Improving staff performance.

Improving staff performance

There are two types of motivational theory’s that give people the driving force to succeed. The first type is Content theory. This motivation theory assumes that individuals have needs that they need peruse, an example of this type of motivation is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, there are five levels biological and physiological needs, safety needs, belongingness, esteem needs and self actualisation. For people to reach their goals they must work their way up the triangle this content theory assumes that people need to meet each level before they can move on and ultimately succeed in their goals.

Whereas process theories work on the bases that employees need to be rewarded to make them work hard and remain motivated an example of this is Goal theory. “Goals guide people’s responses and actions. Goals direct work behaviour and performance” (Mullins 2007). Another example of process theory is Expectancy theory this is when people put the effort in because they expect to receive a reward for their work; the behaviour of the work is mainly determined by how much they want the reward.

How do businesses motivate their staff?

One business that has managed to highly motivate their staff is Nandos, they have been awarded three stars in the Best Companies Accreditation 2010 scheme and been described as one of the top 10 employers to work for.
To motivate their staff Nando’s try to bring aspects of their employees into their restaurants, this makes employees more motivated to work as they really do feel like part of a family at work and are in a happy environment with a positive atmosphere.”Our aim is not to be just another chain of restaurant. We want each Nando’s restaurant to be individual” (Nando’s 2009)

Nando’s mainly uses Content theory when motivating their staff, as they believe that their staff are not just motivated by rewards but motivated by doing their jobs to the best of their abilities and want to progress at work rather than just turn up and be happy doing the same monotonous job with no drive to succeed. As well as this Nando’s uses process theories to reward their staff for their hard work motivation and dedication to the business, for example each employee is given a meal after 4 hours of work. As well as this team meetings take place where individual employees are praised for their work.

Another business that has motivated staff is Tesco, who use process theories to maintain staff motivation one of the rewards “Tesco is offering all 268,065 of their employees is a day’s paid leave to use as their own personal day over the Christmas period” (Mckeever 2009). As well as this staff are given thank you vouchers depending on how many years they have been working at the shop. Another way they reward their staff is by offering £92 million worth of free shares as part of their success scheme

One area that Tesco has not seemed to spend much time is on content theories, by having a work force that are mainly working for rewards could result in Tesco having to spend more money to encourage staff to work as they will take the opinion that “why should I work and spend extra time on something when I am not getting anything for it”.

So what?

For a business to make sure that they have a motivated and dedicated workforce they need to look and both theories to keep employees working effectively and efficiently as some employees may be more motivated by rewards that moving up the career table. This is why smaller companies may fail to keep its staff motivated as they will not have the same resources and capital to invest in motivational schemes.



References
Mullins, L. (2007) Management and Organisational Behaviour. 8th edition. Essex: Pearson Education Limited

Harmer, J. (2010) Nando’s scoops prize [online]. Available from: http://www.caterersearch.com/Articles/2010/02/10/332167/Nandos-scoops-three-stars-in-the-Best-Companies-Accreditation-2010.htm [Accessed 25 April 2010]

Nandos (2009) The Nando’s story [online]. Available from: http://www.nandos.co.uk/default/EXP21/Service.html#nandos=PM-cat_ABS8_tcat_EXP+DCMD-FAM_default_subcat_ABS8 [Accessed 26 April 2010]

McKeever, K. (2009) Tesco [online]. Available from: http://www.employeebenefits.co.uk/item/8169/23/5/3?nl=WN [Accessed 25 April 2010]