refers to the value that individual places on the expected outcome (Bridger, 2014). Thus, if an employee is expecting and believes that his desires will be fulfilled in the form of reward, then it is sure to improve his motivation. Therefore, the expectancy theory is the foundation for the leaders to build the better understanding of ways to motivate the subordinates (Nadolny Ryan, 2015). Bartlomiejczuk (2015) argued that this theory is the process theory of motivation because it is due to the personal expectation that emphasises the staffs perception of the environment which consequently leads to subsequent interactions. An advantage of expectancy theory is that it is not about the self-interest in recognition and rewards rather about the associations made by the people towards expected outcome and the contributions they are willing to make towards that outcome. Therefore, this theory supports the recognition scheme of McDonalds. However, expectancy theory may not always support the recognition scheme. The theory assumes that it is the conscious choices among the alternatives with the purpose to minimise the pain and maximise the pleasure that gives rise to the particular behaviour (Povod et al., 2016). This assumption was argued by many authors. Since the theory works on perceptions, it may not imply for every individual. It is not necessary that every individual will perceive the benefits to be enough for their motivation (Bang et al., 2012). For example, if an individual places the high value on money, then it is highly likely that the individual is motivated by monetary benefits. In such case, offering any other rewards to that person may not motivate him or her. Therefore, other offers given during recognition such as additional holidays, $500 or just a trophy may not satisfy the individual. Some of the researchers have argued that monetary rewards may increase extrinsic motivation where rewards are cont rolled by the external source. However, it may decrease the intrinsic motivation which naturally flows from the interesting work itself. McDonalds recognition scheme can also be supported by Adams equity theory. According to this theory a fair balance should strike between the employee's input and output to enhance work motivation. Input refers to employees hard work, skills, efforts whereas output refers to rewards and recognition (Al-Zawahreh Al-Madi, 2012). An employee is motivated if efforts given in the work are justified through benefits given by McDonald's. However, it may not always happen in an organisation. The perception of the employee and the mangers may not be same. For example, If McDonalds offer $500 to an employee it may not be justified if the staff member has worked hard enough to be paid more than this amount. An employee maybe demotivated if his ratio of input and output is less than the ratio of other employees giving same effort. It may appear as unfair treatment of the workers and their efforts causing demotivation ad burnout. Thus, this theory of motivation is applicable if McDonalds emphasis es on fairness that is the ratio of input and output rather than just recognising the performance. The McDonalds approach to management of human resources may not be directly applicable to the not-for-profit organisations such as Spastic Centre. The primary challenge for the leaders and managers in not-for-profit organisations include raising financial resources (Bang et al., 2012). These organisations implement the range of tactics for fundraising. The workers in this sector compete with those in profitable organisations but with financial incentives constraints. These organisations, therefore, recruit individuals who are highly motivated and excel in their performance. The individuals recruited are high qualified and are not dependent on monetary benefits. Their motivation is thus based on nonmonetary and humane goals. In the non-profit organisation, Hackman and Oldhamsjob characteristics model is dominant (Akingbola, 2013). It means that a workers motivation for the job is higher if it includes responsibility for the outcome of work, job meaningfulness, andawareness. The main i ntrinsic motivation for the work is job meaningfulness. The leaders thus motivate the workers using tools such as confidence, autonomy, and achievement. This refers to McGregors motivationTheory Y (?ahin, 2012). This is in contradiction with the rewards and recognition scheme followed by McDonald's and is deemed necessary for employee motivation. In the non-profit organisation, employees are self-motivated thus an external source of motivation is not necessary when compared to employees in for-profit organisation. This also refers to the stewardship theory of unquantifiable intrinsic motivation (Miner, 2015). The culture in the non-profit organisation is prevalent as a concept of empathy and association. In these organisations, there exist a relationship of loyalty, integrity, morale, and aspirations. Thus, there is a difference in the approaches of human resource management of the profit and the non-profit organisation. The former uses the external source to motivate employees whereas the later uses tools to strengthen inner motivation to work. There is a difference in the attitude of the workers in both types of organisation. In the non-profit organisation, the workers have the high level of social commitment, and the