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employee motivation project for bba studentd and mba students
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Prepared for: Professor Mary Groves University of Nevada, Reno Prepared by: Randall E. Berkson Ross W. Martin Brandon V. Smith Jordan M. Worley 12/13/
To: Mary Groves From: Randall E. Berkson Ross W. Martin Brandon V. Smith Jordan M. Worley Date: December 13, 2011 Subject: Report on Employee Motivation Here is the report on employee motivation you requested. It is titled “Employee Motivation and its Most Influential Factors”. This report outlines the methods used in the study to gather data about the various factors that influence employee motivation and how to better motivate the company’s employees in the future.
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Table 1: Rankings of Incentives……………………………………………………………………………….…. 11 Table 2: Pearson Correlations……………………………………………………………………………………. 19 Table 3: Part III Results - Rating Averages…………………………………………………………………….... 20 Table 4: Part III Results – Rating Averages for “Low-Income” Employees………………………………….…. 20 Table 5: Part III Results – Rating Averages for “High-Income” Employees………………………………….… Table 6 : Part IV, Questions 1 & 2………………………………………………………………………………... 20
Figure 1: Age Distribution of Respondents……………………………………………………………………..... 8
This study was executed in order to measure the employees’ current satisfaction of motivational factors and incentives in the company, as well as to use that information to determine which factors and incentives could be changed, implemented, or eliminated in order to motivate them to do their best work in the future. The study was conducted by issuing a questionnaire to all employees working at the company headquarters in Reno. The employees that participated were both full-time and part-time, from all different departments, and have been working at the company for varied periods of time. The questionnaire was split into four different parts, and the data derived from the questionnaire was analyzed and presented in this report in four criteria: communication in the workplace, income of employees, long-term incentives, and non-financial incentives.
Demographic Profile The respondents of the questionnaire were 53.33% male and 46.67% female. The company has a very young workforce, with 75% of the sample respondents being 33 years of age or younger. According to the questionnaire data, 65% of the respondents make less than $30,000 per year. Nearly 70% of the employees work 40 hours or less per week, and more that 75% of the respondents are single. Communication in the Workplace According to the study, 48.33% of the employees believe that improvements can be made to the communication within the company. In regard to employee-manager interactions, 30% of the respondents believe their manager or boss does not communicate with them enough, although the study showed a generally positive opinion of the company’s managers and their management styles. The correlation between good communication and high motivation are strong, according to the Pearson Correlation that was run for the two factors. Income in the Workplace The 65% of respondents that make less than $30,000 per year rated “Management Support” and “Company Emphasis on Incentives and Creativity” lower on the 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree) point scale than did the respondents making $30,000 per year or over, by rating various statements in Part III of the questionnaire comprising the overall “Management” and
long-term incentives actually provide more productivity from the workers, because they are actually working toward something instead of just trying to maintain it. The study showed that short-term financial incentives are not necessarily conducive to innovation. Short-term incentives motivate employees to do the work the way they have always done it, and not to try to find a different or more efficient method of completing the job. Non- financial incentives such as achieving recognition and credit, seeing the impact an employee’s work has, mastering a certain position, and flexibility of scheduling can greatly influence motivation. The extent of their effectiveness in this company is limited, though, which means the company and the managers need to make a greater effort to incorporate incentives that are important to and valued by the average employee, such as these.
With the data from the questionnaire collected and analyzed, and with the recommendations drawn from the findings of the study, the company will be better able to understand what it can do to motivate its employees more effectively and increase morale in the workplace. Recommendations to the company based on this study include: raising the wages of the lower- income employees at the company, promoting more from within the company, encouraging better and more frequent communication between managers and employees, making sure employees are receiving significant credit and recognition for their great work, and offering more opportunities for employees to increase their skill-sets and to master their respective positions. If there is a greater level of understanding and cohesion between employees and managers, and if the right types of incentives are added to effectively motivate employees, productivity and revenues will increase, and the company as a whole will greatly benefit.
Employee motivation, at times, can be an elusive quest for companies and managers due to the multiplicity of incentives that can influence employees to do their best work. Furthermore, short-term financial incentives are often seen as mandatory to foster motivation and are generally viewed very positively by employees in the workplace. However, recent research has indicated that there are other factors that can significantly influence motivation and lead to innovation.
The purpose of this study was to determine what types of incentives and motivational factors can more effectively promote innovation and increase employee motivation in the company, as well as to provide recommendations to management on what to implement, eliminate, or change, based on our findings.
