MOTIVATION IN THE WORK SETTINGS

Motivation represents those forces acting within a person which

causes them to behave in a specific and goal directed behaviour, because
every human action is the result of a need or desire.
The term “motives” is derived form the latin word “movere” which
means “to move”. Motive is defined as an inner state that energises,
activates and directs the behaviour of individuals towards certain goals.
Motives are certain important needs of human beings. These needs have
different degrees of strength. The strong need or motive creates high
tension or disequilibrium in a person and makes him restless until the
need is fulfilled.
According to Skinner motivation objectively exists to make an
individual being learn what may regarded as positive
behaviour i.e. desirable behaviour.
Abraham Maslow observes that the objective of motivation is
always to create a need for an individual. It is just like the
process of lower needs being satisfied and the higher needs
gradually emerging (Hierarchy or Needs).
Frederick Herzberg felt that the important objective of
motivation is to provide opportunities to become a better
expert on one's job, to handle more demanding assignments,
to control one's own work rather than be supervised.
Mc clelland opined that the objective of motivation is to create
a strong desire in an individual, where he derives a special
kind of joy in successfully attaining an objective in
accomplishing a task in facing up to a challenge rather than
monetary or other rewards.
Victor Wroom thinks that motivation should work as a means of
communication for increasing positive values in the
employees. Obviously the objectives of motivation are to
increase efficiency by good performance
Motivation implies that one person induces another person to engage in
action or desired work behaviour by ensuring that a channel to direct the
motive of the person becomes available and accessible to the person.
 Motivation plays an important role in converting the human potentialities
in to performance.

Motivation identifies employee potentialities. It makes the employee to

know his potentialities.
Motivation converts the potentialities in to performance
Motivation converts the motivated employee in to committed and loyal
employees
Motivated employees explore the alternative methods of performing a task
and they select a better method than the existing method.
Motivated employees use their innovative and creative skills, talents etc and
often creative ideas to the management.
Motivated employee has positive attitude towards quality and has concern
towards quality improvement. This increased concern towards quality
results in high quality in production/ operation.
Motivation workers exert all their energies towards the job which results in
increase in employee efficiency and thereby productivity.
Motivation makes the people to understand each other completely, leads to
work group and team spirit.

Motivation is generally defined as an internal state that induces a person to engage in

particular behaviours. From one perspective , it has to do with the direction, intensity, and
persistence of behaviour over time. Direction refers to the choice of specific behaviours from
a large number of possible behaviours.
For example, an employee might decide to go to work on a particular day instead of calling in
sick and doing something else, such as watching television, shopping or visiting a friend.
Intensity refers to the amount of effort a person expends at a task.
Eg: If an employee is asked to sweep a floor, the person can exert a lot of effort by sweeping
hard and fast or exert a little effort by sweeping lightly and slowly.

Persistence refers to the continuing engagement in a behaviour over time.

Eg: Employees might work extra hours in order to accomplish tasks that they are motivated
to complete.
From another perspective ,motivation is concerned with the desire to acquire or
achieve some [Link] is, motivation derives from a person’s wants, needs or desires. Some
people are highly motivated to acquire [Link] is presumed that a high level of motivation
to acquire money would affect the behaviour relevant to acquiring it.
 NATURE OF MOTIVATION
Motivation is mainly concerned with the directing of employees towards
organizational objectives

Motivation as a continuous process

New wants emerge when the present wants are satisfied. All the wants cannot
be satisfied at the same time. Wants are to be satisfied one after another
continuously .Hence motivation is a continuous and an unending process.
Motivation is a Psychological concept
Motivation is concerned with the psychological aspect of human being. The
level of satisfaction, contentment etc by the same reward / incentive vary from
person to person. This is due to variation in
Aspirations
Attitudes
Feelings
Perceptions of the individuals
Thus motivation is the reaction of the organs of the human body to the incentives
offered.
The entire individual is motivated
Each individual is an integrated and comprehensive [Link] entire systems
of an individual reacts to the [Link] the entire individual is motivated.

Frustated individuals fails to be motivated

Some individuals are frustrated despite of the rewards due to the wide gap
between their aspirations and rewards. Some of the frustrated persons
become mentally ill and these persons cannot be motivated.
Goals lead to motivation
Goals form a part of motivational [Link] achievement results in the
satisfaction of [Link] fulfilment leads to reduction of drives and fulfils
[Link] goal achievement ends the motivational process
The self concept as a unifying force
Self concept is the life position of a person that he formulates about himself
during his childhood. He thinks himself in the same way during his life time until and
unless a major change takes place in the rest of the life time .Therefore those who
formulated a positive view about themselves during the childhood, will be motivated
by themselves in the rest of the life time.

TYPES OF MOTIVATION
Positive motivation
Negative motivation
 POSITIVE MOTIVATION
People are said to be motivated positively when they are shown a reward and
the way to achieve it. Such reward may be financial or non [Link]
motivation may include
Different incentives
Wage plans
Productive bonus schemes

Non monetary motivation include

Praise for the work
Participation in management
Social, recognition etc

Monetary incentives provide the workers a better standard of life while non monetary
incentives satisfy the ego of a man
.Positive motivation seeks to create an optimistic atmosphere in the enterprise

.Positive motivation involves:

Identifying employee potentialities
Make him realize the possible result by achieving his potentialities
NEGATIVE MOTIVATION
In this method of motivation, fear of consequences of doing something or not doing
something keeps the workers in the desired direction. This method has got several limitations.
Fear creates frustrations, a hostile state of mind and an unfavourable attitude towards the
job which hinders efficiency and productivity

CHARACTERISTICS OF MOTIVATION
MOTIVATION IS AN INTERNAL FEELING
Motivation is a psychological phenomenon which generates within an individual.
Needs are feelings in the mind of a person that he lacks a certain thing. Such feelings affect
the behaviour of the person
2)PERSON IN TOTALITY, NOT IN PART, IS MOTIVATED

Each individual in the organization is a 1) self-contained and 2) inseparable unit , and

all his needs are interrelated .These affect the behaviour in different ways. Moreover, feeling
of needs is a continuous process, as such, these create continuity in human behaviour.
3)MOTIVATION ENABLES TO SATISFY SAME NEEDS
 Motivation is the willingness to exert high level of effort towards organization goals,
conditioned by the effort and the ability to satisfy some individual needs.

