The Components of Employee Motivation and Organizational Success

At the center of any successful organization rests the employees that take the orders, assemble the products, and sell the goods. Before companies can achieve success they should ensure employees are committed and engaged with the organization and its objectives. Where well managed and committed employees are an asset, a poorly managed company with a lack of employee commitment will ultimately lead to decline. Through the development and encouragement of employee effort does the unique synergy exist in   organizations that allow for higher levels of operational savings and environmental capitalization. The components of this motivation are discussed through this article.

Motivation is derived from the word "motivate" which means to push, move, or influence the environment to achieve some objective (Kalimullah et al, 2010). Motivation can also be seen as the process by which behavior obtains a results, attempts to complete an objective and continues to push forward. It still may further be seen as an internal drive that pushes to fulfill some need (Bedeian, 1993).

Employee motivation is one of the main functions of management that is derived through the policies and procedures of an organization (Shadare et al, 2009). Through the need to accomplish some goal or find a path to personal development an employee will scan their work environment to put their skills, knowledge and abilities to the most appropriate use. Such excited employees are seeking ways to make their work more interesting and efficient and therefore organizations should foster the effort in order to make the company more successful (Kalimullah et al, 2010).

Through the capitalization on employee motivation an organization can meet customer demands, lower costs, and change to meet environmental challenges. Organizational effectiveness is the efficient process of turning inputs to outputs (Matthew et al, 2005). The more efficiently the organization is run through motivating processes the more effective is the process of converting the organizational factors into viable products or services. This is accomplished through the minds and bodies of workers that engage in and make micro and macro decisions throughout the process.

The Legitimacy Model views organizational effectiveness as “component preferences for performance and natural limitations on performance from an external environmental perspective” (Zammuto.R.F,
1982). In other words, while reviewing an organization it is possible to determine its effectiveness by understanding employees' preferences for performance and the limitations these employees have in utilizing these pathways. If road blocks are removed employees will put their effort toward those designed pathways that have the most chances of success.

Leadership is an essential component of motivation. Through employee trust of management they will believe that the leadership function of the organization will fulfill their explicit and implicit promises (Baldoni.J, 2005). Thus leadership and trust in management is necessary if employees are to make that decision to put forward effort into the organizational pathways. The leadership function and the labor function raise each other to higher levels of motivation and morality in a synergistic manner that furthers market interests (Rukhmani.K, 2010).

The essential components of employee motivation rely in trust, rewards, decision making, empowerment, information and group expectations (Baldoni.J, 2005; Yazdani,B.O. et al, 2011; Hassan et al, 2011; Adeyinka et al, 2007; Brewer et al, 2000). When these components work in tandem an environment can be more aligned to the needs of the employees and thus produce more meaningful results for the organization. Investors should ensure their management team are working to continually align their organizations to foster these motivational components to meet environmental needs.

Through a review of a number of studies it has been found that a various components contribute to the development of motivation within the organization:

 ...the factors that enhance employee motivation are fair pay, incentives, special allowances, fringe benefits, leadership, encouragement, trust, respect, joint decision making, quality of supervision, adequate working relationships, appreciation, chances for growth, loyalty of organization, identification and fulfillment of their needs, recognition, empowerment, inspiration, importance attached to their job, safe working conditions, training and information availability and communication to perform actions (Manzoor, 2011).

Baldoni, J., (2005). Motivation Secrets. Great Motivation Secrets of Great Leaders. [Online]
Available: http://govleaders.org/motivation_secrets.htm

Kamalian, A., Yaghoubi, N., & Moloudi, J., (2010). Survey of Relationship between Organizational Justice and Empowerment (A Case Study). European Journal of Economics, Finance and Administrative Sciences, 24, 165-171.

Matthew, J., Grawhich, & Barber, L., (2009). Are you Focusing both Employees and Organizational Outcomes. Organizational Health Initiative at Saint Louis University (ohi.slu@edu), 1-5.

Manzoor, Q. (2011). Impact of employees motivation on organizational effectiveness. Business and Management Strategy, 3 (1).

Rukhmani, K., Ramesh, M., & Jayakrishnan, J., (2010). Effect of Leadership Styles on Organizational Effectiveness. European Journal of Social Sciences, 15 (3), 365-369.

Yazdani, B., Yaghoubi, N., & Giri, E., (2011). Factors affecting the Empowerment of Employees. European Journal of Social Sciences, 20 (2), 267-274.

Zammuto, R. (1982). Assessing Organizational Effectiveness. State University of New York Press, Albany, NY.