This study benefits two primary groups. The first group it benefits is managers in the company. With the knowledge of what motivates employees, managers can better determine what drives employees to do their best work. They can use this information to get more value out of the people they hire and already employ by using effective motivational strategies other than monetary incentives. Managers need to know what drives their subordinates and peers in order to be effective leaders in the work place. The recommendations in this report will enable managers to get the best performance out of their employees and increase productivity in their departments. The second group this study benefits is the employees. Employees can use this information to determine what helps motivate them as well as understand what motivates their
Grant and Gino (2010), concluded in their study “A Little Thanks Goes a Long Way: Explaining Why Gratitude Expressions Motivate Prosocial Behavior” that gratitude shown in the workplace can promote “prosocial” behavior the carries throughout the company. In their discussion they state, “Our findings complement this line of research by demonstrating that expressions of gratitude, not only experiences of gratitude, have spillover effects on prosocial behavior. As such, our research suggests that gratitude expressions may have important theoretical and practical implications for encouraging prosocial behaviors that promote cooperation…” (p. 953) Schoeffler (2005), a contributor to the Insurance Journal, explains that incentives should be in a three tier incentive scheme: recognition, short-term, and long term. The basic concept is to allow for incentives that will motivate different personality types. For example, some people enjoy immediate satisfaction and some enjoy satisfaction that is delayed but has taken time to build up. Recognition is a key role in motivating which is a non-financial incentive that reflects feedback.
Source of Data The data used in this study were based off of responses to a questionnaire ordered by upper- management, developed by a team of four researchers, and issued to 60 employees of the company. The questionnaire was split into four separate parts. Part I consisted of basic demographical questions that helped to analyze the data based on segments after the questionnaire was returned. Part II asked respondents to rank eight incentives from 1 to 8 based on how motivated they were by each incentive. The rankings revealed exactly what incentives employees valued most, and based on the employees individual rankings, the difference between what factors they believe are most important to them and which ones are actually most important to them were deciphered, due to their answers in the other parts of the questionnaire. Part III asked respondents to rank a series of ten statements from 1 to 6 based on their level of agreement (strongly disagree to strongly agree). The statements dealt with management styles in the workplace, incentives offered, employee satisfaction, and various motivating factors. Part IV included nine multiple choice questions that asked respondents to choose the most appropriate answer based on their feelings about the effectiveness of communication in the workplace, how important they are to the company, how important their work is, and how motivated they are at their current position. A copy of the questionnaire can be found in Appendix A on page 15. Sample Selection This study was conducted by issuing a questionnaire to 60 employees working at the company headquarters in Reno. The employees that participated were both full-time and part-time, from all different departments, and have been working at the company for varied periods of time. The questionnaires were distributed to the employees in person by one of the four members of the
team conducting the study, and were asked to submit the questionnaire to their respective department supervisor in a sealed envelope after it was completed. Each department supervisor then gave the questionnaires back to the research team for data evaluation and analysis. Statistical Methods The first part of the questionnaire, collecting simple demographic info, was utilized to determine how similar or different the different responders were. Though distributed to similar employees, these key questions can give insight into where somebody is in life and how that might affect their outlook on their job motivation. Part II of the questionnaire was a ranking question that was simply analyzed with a Borda Count method. Pearson Correlations were used to compare certain sections of the survey data in Parts II-IV. These correlations can be found on Table 2 in Appendix B. Part III of the questionnaire was a section that asked respondents to rank a series of ten statements from 1 to 6, with the “1” ranking meaning “strongly disagree”, and the “6” ranking meaning “strongly agree”. For each statement, the most common rankings chosen by the respondents were calculated, as well as the overall averages for the 60 respondents. To do this, all of the numerical rankings were summed and then divided by 360, which represented the total number of points possible (high of 6 for each statement multiplied by the number of respondents [60]). Then that percentage was multiplied by 6 to get the average ranking for each statement. After an average ranking was found for each individual statement, the statements were grouped into different segments, with the first two statements comprising the “Management Support” segment, statements 3 through 6 comprising the “Company Emphasis on Incentives and Creativity” segments, and 7 through 10 remaining as individual statements about various motivational factors. The averages were then calculated for each segment and analyzed.
This questionnaire was revised several times before finalization. During those revisions, some questions and some answer choices were removed in order to make the questionnaire as short as possible while still providing worthwhile data. The quality of the data collected will still be sufficient for our study, but perhaps not as specific as a lengthier questionnaire could provide. Because the questionnaire was distributed to only one place of work, the data is not expected to reflect an incredibly wide range of perspectives. To apply results to a greater population, a larger, more random sample would need to be taken.
