Employees nowadays have various kinds of needs. For example, a large number of employees need high salaries to enhance their enthusiasm of working. On the other hand, some employees want not only money, but also other non – financial rewards such as long vacations and satisfied workplace. To motivate employees means to make them want to work for the employer, especially the works that involves hard working and effort. To let the employees stay in the companies, employers consider motivating their employees and let them to stay. Some employers use non – financial rewards such as long vacation or satisfied working environment. However, others may only consider increasing the employees’ salaries because they usually believe ‘a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work’, in other words, the salaries are based on how much the employees have done. Based on this situation, some people consider that only financial reward is enough while others may argue that employees should have non – financial rewards. Although ‘a fair day pay for a fair day work’ can motivate employees to work harder, a positive effect such as higher productivity can be made if companies motivate their employees by using non – financial motivation such as long vacation.
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Financial reward, especially money, is one of the most important factors of motivating employees as a whole. According to Hall et al (2008), there are two reasons why employees should be motivated. The first one is if motivation is not enough in the short run, it may lead to lack of enthusiastic workers. Therefore, employees may not devote all their energy when they are working. The second one is when in the long term, lack of motivation may at first, lead to a large number of employees staying away from work without leave or good reason. Moreover, more quarrels about work happen. Finally, it may fall down the labor productivity, and most importantly, profit. A theory from Taylor which is found in Hall et al’s (2008) book has proved this statement. Taylor, in 1911, as one of the fathers of the Scientific Management School, told the world that ‘to motivate workers, the managers only need to pay them money’. Money, however, may sometimes be unfair paying. To solve this problem, managers are suggested to pay employees base on how much productivity they have made which also call ‘a fair day pay for a fair day work’ which can urge the employees to work harder and more effectively to get more rewards. Another reason to support the financial reward is from Hall et al’s (2008: 381) point of view which has mentioned when using money to pay, employees may see work as a means to an end. Therefore, financial motivation has played an important role in motivating employees.
Figure1: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs (Untitled Document, 2009)
In spite of giving wages and salaries, non – financial rewards also need to be given. There are two evidences to prove this argument. First, based on Hall et al (2008), a theory called Maslow’s hierarchy of needs mentioned five elements that employees want from job (see figure1). These five elements are following from the low level which are physiological needs such clothing and food; safety needs; love and belonging; esteem needs; to self – actualization which is on the top. As a matter of fact, solely the foundation of physiological needs is money; however, what employees’ ultimate want is to achieve self – worth. Here is an example from HSBC which is trying to train their employees to help them work more skillful and be more successful. HSBC has set up a bank’ university programmer in 2004, this programmer give opportunities to employees to improve their knowledge (hsbc, 2005). As one of the biggest employer of UAE nationals in the banking industry, employees from HSBC can enjoy the mature strategy to improve the skills at all domains. In order to repay the company, employees may do their best to work for the company. Second, from Tutor2u’s idea, there are four types of non – financial rewards for employees. The first one is to make the work more challenging. Therefore, the ability of employees can be given an expressed when solving the task; next is not to create work so dull which can easily reduce the enthusiasm of employees; moreover, working as team, it is clear that working in a team or in a group is a showcase for employees to show their quality while handling the work task. After that, employers can give their employees some authority to motivate them so that they can work more effectively and make the company more efficient (Tutor2u, 2010).
Non – financial rewards are more important than money while others may have an idea that money is the most important element of why people need a job. It is clear that there are several factors why motivating employees. According to Hall et al (2008), four reasons are given why employees need non – financial rewards. First, financial pay may not be fair. Although numbers of employers claim that wages or salaries should be fair, there are still some unfair payments occur and employees are still complaining about them. Second, as Hall et al said (2008, p389), financial incentive schemes are difficult to operate. As a result, there are difficulties to have a fair pay for every employees. Next, financial rewards should be realistic to every employee; however, if each employee can not be satisfied, it may feedback a negative effect to the company. This is because dissatisfied employees may not work hard to increase productivity for the company. Finally, there are such a large number of ways to motivate employees, for example, housing security, labor and social security. As a result, to motivate employees, it is true that money is an important way, in spite of this, other factors should be satisfied as well. Otherwise, no matter how much money employees get, they may not have high efficiency on the work they do. This situation may not beneficial to companies or even may lead to inefficiency and low productivity.
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To sum up, motivating employees is an important factor to urge them work harder and have higher productivity. In addition, similarly to Maslow, Herzberg also has pointed out that how to motivate employees. According to articlesbase, in Frederick Herzberg’s Hygiene Theory which is also called the Two Factor Theory, Herzberg firstly stated out the intention of motivation, such as challenging work which will result in the satisfaction of employees. Then he said that there are also other factors such as satisfied workplace and salaries, if these factors can not be motivated to employees, will be called ‘Hygiene’ factors (articalsbase, 2010). However, if use money to motivate only, it is difficult to fair to each employee. Therefore, employers should use non – financial motivation such as set out some challenging work or team work so that employees can use their whole enthusiasm to solve each difficulty during they are working. Working is to enrich humans’ experience and to widen their knowledge. A successful worker not only gets money, but also obtains the respect of other people, most importantly, humans should accomplish self – actualization eventually.
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