Motivation. Psychologists who study the subject of human behavior and personality generally are convinced that all behavior of human, страница 2

In this day and age when most employees take high wages and excellent benefit plans for granted, it should be apparent that long-term positive motivation of employees rests in satisfying the higher level needs of people, that is, their social, esteem, and self-fulfillment needs. Supervisors should recognize that just giving employees more money, better benefits, and better working conditions will not, in itself, bring about excellent work performance. As a matter of fact, these items often are secondary in worker motivation.

NEGATIVE MOTIVATION                                       

When the higher level needs of human beings are not satisfied

on the job, many workers resort to behavior patterns which usuallyare detrimental to their performance and to the performance of th organization. A typical approach for frustrated employees is to resi™ themselves to just ^getting by" on the job. This means that theployees simply go through the motions and put in time without trying to perform in other than an average or marginal tanner. They look for personal satisfactions off the job and are content to do only enough to draw a paycheck.

Another approach is for employees to adopt what some'writers call "detour behavior*'. These employees find things which constantly distract them from doing the Job, and at times they even try to "beat the system.".They often are absent, tardy, or break the rules as a way of trying to get back at situations which they find frustrating.

Still other employees who are frustrated adopt behavior which is aggressive and which ultimately may cause them to leave the job situation. By aggression is meant such conduet as fighting, negative attitudes, and temper outbursts. When the situation gets too bad for some employees, they quit or almost force their superviso/i to fire them because of their poor performance.

All of these types of reactions to frustrating situations are undesirable. Costs of employee turnover, absenteeism, tardiness, poor performance, and generally unsatisfactory conduct on the job can be extremely high to an organization. The most promising supervisory approach for dealing with frustrating job situations is to seek sound solutions to problems by providing more opportunities for positive motivation. In other ^words, supervisors and their organizations must make major efforts so that both the lower level and higher level needs of employees are satisfied on the job.

AUTHORITY vs. HUMAN RELATIONS: THE SUPERVISORY DILEMMA   йФЧр!        %

The age-old dilemma confronting supervisors has been to'determine the degree to which they should utilize supervisory approaches based upon the lower level as opposed to the higher level needs of people. Many writers believe that this is essentially an issue of how supervisors should rely on their authority and power as compared with trying to utilize good human relations practices whichprovide opportunities for self-motivation. A number of yea late Professor Douglas McGregor of the Massachusetts Inst^0' ** Technology wrote an outstanding book entitled, The Human sT °f Enterprise. In this book. Professor McGregor contrasted the dil* * °* of choice which faces supervisors and managers. He noted таГЛ? vidual supervisory approaches were largely related to each suLr" visor's perception or beliefs as to what people were all about. Thar each supervisor will manage employees according to his own attitudes and ideas about people, their needs, and their motivations. For purposes of comparison, McGregor stated that the extremes in contrasting attitudes among managers could be classified as Theory X and Theory Y.

McGregor's Theory X and Theory Y

The basic assumptions of Theory X and Theory Y as stated by McGregor are as follows: Theory X

I The average human being has an inherent dislike of work and will avoid it if he can.