THE IMPACT OF EMPLOYEES’ MOTIVATION AND ENGAGEMENT ON EMPLOYEES’ PERFORMANCE

Employee motivation and engagement are critical sources for employees’ high performance both in manufacturing and services companies (Boss, 2014; Kwenin, Muathe, and Nzulwa, 2013; Reilly, 2014; McMullen, 2013; Trus, Shantz, Soane, Alfes, Delbridge, 2013). Such motivation and engagement have to be generated by effective leadership with clear managerial concepts are critical to influence the employee behavior to bring company to success performance (Boss, 2014; Johnson & Nandy, 2015).

According to the IT sectors if leaders trying to micromanage their employees it will affect team members work load and they will get frustrated instead of motivations. 

(Source: Why employee motivation important , 2020)

Companies increasingly realize the important of their work forces to sustain corporate growth, especially in the midst of environmental uncertainty and fierce competition (Bao & Analoui; 2011; Gupta, Ganguli, and Ponnam, 2015). Hence, it calls for clear alignment of the individual workforce and the organization, especially through motivation and engagement (van Marrewijk; Joanna Timmers , 2003).

Motivation

Motivation has an important role in encouraging someone to do the work to achieve their personal or group or company goals. The executive leaders and managers of the companies need to apply effective methods or approaches to influence the employee motivation in order to achieve better performance. Motivation of the employees can be sourced from internal (intrinsic) and external (extrinsic) value for the organization (Zamer, et. al., 2014).

Authors and researchers explained the concepts of motivation from different angles, three of them are: Abraham Maslow (1954), who developed the concept of motivation since 1940s, and explained that the motivation for someone to do something driven by a series of stages of need, as follow: (a) biological and physiological needs, such as: air, water, food, sex, sleep, etc; (b) Safety needs, such as protection, security, law, order, stability, etc; (c) Social needs (belongingness and love needs), such as friends, family, relationship, work group, etc; (d) Esteem needs, such as: achievement, status, self esteem, responsibilities, reputation, confidence, achievement; (e) Self-actualization needs (personal goals and fulfillment), such as: creativity problem solving; spontaneity, authenticity. In 1969, Clayton P Alderfer simplified Maslow’s theory to be three categories, as existence needs (physiological and safety needs), relatedness needs (belonging needs) and growth needs (self esteem and self actualization). While, Frederick Herzberg (1966) with his twofactors theory developed in 1959s known as the hygiene theory. He suggested that people have two sets of factors affecting motivation, namely (a) hygiene factors, they are extrinsic factors and this factors determine dissatisfaction, such as salary or remuneration, job security and working conditions; (b) motivators, they are intrinsic factors and this factors determine satisfaction such as sense of achievement, recognition, responsibility, and personal growth. Furthermore, David McClelland (1961) identified three basic needs, which are: needs for achievement; needs for affiliation and need for power. McClelland’s theory explains the inspiration human needs to be met or avoid failure (Zamer et. al., 2014; Aworemi et. al., 2011).

Employee Engagement

To survive and sustainable growth in the rapid business development and tight competition, the company have to manage their human resources effectively, encourage the employees to keep their high commitment and strong engagement to the company (Markos and Sridevi, 2010). Beside of the employee motivation, Harvard Business Review in 2013 reported the results of a study of 568 entrepreneurs from five countries, namely North America, Asia, Europe, MEA, and South / Central America, explained that the employee engagement to the company is an important thing to be maintained and improved, because it can encourage successful effort for the company (HBR-Report, 2013). It means that if the company is able to build and maintain as well as keep the employee engagement are strong, it is believed the employee and the company will have a good performance. Another reviewed have been done by Markos and Sridevi, (2010); Siddanta & Roy (2010) and Truss, Shantz, Soane, Alfes, Delbridge, (2013) summaries that the employee engagement can improve the performance of the employees.

According to Kahn, (1990); Purcell, (2006); Rich, Lepine, & Crawford, (2010) Engagement is defined as the attachment actions of members of the organization to carry out their role of work better. It means that an employee is said to be involved and bound if he could freely express himself physically, cognitively and emotionally in his official role consistent with the organizational goal (Gupta; Ganguli & Ponnam; 2015).

In addition, Reilly (2014) mentions 5 method to improve the employee engagement, as follow: 

(1) use the right employee engagement survey;

(2) focus on engagement at the local and organizational levels; 

(3) select the right managers;

(4) coach managers and hold them accountable for their employees engagement; 

(5) define engagement goals in realistic.

Performance of the Employees

Many factors affect the performance of employees at the manufacturing and services companies, which are sourced from internal or external domain (Kenichi & Kreitner, 2003). Employee performance can be reflected from the height of togetherness and the level of employee satisfaction (Zuriekat, Salameh & Alrawasdeh, 2011; Pandla, 2016), also the concept of rewards that are implemented (Tze San, Mei Theen & Boon Heng, 2012). Even though many factors influence employee performance, but this study will emphasize on motivation and employee engagement as dominant factors in influencing the performance of employees and believed would affect the performance of the company. Beside the financial, nonfinancial interest or other rewards and the management support (Zamer et. al., 2014; Uzonna, 2013) that the high employee engagement also will strengthen the spirit of employees to improve their performance (Albdour & Altarawneh, 2014; Trus, Shantz, Soane, Alfes, & Delbridge, 2013; McMullen, 2013; Ram & Prabhakar, 2011). 

Reference List

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