4) MOTIVATION= ANTICIPATED VALUES*PERCIEVED PROBABILITY

5)MOTIVATION INVOLVES THE AROUSAL, DIRECTION AND MAINTANENCE OF

BEHAVIUR TOWARDS A GOAL
Process of Motivation

Motivation as a process starts with a physiological or psychological deficiency or need that activates
behaviour or a drive that is aimed at a goal or incentive. Thus motivation consists of three interacting
and interdependent elements:

1) Needs – Needs are created whenever there is a physiological or psychological imbalance. For
example, a need exists when cells in the body are deprived of food and water or when a person is
deprived of friends and other companions. Although psychological needs may be based on a
deficiency, sometimes they are not. For example, an individual with a strong need to get ahead may
have a history of consistent success.

2) Drives – Drives are set up to alleviate needs. They are action-oriented and provide an energising
thrust toward achieving a certain goal or accomplishing a certain task. Needs for food and water are
translated into the hunger and thirst drives, and the need for friends becomes a drive for affiliation

3) Incentives – Incentive is anything that can mitigate a need and decrease the intensity of the drive.
Thus attaining an incentive tends to restore physiological or psychological balance and reduces the
drive. Eating food, drinking water and obtaining friends will tend to restore the balance and reduce
the corresponding drives. Food, water and friends are the incentives in these examples.

Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation

Extrinsic motivation is related to tangible rewards such as salary and fringe benefits, promotion,
contract of service, the work environment and conditions of work. Individuals are extrinsically
motivated when they engage in work in order to obtain some goal that is apart from the work
itself. Extrinsic motivation thus requires an instrumentality between the activity and some
separable consequences such as tangible or verbal rewards, so that satisfaction comes not
from the activity itself but rather from the extrinsic consequences to which the activity leads.
Intrinsic motivation is related to psychological rewards such as the opportunity to use one’s ability,
a sense of challenge and achievement, receiving appreciation, positive recognition and being
treated in a caring and considerate manner. Individuals are intrinsically motivated when they
seek enjoyment, interest, satisfaction of curiosity, self-expression, or personal challenge in the
work. Intrinsic motivation thus involves people doing an activity because they find it
interesting and derive spontaneous satisfaction from the activity itself.
 WORK MOTIVATION THEORIES

Work motivation theories are most typically concerned with the reasons , other than ability, that some
people perform their jobs better than others. Depending on the situation, these theories can predict
people’s choice of task behaviour, their effort or their persistence. High levels of motivation should
lead to good performance.

From the very beginning , when human organizations were established , various peoples have
been engaged in finding out the answer to the question relating to “what motivates people”.There
approaches have differed resulting in to a number of theories pertaining to [Link] theories
are grouped in to two categories.

THEORIES OF MOTIVATION

CONTENT THEORIES
PROCEES THEORIES

CONTENT THEORIES

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

Alderfer’s ERG theory
Mc Clellands Theory of needs
Hertzberg’s two factor theory

PROCESS THEORIES

Equity theory-J Stacy Adam

Expectancy theory- Victor Vroom
The porter and Lawler model
Goal setting theory

Content Theories
By the 1950s, several new models of work motivation emerged, which collectively have been referred
to as content theories, since their principal aim was to identify factors associated with motivation.
Content theories are concerned with factors that arouse, start or initiate motivated behaviour.

The following are the main content theories of motivation

Needs Hierarchy Theory -MASLOW

The Needs Hierarchy theory was developed by Abraham Maslow and became popular during the
1960s. According to Maslow, human needs form a five-level hierarchy, which he developed into a
pyramid form. The lowest level of the pyramid showed the most basic needs, with the needs becoming
more complex as they went up the pyramid. The five levels of needs identified by Maslow are as
follows:

Physiological needs: need for food, clothing, shelter, etc.

Safety and security needs: need to free from fear of physical, financial and psychological harm
Social needs: need for love and affection and basic social relationsλ
Esteem needs: need for respect and recognitionλ
Self actualisation needs: need to optimize performance and the freedom to beλ creative and
innovative.

According to Maslow, people generally follow this hierarchy in fulfilling needs. For instance, people
usually try to fulfill their physiological needs first. Once that need is met, they move to the next higher
need and so on. Motivation in an individual is a function of the need that is unfulfilled.

PHYSIOLOGICAL NEEDS

Biological needs required to preserve human life which includes food, clothing and shelter.
According to the theory, once these basic needs are satisfied, they no longer [Link] strives to
fulfill the next level of need that is safety needs.

SAFETY NEEDS
 Once physiological needs become relatively well gratified, the safety needs begin to manifest
themselves and dominate human [Link] include

1)protection from fire, accident

2)Economic security (fringe benefits, health ,insurance programmes)

3)Desire for and orderly , predictable environment

4)Desire to know the limits of acceptable behavior

Maslow stressed emotional and physical [Link] these needs are concerned with
protection from hazards o flife from danger, deprivations and [Link] can influence these
security needs either positively through pensions schemes, insurance plans or negatively by arousing
fears of being fires or laide off safety needs too are motivational only if they are unsatisfied.

