Motivation theories

F. W. Taylor (1911) held that workers are motivated mainly by money and that management’s job is to find the single most efficient way of doing each task, train workers in it, and pay by output. Work study breaks a job into timed elements; piece-rate pay rewards the number of units produced; supervision is close.

Justifies: piece rate, output-linked bonuses, tight job design. Fits: repetitive, measurable work — a packing line, a call centre measured on calls handled. Limits: it ignores social and psychological needs, monotonous jobs raise turnover and absence, and quality can fall when only quantity is paid for. Taylor is the theory most students dismiss as outdated; the better answer notes that gig-economy pay per delivery is Taylor in current form.

Maslow (1943) proposed five levels of human need, satisfied in order: physiological (food, shelter — in work, pay), safety (job security, safe conditions), social (belonging — teams, good relationships), esteem (recognition, status, promotion) and self-actualisation (fulfilling potential — challenging, creative work). Two rules do the analytical work: a satisfied need no longer motivates, and a person moves up one level at a time.

Justifies: a different method at each level — a living wage, then a permanent contract, then team working, then recognition and promotion routes, then autonomy and development. Fits: diagnosing why a method has stopped working: a pay rise for staff whose unmet need is recognition changes little. Limits: people do not all follow the order, needs can be pursued at several levels at once, and a manager cannot easily tell which level each employee is at.

Herzberg (1959) found that the factors causing dissatisfaction at work were different from those causing satisfaction. Hygiene factors — pay, working conditions, company policy, supervision, relationships, job security — cause dissatisfaction when they are inadequate but do not motivate when they are adequate. Motivators — achievement, recognition, the work itself, responsibility, advancement, personal growth — are what actually motivate. A business must get hygiene right to stop dissatisfaction, then build motivators into the job to get motivation.

Justifies: job enrichment above all — giving employees responsibility, whole tasks, and scope to grow — plus recognition and promotion. Fits: any question where a business is paying well and still has low motivation. Limits: based on interviews with accountants and engineers, so its transfer to low-skilled work is contested; and pay is not as motivationally inert as the theory implies — commission clearly changes salespeople’s behaviour.

The exam’s favourite point: pay is a hygiene factor. It does not mean pay does not matter. It means paying more cannot, by itself, make an unmotivated workforce motivated — it can only stop pay being the reason they are dissatisfied.

McClelland (1961) argued that people acquire, through experience, a dominant need from three: the need for achievement (challenging but attainable goals, personal responsibility, feedback), the need for affiliation (belonging, harmonious relationships, being liked) and the need for power (influence over others, either personal or for the organisation).

Justifies: matching the person to the role and the reward — achievers to targets with regular feedback and moderate risk, affiliators to team-based roles, power-driven staff to leadership positions. Fits: questions about job design, promotion decisions and why one motivation scheme works for some staff and not others. Limits: identifying an employee’s dominant need is difficult, and most people carry all three in some measure.

Vroom (1964) treats motivation as a calculation the employee makes. Effort is worth making if three things hold at once: expectancy — effort will lead to the required performance; instrumentality — that performance will lead to the reward; and valence — the reward is one the employee actually values. The three multiply, so if any one is zero, motivation is zero.

Justifies: achievable targets with the training to hit them (expectancy), rewards that reliably follow performance (instrumentality), and rewards chosen to suit the workforce (valence). Fits: explaining why a bonus scheme fails — the target was unreachable, the bonus was not paid when earned, or the reward was something staff did not want. Limits: assumes people make the calculation consciously and rationally; hard to apply to a whole workforce with different valences.

The analytical move on any financial method is the same: does it link reward to something the employee controls, and does it risk the thing the business is not paying for — quality under piece rate, customer care under commission, teamwork under individual bonuses?

• Job rotation — moving between tasks of similar level. Reduces monotony; does not raise responsibility.
• Job enlargement — more tasks at the same level. Variety, not depth; Herzberg would call it more hygiene.
• Job enrichment — more responsibility, whole tasks, decision-making. Herzberg’s central prescription.
• Team working — organising work in groups with shared goals. Maslow’s social needs; McClelland’s affiliation.
• Empowerment and delegation — authority to make decisions. Herzberg’s responsibility; Maslow’s esteem and self-actualisation.
• Participation — involving staff in decisions, e.g. quality circles. Esteem; better decisions as a by-product.
• Training and development — raises expectancy (Vroom) and serves growth (Herzberg).

Non-financial methods cost less in cash and more in management time and trust; they suit skilled staff and fail where the job cannot be enriched — which is the evaluative line in most 12-markers on the topic.

1. 1.Calling pay a motivator 'according to Herzberg'

   Pay is a hygiene factor in Herzberg. Getting this backwards undermines the knowledge mark and every argument built on it.

2. 2.Describing the theory instead of using it

   Five lines on Maslow’s pyramid is knowledge, capped at 2 marks. One line of theory, then what it implies for the business in the question.

3. 3.Mixing McClelland's needs with Maslow's levels

   Maslow’s needs are universal and ordered; McClelland’s are acquired and one dominates. “Need for achievement” is McClelland, not the top of the pyramid.

4. 4.Treating Vroom's factors as additive

   They multiply. A valued reward with an unreachable target motivates nobody — that zero is the analytical point.

5. 5.Job enlargement offered as enrichment

   More tasks at the same level is enlargement. Enrichment adds responsibility and decision-making — the difference is what Herzberg’s motivators turn on.