motivation is rooted in their altruistic attitudes. This attitude stems from the value based perspectives (Park Word, 2012). Therefore, McDonalds approach to employee motivation cannot be directly applied here as it gives external rewards whereas the pattern of motivation in non-profit employees is different. They do not tend to deliver high performance or gain greater satisfaction when offered external rewards. For them, the mission is an incentive and the vision and values of the organisation itself influence the level of motivation among the non-profit employee s (Akingbola, 2013). Agency theory is applicable in some non-profit organisations. This theory focuses on the stakeholders of the organisation and their divergent goals and interests. These interests and goals are aligned using employee compensation. This theory is relevant in compensation design. This theory refers to a system in the organisation where one or more individuals called principals hire agents for performing certain tasks and delegating decision making authority (Bernstein et al., 2016). It is advantageous because it explains different level of obedience. It leads to Agentic state since the agents work more when the orders are given with more authority. Thus it causes an agent to sometime work against their will which may affect the motivation. However, some non-profit organisations are offering their agents an incentive contracts. The agents payment depends on the value of the outcome for the principal. The outcomes of the agents are measurable, quantifiable and observable. The incentive is designed by the principal if the agent exhibit loyalty and honesty at work which in turn motivate others agents, to tell the truth (Van et al., 2016). The research findings showed that employee motivation is an essential factor irrespective of the type of organisation. It can be concluded that though profit and non-profit organisations have distinctions, both sectors needs to emphasise on their service mission to attract and retain employees who value the unique rewards offered for working in these sectors. However, organisations like McDonald's need to devise ways to capitalise on the employees distinctive desire for advancement. On the other hand, the not-for-profit organisations must come up with creative ways to be flexible with volunteers motivation and their commitment. References Akingbola, K. (2013). A model of strategic nonprofit human resource management.Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations,24(1), 214-240. Al-Zawahreh, A., Al-Madi, F. (2012). The utility of equity theory in enhancing organizational effectiveness.European journal of economics, finance and administrative sciences,46, 158-170. Azeem, S. (2016). Drivers of Employee Motivation: Mediating Role of Job Satisfaction. Bang, H., Ross, S., Reio Jr, T. G. (2012). From motivation to organizational commitment of volunteers in non-profit sport organizations: The role of job satisfaction.Journal of Management Development,32(1), 96-112. Bartlomiejczuk, G. (2015). How do Recognition Programs Impact Employee Engagement and How have Companies with a Large Global Footprint Structured such Programs to Drive Results?. Bernstein, R., Buse, K., Bilimoria, D. (2016). Revisiting Agency and Stewardship Theories.Nonprofit Management and Leadership. Bridger, E. (2014).Employee engagement(Vol. 10). Kogan Page Publishers. Emerson, L., Prang, Y. (2016). Compensation and Benefits: Company-Provided Benefits at McDonalds. InHandbook of Human Resources Management(pp. 939-950). Springer Berlin Heidelberg. Karin Andreassi, J., Lawter, L., Brockerhoff, M., J. Rutigliano, P. (2014). Cultural impact of human resource practices on job satisfaction: a global study across 48 countries.Cross cultural management,21(1), 55-77. L?z?roiu, G. (2015). Employee Motivation and Job Performance.Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations, (14), 97-102. Miner, J. B. (2015).Organizational behavior 1: Essential theories of motivation and leadership. Routledge. Nadolny, A., Ryan, S. (2015). McUniversities revisited: a comparison of university and McDonald's casual employee experiences in Australia.Studies in Higher Education,40(1), 142-157. Park, S. M., Word, J. (2012). Driven to service: Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation for public and nonprofit managers.Public Personnel Management,41(4), 705-734. Povod, E. A., Roldugina, A. E., Dmitrienko, N. A. (2016). Analysis and Oppurtunities of Innovations in restaurant Business"Mcdonalds (as an example). , 59. Purvis, R. L., Zagenczyk, T. J., McCray, G. E. (2015). What's in it for me? Using expectancy theory and climate to explain stakeholder participation, its direction and intensity.International Journal of Project Management,33(1), 3-14. ?ahin, F. (2012). The mediating effect of leadermember exchange on the relationship between Theory X and Y management styles and affective commitment: A multilevel analysis.Journal of Management Organization,18(02), 159-174. Shields, J., Brown, M., Kaine, S., Dolle-Samuel, C., North-Samardzic, A., McLean, P., ... Plimmer, G. (2015).Managing Employee Performance Reward: Concepts, Practices, Strategies. Cambridge University Press. Van Puyvelde, S., Caers, R., Du Bois, C., Jegers, M. (2016). Managerial objectives and the governance of public and non-profit organizations.Public management review,18(2), 221-237.