SOCIAL NEEDS

After the lower needs have been satisfied, the social or lower needs become important
motivators of [Link] needs tend to be stronger for some people than for others in certain
[Link] organizations, workers form informal group [Link] environment is developed
where the work is routine and [Link] situation is made worse when workers are closely
supervised and controlled, but have no clear channel of communication with [Link] this type
of environment workers depend on informal groups for support of unfulfilled social needs such as
affiliation.

ESTEEM NEEDS

The esteem represents the higher level needs of humans. These needs are two fold in nature
self esteem and esteem from others.

Self esteem needs include self confidence, self respect, achievement and autonomy
Esteem from others and related to one’s reputation needs like status, recognition and
appreciation
Esteem needs have certain features in common
They donot become motivators until lower level needs are reasonably satisfied.
These needs are insatiable, unlike lower order needs, these needs are rarely satisfied.
Satisfaction of esteem needs produces feeling of self confidence, worth,strength and
capability of being useful and necessary in the world

SELF ACTUALIZATION

Self actualization is the need to maximize one’s potential, whatever it may [Link] is related
with the development of intrinsic capabilities which lead people to seek situations that can utilize their
potential.A man with high intensity of achievement needs will be restless unless he can find fulfillment
in doing what he is filled to do.

Alderfer’s ERG needs theory

 In 1969, Clayton Alderfer’s reformulated Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs,
called the ERG Theory. He modified and reduced Maslow’s five levels of needs to three levels
and labeled them as needs for Existence, Relatedness, and Growth. The three levels are
arranged on a continuum rather than in a hierarchy. The idea is that people can move back
and forth from one category of need to another and lack of fulfillment of needs in one
category can affect needs in another category.
ERG theory of Clayton Alderfer is a modification of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Instead of the five
needs that are hierarchically organized, Alderfer proposed that basic human needs may be grouped
under three categories, namely, Existence, Relatedness, and Growth (see the following figure).
Existence need corresponds to Maslow’s physiological and safety needs, relatedness corresponds to
social needs, and growth need refers to Maslow’s esteem and self actualization.

ERG theory does not rank needs in any particular order and explicitly recognizes that more
than one need may operate at a given time. Moreover, the theory has a “frustration-regression”
hypothesis, suggesting that individuals who are frustrated in their attempts to satisfy one need may
regress to another one . The implication of this theory is that we need to recognize the multiple needs
that may be driving an individual at a given point to understand his behavior and to motivate him.

Existence needs

Involves the need for basic material existence, like physiological health and
safety. These include the needs for things such as food, drink, shelter, and safety.

Relatedness needs
The need for interpersonal connections, social status and recognition. These
needs are fulfilled by establishing and maintaining relationships such as family
members, friends, co workers etc.
Growth Needs:
 Growth needs concern creativity or productivity within the self or in the
environment. Growth implies that the person is fully utilizing his or her capabilities or
is even developing additional capabilities.
Alderfer suggests that more than one need may be operative at the same time
and satisfaction of higher order needs leads to greater intensity of those needs.
In contrast to Maslow, Alderfer allows for the flow of need strength back and forth
through the [Link] need is fulfilled, the person experiences a lessened desire for
that need and a greater desire for a less concrete need.
For example, if an ambitious employee isn't provided with growth opportunities, then their
motivation will be lower and they may become frustrated.

Alderfer also proposed a regression theory to go along with the ERG theory. He said
that when needs in a higher category are not met then individuals redouble the efforts
invested in a lower category need.
For example if self-actualization or self-esteem is not met then individuals will invest
more effort in the relatedness category in the hopes of achieving the higher need.

Mc Clelland’s theory of needs

Besides many theories about motivation, there is another theory that uses needs as
the central [Link] Mc Clellands and his associates proposed that the organization offers
an opportunity to satisfy at least three needs.

Need for achievement

Need for affiliation
Need for power

According to this theory, a major factor in willingness to perform is the intensity of the
individual’s needs for achievement.
Need for achievement
Over the years, behavioural scientists have observed that some people have
an intense desire to [Link] Mc Clellands the need for achievement is a
distinct human motive that can be distinguished from other [Link] can also
be isolated and assessed in any group.
Mc Clelland has identified four basic characteristics of high [Link] are:
1)Moderate risk taking
 Taking moderate risks is probably the single most descriptive characteristic of the
person possessing high achievement need. It seems that a high achiever would take high risks.
2) Need for immediate feed back

Person with high need for achievement prefer activities which provide immediate and
precise feed back information on how they are progressing towards a goal. Some hobbies
and jobs offer such feed back and others donot.

High achievers generally prefer hobbies such as wood working , mechanics and they
shy from the coin collecting type of [Link] achievers tend to get satisfied in jobs such as
sales or management positions which are challenging and in which they are frequently
evaluated by specific performance criteria.
3)Satisfaction with accomplishment
High achievers accomplish a task intrinsically satisfying in and of [Link] donot
want the accompanying material rewards.A good illustration of this characteristic involves
[Link] he likes to earn money a lot but not for usual reason of wanting money for its
own sake of for the material benefits that it can [Link] the choice between a simple task
for accomplishment with a good pay off, and a difficult task with a lesser pay off, other things
being equal, high achievers generally choose the latter.

4)Pre occupation with the task.

Once high achievers select a goal, they tend to be totally preoccupied with the task
until it is successfully completed. They cannot leave a job half finished. They are not satisfied
with themselves until they have put their maximum effort in completing the task.