Part IV of the questionnaire asked multiple choice questions regarding employees’ opinions of the effectiveness of communication throughout the company and within their respective departments. When asked directly what they thought about the communication in the company, 48.33% answered that they thought it had problems in certain areas and needed improvement in order to make them truly satisfied. 38.33% thought it was “fairly strong” but imperfect, meaning it could still improve in order to make them feel more like a part of the team. 55% of respondents claimed to feel only somewhat motivated at their job instead of highly motivated, and a fairly high correlation was found between good communication in the workplace and high motivation in employees, after a Pearson Correlation was used to analyze the data gathered from the returned questionnaires (the full version of the various correlations ran for the study can be found at Table 2 in Appendix B). This helps explain, in part, why employees at the company do not feel as motivated as they believe they could with more effective motivating factors and incentives. Good communication in the workplace is therefore a strong motivating factor in many cases, because in this study, the good-but-imperfect overall view of communication effectiveness in the company can be found to impact employees’ motivation levels in their respective jobs, which are solid but not as high as they could be. In Part III, employees were also asked about how much they felt managers cared about them personally, and how much effort they felt managers were making to instill a solid level of motivation in their departments. Overall, respondents feel neutrally-to-positively about the management styles they are exposed to at work, and they feel that managers do a decent job of caring about employees and attempting to motivate them. 43.33% claim their manager talks to them on a regular basis and is helpful, but 26.67% claim their manager only talks to them when it is necessary or when problems arise. Nearly half of the respondents feel that it is most helpful and least obtrusive when their boss or manager gives them job feedback or talks to them about their work on a weekly basis. So if that is not happening, as is indicated by the 30% that feel their boss isn’t communicating with them enough, it can affect their overall motivation level.
As noted the Demographic Profile, most of the respondents in this study make a relatively low annual income. 65% of the employees that responded to the questionnaire make less than $30,000 per year, with 38.33% making less than $20,000. Therefore, analyzing the data based on lower and higher income demographics (65% lower, 35% higher) was the most interesting way to conduct the study, because it gave a detailed look at the polarizing views of each segment due to the questions asked and answered, and it depicts the influence pay can have on every aspect of an employee’s satisfaction at work, including their level of motivation. In the “Statistical Methods” section in Section I of this report, the method used in analyzing the data from Part III of the questionnaire gave accurate averages of the rankings respondents gave to each statement, as well as to the segments (or categories) the statements were later split up
into (Table 3; Appendix B). After these figures were found, the averages were calculated for each statement and category just for the demographic segment of employees making less than $30,000 per year (Table 4; Appendix B), and also for the demographic segment earning equal to or more than $30,000 per year (Table 5; Appendix B), and the deviations between the two samples were quite interesting. In the “Management Support” category, those with yearly incomes of under $30,000 ranked management 4.14 out of 6 in regard to how much they feel management cares about them as individuals, as well has how they much feel management cares about motivating them to do their best work. The company itself fared slightly worse with its low-income employees, ranking 3. 52 out of 6 in regard to its emphasis on creativity and innovation, incentives offered, and the achievability of upward mobility in the company. In contrast, the “high-income” employees in the sample rated “Management Support” higher at 4. out of 6, and “Company Emphasis on Incentives and Creativity” higher as well at 4.15 out of 6, showing a bit of a disconnect between the two different income demographics. The high-income and low-income demographic segments both rated how greatly certain types of incentives motivated them to do their best work. The “low-income” segment rated “gaining proficiency at my job and mastering my position” as the most motivating factor to them in the workplace, followed by “seeing the impact my work has on the company and others outside the company”, “financial incentives”, and then finally “achieving recognition, credit, and acclaim”. However, the high-income segment rated “seeing the impact…” as their most motivating factor, followed be “gaining proficiency…”, and then had the same exact averages for “financial incentives” and “achieving recognition…” The low-income segment rated the three factors other than “seeing the impact…” an average of 0.41 points higher than the high-income segment. On question 9 of the multiple choice section of the questionnaire (Part IV), the employees making less than $30,000 per year chose “very motivated” almost 10% less than the sample of respondents as a whole. In addition, the percentage of low-income employees who claimed they are “somewhat motivated” was higher than that of the sample as a whole, as were the percentages of low-income employees who are “unmotivated” or “very unmotivated”.
