subject: Employee Motivation - Intrinsic Versus Extrinsic [print this page] Employee motivation can be one of the biggest struggles for managers and supervisors. How do you maintain motivation in employees? Is the answer in compensation, benefits, a state of the art work environment, or prestige? Could it be something deeper and more meaningful such as how challenging they find the work or their impact on company goals and objectives? The answer can be all of these or any of these, depending on the employee. Company culture plays a big part in how easy or difficult it might be to motivate employees.
Many organizations spend exorbitant amounts of money in an effort to solve the problem of employee motivation. Taking the approach that it's a problem is the first mistake. Motivation of an organization's workforce is not a problem to overcome. Rather, it is an understanding that managers and supervisors must have of those who report to them. Understanding why individual employees do, or do not perform well is the hallmark of a good manager. Creating a motivating culture within the organization is one of the most valuable achievements a person in a supervisory role attains. Simply offering more money, more benefits, or increased responsibility may not be enough.
Compensation, benefits, prestige, these are all extrinsic forms of employee motivation. Extrinsic motivation involves factors outside the individual. They can be tangible, as in the form of monetary compensation, or they can be intangible, such as health benefits that offer the employee peace of mind. Studies have shown that extrinsic motivation is often the least effective in the workplace. Extrinsic motivation is reward-based in that rewards are used to encourage the behavior to repeat. When viewed in terms of monetary rewards, budgetary constraints can limit rewards, thereby limiting the effectiveness of a reward-based system.
Intrinsic goal orientation, on the other hand, is far more successful in terms of employee motivation. Intrinsic factors might include a state of being, altruism, or ideals. Intrinsic factors energize a person's desire to achieve or attain certain goals. Finding what these factors are in each employee is the responsibility of managers and supervisors. An organizational culture that encourages intrinsic factors and looks deeper into what employees want encourages the workforce as a whole. An employee motivated by altruistic ideals can be placed on projects that feed his/her desire to do good. An employee motivated by challenge may be happiest heading a new project. A manager who can determine these motivators stands the best chance of achieving company objectives and creating a harmonious, satisfying workplace.