High achievers often strike others as being unfriendly and as loners. They are very quiet and
not talk about their accomplishments. They are realistic about their abilities and donot allow
other people to get in the way of their goal accomplishment.
b)NEED FOR POWER

The need to dominate, to influence and to control the activities of others. Adler
explains the power needs as the need to manipulate others or to drive the superiority over
others .Mc clelland and his associates found that people with a high power need have a great
concern for exercising influence and [Link] individuals are generally seeking positions
of [Link] involve in conversation, as they are forceful, outspoken, hard headed and
demanding.
c)NEED FOR AFFILIATION
Most individuals are like to be with others in situations where they feel they belong
to and are accepted. Affiliation plays a very complex but vital role in human [Link]
Clelland suggested that persons who have high need for affiliation view the organization as a
chance to form new and satisfying [Link] are motivated by jobs that demand
frequent interaction with [Link] people are not likelt to succeed well at tasks that
force them to work in isolation

Need for achievement is the urge to excel, to accomplish in relation to a set of

standards, to struggle to achieve success.
Need for power is the desire to influence other individual’s behaviour as per your
wish. In other words, it is the desire to have control over others and to be
influential.
Need for affiliation is a need for open and sociable interpersonal relationships.
In other words, it is a desire for relationship based on co-operation and
mutual understanding.

HERZBERG’S TWO FACTOR THEORY OF MOTIVATION

Also known as motivation-hygiene theory
Hertzberg classified the needs into two broad categories namely hygiene factors and motivating
factors.

Frederick Herzberg approached the question of motivation in a different way. By asking individuals
what satisfies them on the job and what dissatisfies them, Herzberg came to the conclusion that
aspects of the work environment that satisfy employees are very different from aspects that
dissatisfy them. Herzberg labeled factors causing dissatisfaction of workers as “hygiene” factors
because these factors were part of the context in which the job was performed, as opposed to the
job itself.

Hygiene factors are needed to make sure that an employee is not dissatisfied. Motivation factors are
needed for ensuring employee's satisfaction and employee’s motivation for higher performance.
Mere presence of hygiene factors does not guarantee motivation, and presence of motivation factors
in the absence of hygiene factors also does not work.

It states that motivation comes from the nature of the job itself, not from external rewards
or job [Link] concluded that there are two sets of needs:
the hygiene needs, which produce job dissatisfaction and
motivator needs, which produce job satisfaction.
Taken together, the hygiene factors and motivators are known as Herzberg’s two-factor
theory of motivation.
Hygiene factors (lower needs) are factors which ‘surround the job’ rather than the job
itself; they are related to job context. These involve features of the work environment such
as company policy, supervision, interpersonal relations, working conditions and salary and
benefits. The hygiene factors dissatisfy employees when they are absent. However, their
presence brings employees only to a neutral state and by themselves, they are not strongly
motivating. These factors produce no growth in worker’s output but they prevent loss in
performance caused by work restrictions. Herzberg believed that hygiene creates a zero level
of motivation and if maintained at proper level , prevents the occurring of negative type of
motivation.
For example, a worker will only turn up to work if a business has provided a reasonable
level of pay and safe working conditions but these factors will not make him work harder at
his job once he is there.
The motivator needs (higher needs) motivate employees to high job performance and
promote satisfaction which is associated with the positive feeling of employees about the job.
They are related to the job content (work itself).They make people satisfied with their job. An
increase in these factors will satisfy the employees. However, any decrease will not affect
their level of satisfaction.
These needs are internal to the work itself; they are allied to job content, and include
factors such as achievement, responsibility, recognition, growth, advancement and
recognition. The motivator factors to build motivation, but their absence is not strongly
dissatisfying. These are the characteristics that people find intrinsically rewarding and serve
as strongly motivating factors.
.One criticism relates to the classification of the factors as hygiene or motivator. For example, pay is
viewed as a hygiene factor. However, pay is not necessarily a contextual factor and may have
symbolic value by showing employees that they are being recognized for their contributions as well
as communicating to them that they are advancing within the company. Similarly, quality of
supervision or relationships employees form with their supervisors may determine whether they are
assigned interesting work, whether they are recognized for their potential, and whether they take
on more responsibilities.

PROCESS THOERIES

• Equity theory-J Stacy Adam

• Expectancy theory- Victor Vroom
• The porter and Lawler model
• Goal setting theory

Process theories of motivation try to explain why behaviors are initiated. These
theories focus on the mechanism by which we choose a target, and the effort that we
exert to “hit” the target.
EQUITY THEORY
EXAMPLE:
Suppose you have worked for a company for several years. Your performance has been
excellent, you have received regular pay increases, and you get along with your boss and
coworkers. One day you come to work to find that a new person has been hired to work at
the same job that you do. You are pleased to have the extra help. Then, you find out the
new person is making ?100 more per week than you, despite your longer service and
greater experience. How do you feel? If you’re like most of us, you’re quite unhappy. Your
satisfaction has just evaporated. Nothing about your job has changed—you receive the
same pay, do the same job, and work for the same supervisor. Yet, the addition of one new
employee has transformed you from a happy to an unhappy employee. This feeling of
unfairness is the basis for equity theory.
Equity theory states that people are motivated to achieve a condition of equity or
fairness in their dealings with other people and with organizations. According to Adams
employees who find themselves in inequitable situations will experience dissatisfaction
and emotional tension that they will be motivated to reduce. The theory specifies
conditions under which inequity will occur and what employees are likely to do to reduce
it.
If someone perceives unfair, they will be demotivated
➢ The higher on individuals perception of equity the more motivated will be Indl.
➢ Compare job inputs and outcomes with those of others and respond to eliminate
any inequalities

Inequity is a psychological state that arises from employess comparison of themselves

with [Link] ratios of outcomes to inputs are compared.