The respondents answered a ranking question in Part II of the questionnaire that asked them what incentives they found to be most motivating from 1st^ to 8th^ place. The respondents indicated the opportunity for promotion was the second most important motivating factor after salary/wage. Moreover, there was a moderate correlation between the perception of the existence of achievable long-term incentives (Section III, Question # 4) and how currently motivated the respondents were (Section V, Question #9). This would also relate to Manso’s (2011) research in that long-term incentives and job stability fosters motivation and innovation. Opportunity for promotions would fall under the category of long-term incentives because of the nature of which they occur (i.e. not quarterly or typically in short time periods). In Section IV of the survey, questions 1 and 2 dealt with the likelihood of the respondents to either implement a new method or to use a past successful method to complete a short term project. The results were quite interesting, because none of the respondents said they would be
shows that approximately half of respondents are praised and personally thanked for a job well done after doing a great job on a task or project. The other half, in this case, was split, but mostly noted that they were neither thanked nor financially rewarded for great work on a certain task or project. Incredibly few respondents were solely given financial rewards. These responses, when compared to the results of Part III of the survey, seem to convey that recognition is as much an essential factor regarding motivation as financial incentives.
Communication was found to be a contributing factor in motivating employees, and a company with effective communication will help make employees feel more involved and appreciated. If employees have a greater respect for their company and are satisfied with the way information is relayed to them, they will be more motivated in the workplace and their work will improve as a result. The amount of communication between managers and employees is very critical, and overall employee motivation can depend on how much they feel the manager cares about them as individuals and values their work as well. There is definitely room for improvement in the quality of communication at the company. The respondents of the questionnaire in the “low-income” demographic were less motivated and were slightly more critical of the quality of communication in the company, management styles, and the company’s effort to offer achievable and worthwhile incentives. They felt more strongly than the higher-income demographic about the ability of financial incentives, achieving recognition and credit, and gaining proficiency at their job to motivate them to do their best work. This is primarily because they earn a lower wage and feel the need to compensate for their lack of pay by feeling more strongly about and putting more emphasis on the ideas of incentives and other motivational factors in the workplace, whether they are actually receiving them or not. By receiving a higher wage, these employees’ overall motivation levels would increase because they would no longer be lacking that important motivational factor and having to compensate. Long-term incentives such as opportunity for promotion, along with other like incentives, are beneficial in influencing more overall productivity. Also, short-term financial incentives could give motivation to only do what has been successful in the past and not to be creative. While employees find their pay to be an undeniably vital aspect of their jobs, it cannot stand on its own as the sole incentive provided by the company. Though important, financial incentives were actually found to be less motivating than the employee simply gaining proficiency at their job, or the employee’s work having a noticeable effect on the company. Where financial rewards might be excessive, inappropriate, or unaffordable, being praised or personally thanked can facilitate the employee’s desire to have a greater, more meaningful effect on the company.
The following recommendations are made to the company based on the findings and conclusions of this study on employee motivation and its most influencing factors, for the purpose of enhancing the overall level of employee motivation in the company and increasing work efficiency.
What is your sex? Male Female What is your status? Single Divorced Married Widowed Separated What is your age range? <17 50 -‐ 57 18 -‐ 25 58 -‐ 65 26 -‐ 33 66 -‐ 73 34 -‐ 41 > 42 -‐ 49 What is your yearly income? <$19,999 $75,000 -‐ $99, $20,000 -‐ $29,999 $100,000 -‐ $149, $30,000 -‐ $39,999 $150,000 -‐ $199, $40,000 -‐ $49,999 $200,000 -‐ $249, $50,000 -‐ $74,999 >$250, How long have you been at your current job? <1 year 8 -‐10 years 2 -‐4 years >11 years 5 -‐7 years How many hours per week do you work on average? <10 31 -‐ 40 11 -‐ 20 41 -‐ 50 21 -‐ 30 >
By which method do you earn wages? Hourly Salary Other: __________ Part II: (^) Please rank the following incentives from Most Motivating (1) to Least Motivating (8) Benefits (stock options/health insurance/401k/vacation or sick pay) Company socials/parties/celebrations Opportunity for promotion Performance-‐based bonuses Recognition for good work Salary/hourly wage Schedule flexibility Tuition reimbursement Part III: (^) Please rate the following statements about your current place of work based on your level of agreement from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 6 (Strongly Agree) 1 Management shows a genuine interest in motivating employees. Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 6 Strongly Agree 2 Management seems to care about employees on both professional and personal levels. Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 6 Strongly Agree 3 My company places great emphasis on creativity and innovation. Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 6 Strongly Agree 4 My company offers achievable long-‐term incentives. Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 6 Strongly Agree 5 I am satisfied with the incentives my company offers. Strongly Disagree 1 2 3 4 5 6 Strongly Agree
