Human Resource Managment and Motivational Strategies

Kearns assumes that in order for an organisation to truly be successful they need to view human capital or people as the primary source of competitive advantage. Essentially it could be said that organizational success depends on the collective efforts of the employees and the ability to motivate them as the driving factor behind this. No more can the success of this be seen more clearly than at Volkswagen South Africa who used motivation as a tool to transform their organization into one of the top car manufacturers in the world. This essay will critically evaluate the various needs and process theories of motivation with the aid of Volkswagen South Africa as a practical example.

The most important factor when faced by the challenge of motivating a workforce is to align what opportunities the organisation can offer with the individual needs and values that motivate staff. Maslow argues that motivation is driven by a hierarchy of five needs from physiological to the top self-actualization needs. Maslow also points out that as an individual satisfies these needs they progress to the next level to satisfy higher order needs. At VW satisfying the basic need would come in the form of remuneration. This model alone is not adequate to support successful motivation however as alderfer argued that if higher order needs are not satisfied as well individual will face frustration and regression with increased desire to satisfy a lower level need. This stresses the importance for organisations to find methods of fulfilling all the individual rather than just basic. Herzberg takes it one step further by stating we have factors that contribute to satisfaction, no satisfaction and no dissatisfaction, dissatisfaction. Using the example of the inability to satisfy higher order needs and only basic need we could end up with the situation of satisfaction and dissatisfaction. In order to achieve the highest level of motivation the organisation should strive towards increasing satisfaction and no dissatisfaction. Looking closer at VW we can see how there is a whole range of different activities and strategies in place to achieve this. Through their learning and development centre they provide the opportunity for upward mobility and individual growth up and above only providing remuneration benefits.

Reinforcement theory proposed by skinner implies that behaviour or outcomes are a result of the consequences of the actions. So in plain terms if certain behaviour is positively reinforced the most likely response will be a repetition of this action. Similarly if it is negatively reinforced the behaviour will stop. This can also be applied to punishment and extinction. At VW reward is based on meeting certain targets or key objectives. This alone however is not sufficient to warrant motivation as reinforcement theory is limited as it ignores the personal feelings of the individual. Perhaps Equity theory may provide solutions to reinforcement theories shortcomings.