Factors that motivate

employees at the workplace

Submitted by-
2016PGP216 ANURAG MISHRA
2016PGP186 KUNAL PATHAK
2016PGP259 PARUSHA MITTAL
2016PGP294 RAHUL KUMAR SINGH
Objective

To find out what are the factors that motivate employees to

achieve their goals in the organizational perspective
To learn from the experience of students who have had prior
work experience in MNCs/Startups/Growth companies
To understand whether some factors have a higher impact on
employee motivation as compares to others
Preliminary research

We took interviews of students who had prior work experience

at different organizations and asked them what were the major
factors that contributed to building their motivation to achieve
goals in the organization
We also enquired about how attached they felt to the
organization during their tenure. This helped us to understand
whether the factors that led to employee motivation also
helped to build organizational citizenship behavior.
Major motivational factors that emerged
from the interviews
The below mentioned factors emerged as the top sources of
motivation for employees in the organization. Also these factors
are ranked in the decreasing order of magnitude that they have on
employee motivation:

Performance based pay

Work recognition by seniors
Challenging work and difficult to achieve goals
Work-life balance and empathetic management
Visibility of work at departmental/organizational level
Further analysis

Compensation appeared to be the biggest factor that motivated

employees to contribute towards the work
Most of the interviewees were of the opinion that compensation
is the best way to gauge management trust in employees
capabilities and efforts put in the work
Pay scales of employees were also a major factor in comparing
employees contribution to the overall work of the department
Work recognition by seniors during and after the project
completion was the second most motivating factor as this
fuelled employees to renew their efforts or start new projects
with greater energy
Further analysis

Tougher goals set by managers sent a signal to employees that

they trusted in the capabilities of the employee to achieve
these tough goals. However, employees also expected managers
to reward their efforts according to the complexity of the work
that they undertook
Employees that were given flexibility to pursue their work
independently and who were given support by the management
in terms of work-from-home and flexible working hours were
motivated to go the extra mile to achieve the goals as they
perceived that the management cared about their personal life.
This enabled them to engage in organizational citizenship
behavior by reciprocating in terms of amount/quality of work
done.
Further analysis

Visibility of work done by employee was another major

motivating factor. Appreciation by top management for
departmental objective completion signals the employee that
top management does keep a close watch on employee
performance. This motivates the employees to work harder as it
significantly increases their chances of advancing the career
ladder.
Final comments

Factors like performance based pay, work recognition by

seniors, challenging goals, work-life balance, empathetic
management and visibility of work at organizational level
contribute highly to employee motivation
Most companies fail to apply these techniques to motivate
employees leading to decline in employee performance
Employees who reported being judged on all these factors
contributed more to their work and also noticed greater
efficiency in work amongst peers/seniors. They also noted that
their companies performed significantly better than their
competitors since the company was able to retain top talent
due to the aforementioned factors.
THE END