• Outcomes are the rewards, or everything of personal value, that an employee get
from working for an organization, including pay, fringe benefits,good
treatment,enjoyment, and status.
• Inputs are the contributions made by the employee to the [Link]
include not only the work that the employee accomplishes, but the experience and
talents that he or she brings to the job as [Link] an employee with many years
of job experience would have greater inputs than an employee just starting out in
a career.
• The theory posits that employees from psychological comparisons of their own out
come/ input ratios to those of other [Link] is employees will
psychologically evaluate ho w much they receive from the job (outcomes) in
relation to their contributions (inputs) which is represented and the ratio.
Equity occurs when an individual concludes that his output/input ratio is equal to that of
other people
EXPECTANCY THEORY-VICTOR VROOM

Vroom (1964) suggested that motivation is a product of three factors: expectancy, one’s estimate that
effort will lead to successful performance; instrumentality, one’s estimate that performance will result
in certain outcomes or rewards; and valence, the extent to which expected outcomes are attractive
or unattractive.

This relationship is stated in the following formula: Expectancy × Instrumentality × Valence =

Motivation

Expectancy: Expectancy is the strength of belief that one’s work-related effort will result in a given
level of performance. For example, a person selling insurance policies may know from experience that
volume of sales is directly related to the number of sales calls made.

Expectancies are stated as probabilities and range from 0.0 to 1.0. In some situations, employees may
believe that they can unquestionably accomplish the task (p =1.0). In other situations, they expect that
even their highest level of effort will not result in the desired performance level (p = 0.0). Normally,
employee estimates of expectancy lie somewhere between the two extremes.

Instrumentality: Instrumentality represents the employee’s belief that a specific performance level
will lead to specific outcomes or rewards. This belief is stated as a probability ranging from 0.0 to 1.0.
Thus if an employee sees that promotions are usually based on performance data, instrumentality will
be rated high. However, if the basis for such decisions is unclear or managerial favouritism is
suspected, a low instrumentality estimate will be made

Valence: Valence refers to the strength of a person’s preference for receiving a reward. It is the
anticipated satisfaction or dissatisfaction that an individual feels toward an outcome. It ranges from
positive to negative. Outcomes have a positive valence when they are consistent with our values and
satisfy our needs; they have a negative valence when they oppose our values and inhibit need
fulfillment. Valence for a reward is unique to each employee and is thus a reflection of individual
differences.

For example, if an individual has a strong need for social interaction, working alone from home will
have a strong negative valence. On the other hand, if a person prefers solitary activities and has a high
desire to excel, working away from home with opportunities for career advancement may have a
strong positive valence.

Expectancy theory claims that motivation is a multiplicative function of all three components. This
means that for an individual to be highly motivated, all three components of the expectancy model
must be high. It also implies that if any one of these three components is zero, the overall level of
motivation will be zero. So, for example, even if an employee believes that her effort will result in
performance, which will result in reward, motivation will be zero if the valence of the reward she
expects to receive is zero.

THE PORTER AND LAWLER MODEL

Early human relationists believed that employee satisfaction directly affected productivity. Employee
satisfaction was perceived to be an antecedentconditions for productivity. Based on a belief that a
happy worker is a productive worker. All the content theories completely assumes that satisfaction
leads to improve performance, dissatisfaction detracts from performance. However, studies at a later
stage had not'found a strong relationship between satisfaction and performance. Most studies
actually found a very low positive relationship between the two.

Porter and Lawler promoted the thesis that performance causes satisfaction. They tried to examine
the complex relationship between motivation, satisfaction and performance. They pointed out that
efforts do not directly lead to performance. Performance in organizations, according to Porter and
Lawler, appears to be a function of three important factors:

1) An important must want to perform, the desire of an employee to do the assigned job, one must
be motivated.

2) Motivational one will not ensure task performance. A person must have necessary abilities and
traits.3) A person must have an accurate knowledge of there quirements of the job if he is expected
to devote his energies fully on the assigned tasks ie; one must have fairly clear role perception

Key variables in the model

1)Effort

Effort refers to the amount of energy exerted by an individual on a given task. It will not directly lead
to a specific level of performance. It is the result of attractiveness of there ward and the way in which
the individual perceives the linkage between effort and reward. If an employee places a high value on
reward and if he perceives a high probability that his effort will lead to this reward, then he will exert
great quantity of effort. Motivation is seen as the force of an employer to expend effort.

2)Performance

Motivation leads to an observed level of effort by an employee. Effort alone is not enough.
Performance results from a combination of effort that an individual puts forth and the level of ability
which he has and the way he perceives the role he should take. Effort and performance cannot be
equated.

3)Rewards

The model clearly shows that performance leads to rewards i) intrinsic and ii)extrinsic

Intrinsic rewards are given to a person by himself for good performance. They include feeling of having
accomplished something worth while. Intrinsic rewards are directly related to good performance.

Extrinsic rewards (pay, promotion, job security, status)are given by organizational because they are
imperfectly related to performance. Equitable rewards affect the performance satisfaction
relationship. This varaiable refers to the amount of reward an individual feel she should receive as a
result of his performance.

Porter and Lawler viewed satisfaction as deficiency measure

4)SatisfactionIf actual rewards meet or exceed perceived equitable rewards and individual feels
satisfied. If these are less than equitable rewards he will feel dissatisfied. Two implications1)
satisfaction is only determined by actual rewards2) satisfaction is more dependent on performance
than performance is on satisfaction.
GOAL SETTING THEORIES

Goal setting is one of the most effective and widely practiced theories of motivation in organizations.
Goals are the immediate or ultimate objectives that employees are trying to accomplish from their
work effort. Goal setting is the process of motivating employees and clarifying their role perceptions
by establishing performance objectives. Actually goal setting potentially improves employee
performance in two ways.

1. By stretching the intensity and persistence of others.2. By giving employees clearer role perceptions
so that their efforts are channeled towards behavior that willim prove work performance.

