What role does motivation play in the workplace?

Motivation is the energy or drive that enables people to achieve organisational objectives. Without motivation employees would not be able to use their skills or abilities to achieve organisational goals. furthermore they would not be able to create value for the organisation. How can we motivate employees? ideally employers should create jobs that are both enjoyable and sustainable. Employers can use various motivational theories that attempt to explain why employees might choose a various job, what will their employees be motivated by, what they are interested in, and what will persuade them to stay in their job. These theories can be divided into two categories: content theories and process theories. Content theories identify and explain the thing that actually motivates people and what their needs are. Process theories identify how we evaluate our choices and take decisions in relation to our goals and outcomes. This highlights employees' behaviour. An example of a content theory is Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which identifies 5 drivers of needs in the form of a pyramid. Each level of the pyramid represents a need that must be fulfilled in order to move up to the next level. These drivers represent both extrinsic e.g. money, security, promotion, and intrinsic e.g. autonomy, opportunities to use ability, recognition, forms of motivation. An example of a process theory is the expectancy theory, which argues that the amount of effort we put into something is dependent on how much we are expecting to get out of it (F=VxIxE).These theories help identify our personal motivation ( what is it at work that motivates us?) and the organisation's motivations (what approaches are organisations using to ensure employees are engaged and motivated at work?), and can be used to determine whether our personal motivations match with the organisations motivations. This is important as it helps create sustained motivation.