reason for performing the tasks they are performing, otherwise they have no will to complete

Without considering motivation, no organization, public or otherwise, could operate successfully. Employees must have a reason for performing the tasks they are performing, otherwise they have no will to complete them. This is a microcosm of Maslow’s original need theory, which assumed the idea that “man is a perpetually wanting animal” (Denhardt, Denhardt & Aristigueta, 2013 p.167). The theory, popularized in his erarchy of Needs, presents categories of needs that humans seek to fulfill, beginning with the basic needs of survival, and peaking with more philosophical needs of understanding oneself and one’s purpose. Maslow demonstrated that satisfying these needs was at the core of every person, and by extension every employee. This laid the groundwork for employers to understand how to gain employees and entice them to perform. However, the theory addresses the bare minimum of motivation, without directly relating things to a workspace, which makes the theory difficult to apply. McGregor capitalized on this idea and developed it further. McGregor’s ideas centered on the recognition that people need opportunities at work to satisfy not only lower-level needs for wages and decent working conditions but also higher-level social and ego needs”(Denhardt, Denhardt & Aristigueta, 2013 p. 167). It is these more independent needs that organizations must learn to cater to. Addressing the more basic needs of sustenance security can be reached through any outlet for financial gain. Even beyond employment, these needs can be sated through less common methods like creating one’s own food and shelter or gaining it through illegal means. It is through discovering and fulfilling employees higher-level needs that employers separate themselves from others, helping them retain their workforce and increase success. The downside of this and other need-based approaches is that they do little to account for the methods in which employees are expected to meet their goals. They are more concerned with gratification than practicality. Where Maslow and McGregor developed theories based on what people wanted, Vroom focused on what people would do to get what they wanted. Vroom posited that there were three concepts related to motivation: valence, expectancy, and force (Denhardt, Denhardt & Aristigueta, 2013 p.170). Once a goal or need is considered, the valence correlates to how strongly the person desires to reach the goal, expectancy is the gauge of how easily the person believes they can reach the goal, and force is the effort they put in to reach the goal. This approach considers an employee’s rationality. If humans will naturally take the simplest route to complete any task, then organizations can use expectancy-based motivation to encourage employees to see their goals as tangible, to reinforce their efforts in the workplace. However, employers may run the risk of discouraging employees from reaching too high, leaning towards goals which are more practical but less inspiring. In modern times, Steel and Konig have adapted these and other traditional theories into what they call Temporal Motivation Theory, or TMT. TMT builds on the past ideas by incorporating time as a determining factor in motivation. Steele and Konig believe that the time associated with receiving the benefits of a task will influence how powerful it is as a motivator. A tenet of their theory is picoeconomics, which “emphasizes the idea that when people make decisions, they tend to underestimate the value of benefits that will occur in the future” (Denhardt, Denhardt & Aristigueta, 2013 p.179). This theory is effective to summarize how many factors are present in establishing motivation, but if it is to prove effective from an employer’s standpoint, it relies on the employee’s openness to share values for these factors, or the employer’s ability to understand employee’s individual needs. Cross, Baker, and Parker theorize that a key to motivation is positive energy coming from others. They believe that those who need extra encouragement to be successful are motivated by “energizers” who are naturally more charismatic and enthusiastic (Denhardt, Denhardt & Aristigueta, 2013 p. 181). By proximity to these people, other employees find themselves trying harder on their own tasks. The issue with this approach is its depends on some employees to be naturally energized to essentially take the effort of motivating off of the employer. In my current workplace, expectancy theory is most prevalent, because the general job requirement is based around meeting consistent, short-term goals. This keeps employees feeling accomplished, because they are consistently completing tasks as they appear, and if there is ever a goal not met, another is right around the corner, keeping the stakes low and pressure down.