The goal-setting theory was developed primarily by Locke and Latham (1990). It posits that people will
becl motivated to the extent to which they accept specific, challenging goals and receive feedback
that indicates their progress toward goal achievement. The basic components of goal-setting theory
are:

Goal acceptance– Effective goals need to be accepted by employees. Goals that are not personally
accepted will have little capacity to guide behaviour. A powerful method of obtaining acceptance is
to allow employees to participate in the goal setting process. Communicating the purpose and
necessity of the goal also ensures greater commitment to the goal.

Specificity– Specific goals often involve clear, measurable quantitative targets for improvement in the
behaviour of interest. Research indicates that specific performance goals are much more effective
than those in which a person is told to “do your best.”

Challenge– Challenging goals are difficult but not impossible to attain. They cause people to raise the
intensity and persistence of their work effort and fulfill a person’s achievement and self-actualisation
needs when they are met. Empirical research supports the proposition that goals that are challenging
are more motivational than goals that are relatively easy to achieve.

Feedback– Feedback is any information that people receive about the consequences of their
behaviour. It is central to goal-setting because it communicates what behaviours are appropriate or
necessary in a particular situation. An effective feedback is specific, relevant, timely, credible and
sufficiently frequent.

Goal-setting promotes superior performance by (1)increasing one’s persistence of effort (2) regulating
one’s effort to ward effective work behaviours (3) directing one’s attention to the assigned roles and
tasks, and (4) encouraging the development of goal attainment strategies or action [Link] setting
is widely used to motivate employees. Some companies apply goal setting through a process knownas
MBO (managementby objectives). The MBO starts with goalsetting ,when managers andemployees
define and focus on job goals rather than on rules, activities and procedures.

The goalsetting stage involves identifying specific areas of job responsibility, developing the standards
for measuring performance and even formulating a work plan for achieving'the goals. Certain
guidelines should be provided to them anagers and the team leaders on how to set goals

State what is to be done in the form of a job description.

Be specific about what parameters will be used to measure performance.

Specify what is to be the performance standard.

 Clearly indicate the time period in which the goals are to be reached. Prioritise the goals in terms
or order of importance and difficulty.

MANAGEMENT BY OBIECTIVES (MBO)

MBO is a practical application of the reasoning behind the notion of goal-setting theory. MBO is a
process in which employees participate with management in the senting of goals or objectives. An
essential feature of an MB0 programme is that it involves a one-on-one negotiation session between
a supervisor and a subordinate in order to set concrete, objectives, goals for the employee's
performance. During the session, a deadline is set for the measurement or accomplishment and the
paths to the desired goals and the removal of possible obstacles are discussed.

One method used by a number of organisations to facilitate the linking of goals and plans are
Managemene Objectives (MBO). MBO is a process through which specific goals are set collaboratively
for the organisation as a whole and every unit and individual within it; the goals then, are used as a
basis for planning, managing organisational activities and assessing and rewarding contributions. MBO
usually incorporates considerable participation among managers and subordinates in setting goals at
various levels.

Although the origins of MBO are not completely clear, general electric appears to be the first
organisation the implemented the process and noted management consultant, Peter Drucker is
generally credited with being the individual who wrote about it more than 40 years ago, as a means
of using goals to motivate people rather than to contribute them. Today, no introduction to basic
management concepts would be complete without a discussion of MBO.

MBO is a valuable intervention because it three needs:

1) It clarifies what is expected of employees. This reduces role conflict and ambiguity.

2) MBO provides knowledge of results, an essential ingredient in effective job performance.

3) MBO provides an opportunity for coaching and counselling by the manager. The problem-solving
approach encourages open communication and discussion of obstacles to goal achievement.

Management by Objective is a response to the goal-setting theory as a motivator. The goal setting
theory has an impressive base of research support, and MBO makes it operational. As a reminder,
MBO sets individual goals for employees based on department goals, which are based on company
goals. MBO advocates specific, measurable goals and feedback. There is only implication, though, that
goals are perceived as attainable. The approach is most effective when the individual has to stretch to
meet the goals set.

MBO can be a participative process. When individuals are consulted in the creation of their own goals,
it often results in workers setting a goal that stretch them further. MBO does not require that the
individual worker participate, though. The process seems to be about as effective when goals are
assigned by a manager to the individual. MBO is a widely used and successful practice for many
industries. Failures occur when unrealistic expectations come into play, or cultural incompatibilities
thwart the process.

MBO and Goal-setting Theory

Managers and employees need to understand each other's goals. In addition, managers are
responsible for helping employees in setting goals or objectives. With a clear understanding of explicit
goals or objectives, managers and employees can work together to achieve specific outcomes. MBO
is a goal-setting programme based on interactions and negotiation between employees and
managers.

According to Peter Drucker, the objectives-setting process begins with the employee writing an
"employee's letter" to the manager. The letter would explain the employee's general understanding
of the scope of the employee's own job. After some discussion and negotiation, the manager and the
employee would finalise these items into a performance plan. Drucker considers MBO, a participative
and interactive process. The planning component consists of organisational and individual goal setting.
Organisational goal setting is an essential prerequisite to individual goal setting the two must be
closely linked for the success of both. Several attributes of goals are especially important for improving
difficulty and goal acceptance. These attributes are explained below:

Specificity: Goal specificity refers to the preciseness with which a goal or objective is stated. Specific
goals that antifiable reduce ambiguity and thereby, help to focus emplayees' efforts. Therefore, it is
generally a good idea avoid developing or stating goals in broad or ambiguous terms.

Difficulty: Increasing goal difficulty can also result in superior performance. The more difficult the goal,
the more challenging is the task perceived as being feasible. Setting goals that are unqueseionably our
of the reach of the employee will lead to frustration and rejection of the goal.

Acceptance: Goal acceptance likely when assigned goals correspond to personal aspirations. This line
of reasoning suggests that managers must encourage employees to focus on measurable and
challenging goals while trying to elicit employee commitment to the goals.

Evaluation of the MBO System

MBO has passed through several phase since its introduction. Initially, MBO was greeted with much
enthuniastm by atagen and mangement scholars. Presently, MBO a viewed more objectively by
scholars and practitioners as a tool that can be most effective under specific favourable conditions.
The strength and wesknes of the MBO ia enlisted here:

Strengths of MBO

MBO has a number of major steength. These are as follow:

1. MBO aids the co-ondination of goals and plans and thereby, increass the prospects for ultimately
achieving long-term organisational goals.

2. MBO helps to clarify priorities and spell out what outcomes ate needed at each level so that
individuals know what is espected of them.

3. MBO facilicates communication among the various levels and among peers at the same level when
co-ordination is needed to achieve mutual goals.

4. MBO also aids controlling by providing benchmarks against which progress can be evaluated.

5. MBO can increase motivation by providing employees with feedback about their progress and
recognition for acobmplishments.

Weakness of MBO

MBO has several potential weaknesses:

1. Successful operation of an MBO system tends to falter without strong, continual commitment from
top management. The necessary committment includes the willingness to set top-level goals,
communicate the goals to other organisational levels, participate with immediate subordinates in
establishing individual goals, provide resources necessary to achieve goals at various levels and offer
feedback regarding goal accomplishment.

2. Managers may not be adequately trained to set appsopriate goals and coach employees when
necesary.

3. MBO can be misused as a punitive device for failure to meet goals, rather than as a means of
encouraging employee motivation and development.

4. MBO system may overemphasize quantitative goals and production.

motivating performance-goal setting and reward

system:
• To survive in today's competitive global market, setting
challenging goals that take into account the crucial factors of
time and quality and providing feedback to employ ees are no
longer options. They must happen!
• The motivational practices that produced the achievements at
Enterprise are based on setting goals, developing feedback
systems, and providing reward systems that get individuals to
strive to reach those goals. Goals play an important part in
motivating individuals to strive for high performance. The basic
concepts in goal setting remain an important source for
motivating employees. Regardless of the nature of their spe cific
achievements, successful people tend to set goals. Their lives are
goal oriented.
• This is true for politicians, students, and leaders in all sorts of
organizations.
➢ Model of Goal Setting and Performance
(Explain how goal setting affects performance.)
Goals are future outcomes (results) that individuals and groups desire
and strive to achieve. ." Goal setting is the process of specifying
desired outcomes toward which individuals, teams, departments, and
organizations will arive and is intended to increase organizational
efficiency and effectiveness.
 .Importance of Goal Setting

The goal-setting process is no easy task, but the effort is not only
worthwhile, it is also becoming essential for success in today's highly
competitive global business environment. Just as organizations strive
to achieve certain goals, individuals also are motivated to strive for
and attain goals.
In fact, the goal-setting process is one of the most important
motivational tools for affecting the performance of employees in
organizations. one of the most widely accepted models of goal setting
and indicate how goal-setting techniques can be applied to motivate
individuals and teams.
Figure 7.1 presents a model of individual goal setting and
performance. According to this goal-setting model, goal setting has
four motivational aspects:

-Goals direct attention. That is, they focus an employee's attention on

what is rel evant and important. What two goals does Enterprise
track?
- Goals regulate effort. Not only do goals direct our attention, they
motivate us to act. What motivates employees at Enterprise?
-Goals increase persistence. Persistence represents the effort -
expended on a task over an extended period of time. Persistent
people find ways to overcome obstacles and avoid making excuses if
they fail.
-Goals foster strategies and action programs. Goals encourage people
to develop strate gies and action programs that enable them to
achieve their goals. Give an example of this at Enterprise.

• Having a goal also may improve performance because the goal makes
clear the type and level of performance expected. At PPG, a Pittsburgh-
based paint and glass manufacturer, employee objectives are called
SMART goals, an acronym for "Specific, Measurable, Agreed-upon by the
employee and manager, Realistic, and Timebound." Being specific means
goals should be stated in precise rather than vague terms. Measurable
refers to assessing the extent to which a goal is accomplished. Goals
should be attainable, challenging, and realistic. Impossible goals reduce
 motivation because peo ple do not like to fail. Results-oriented goals are
needed to support the organization's mission. At Enterprise if they get a
positive response to their survey questions, which are results oriented,
then the organization's goal will be achieved. Finally, timebound means
that goals need to specify target dates for completion. Before the SMART
goal system was implemented at PPG, a sales manager would be told by
her boss to increase sales for the next year. Now she might be asked to
develop, by September 30, three new customers in three Southeast
regions with annual sales volume of $250,000 each. Using SMART, sales
performance at PPG has increased by more than 25 percent.
 Challenge

Performance is likely to be high when (1) challenging goals have been set, (2)
the moderators (ability, goal commitment, feedback, and task complexity) are
present, and (3) the mediators (direction, effort, persistence, and task strategy)
are operating (see Figure 7.2). Stated another way, goal setting is the process of
developing, negotiating. and establishing targets that challenge the individual.
Employees with unclear goals or no goals are more prone to work slowly,
perform poorly, exhibit a lack of interest, and accomplish less than employees
whose goals are clear and challenging. In addition, employees with clearly
defined goals appear to be more energetic and productive.

They get things done on time and then move on to other activities (and goals).
Goals may be implicit or explicit, vague or clearly defined, and self-imposed or
externally imposed. Whatever their form, goals serve to guide the individual's
time and effort.
• Two key attributes of challenging goals are particularly important: • Goal
difficulty: A gual should be challenging but not impossible to achieve. If it
is too easy, the individual may delay or approach the goal lack daisically.
If it is too dif ficult, the individual may not really accept the goal and thus
not try to meet it.
• Goal clarity: A gual must be clear and specific if it is to be useful in directing
effort. The individual thus will know what is expected and not have to
guess. For instance, Enterprise rental agents are expected to answer
customers' calls by the third ring of the phone. Clear and challenging goals
lead to higher performance than do vague or general goals.
• Management by objectives (MBO) is a management system that we goal
difficulty and goal clarity as its foundation for motivating employees. In
essence, this management system involves managers and employees in
jointly setting goals for performance and personal development,
periodically evaluating employees' progress toward achieving these goals,
and then rewarding employees.

MBO leads to both employee satisfaction and profits. Cardinal managers have
found that goals that are difficult but not impos sible lead to higher performance
than do easy goals. However, unrealistically high goals may not be accepted or
may lead to high performance only in the short run. Individuals eventually get
discouraged and stop trying, as predicted by the expectancy model
• Along with goal difficulty and clarity, a third key factor that influences the
establishment of challenging goals is self efficacy.
• we defined self-efficacy s the individual's estimate of his or her own ability
to perform a specific task in a particular situation. As might be expected,
individuals who set high goals perform at a high level when they also have
high self efficacy. A person's self-efficacy is dependent on the task. For
example, a golfer with a low handicap has high self-efficacy on the golf
course. But the same person might have low self-efficacy when meeting
sales goals for a new piece of equipment that the company has just
introduced." With clear and challenging goals, employee behaviors are
 more likely to be focused on job-related tasks, high levels of performance,
and goal [Link] 7.1 give a summary of links between goal
setting and individual Performance.

 Moderators
Moderators act like a volume control on a TV set. By increasing or decreasing mod erators, the
strength between challenge and the mediators changes. Figure 7.2 shows the four moderators that
buffer the relationship between goals and performance: abil ity, goal commitment, feedback, and task
complexity. We begin with ability because it limits an individual's capacity to respond to a challenge.

-Ability

The relation of goal difficulty to performance is curvilinear, not linear. That is, performance levels off
as the limits of a person's ability are approached. In Chapter 6, we learned that motivation is an
important part of a person's ability to perform. Some individuals believe that they have the ability to
acquire new competencies and master new situations. They seek challenging new assignments that
open their eyes to new ways of doing tasks. Others believe that their ability to complete a task is
relatively stable and avoid placing themselves in a situation in which they might receive a negative
evaluation."

-Goal Commitment

The second factor, goal commitment, refers to an individual's determination to reach a goal,
regardless of berber the goal was ser by that person or someone else. What is your goal commitment
in this class? Take a minute and complete the questionnaire in Table 7.2. Your commitment to achieve
a goal is likely to be stronger if you make it publicly, if you have a strong need for achievement, and if
you believe that you can control the activities that will help you reach that goal.

The effect of participation on goal commitment is complex. Positive goal commit ment is more likely
if employees participate in setting their goals, which often leads to a sense of ownership. In a study
by the Corporate Leadership Council of 50,000 employees, the council found that increased
commitment can lead m = 57 percent improvement in discretionary effort-employees' willingness to
exceed the normal job duties. That effort produces, on the average, a 20 percent individual
performance improvement and an 87 percent reduction in a desire to leave the organization. Not
expecting or wanting to be involved in goal setting reduces the importance of employee participation
in terms of goal commitment. Even when a leader has to assign goals without employee participation,
doing so leads to more focused efforts and better performance than if no goals are set or if a person
is told simply to "do their best."
The expected rewards for achieving goals play an important role in the degree
of goal commitment. The greater the extent to which employees believe that
positive rewards (merit pay raises, bonuses, promotions, opportunities to
perform interesting tasks, and the like) are contingent on achieving goals, the
greater in their commitment to the goals. At Enterprise, it didn't take long for
employees to realize how the goal of 90 percent positive response to the
Enterprise Service Quality Index impacted their pay Similarly, if employees
expect to be punished for not achieving goals, the probability of goal
commitment also is higher. Of course, punishment and the fear of punishment
as the primary means of guiding behavior may create long-term problems.
Employees compare expected rewards against rewards actually received. If
received rewards are consistent with expected rewards, the reward system is
likely to continue to support goal commitment. If employees think that the
rewards they receive are much less than the rewards they expected, they may
perceive inequity. If perceived or actual inequity exists, employees eventually
reduce their goal commitment. Teamwork and peer pressure are other factors
that affect a person's commitment to a goal.
The Baylor Health Texas Provider Network has successfully matched orga
nizational goals with those of its employees. Carl Couch and his management
team set five goals, including patient care and managing costs. Why five?
Because they wanted to keep managers focused on a handful of high-priority
items that were measurable. At the beginning of the year, department heads sit
down with their employees and communicate these five goals. They discuss how
the employee plans to contribute to reaching each goal. If the manager of the
emergency department needs to reduce his operating costs by 5 percent, he can
log into the hospital intranet to see how costs are tracking for his department
during the year. A person's pay increase is based on individual and team
performance. If a manager is not reaching her goal, then human resource
managers give her input on how to achieve the goal. According to Ziad Haydar,
director of quality control, "The monitoring system holds managers account able
to motivate their staffs to their highest performance."

-Feedback
Feedback makes goal setting and individual responses to goal achievement
(perfor mance) a dynamic process. Feedback provides information to the
employer about how well be or the is doing. It enables the individual to relate
received rewards to those expected in terms of actual performance. This
comparison, in turn, can influence changes in the degree of goal commitment.
However, some organizations are giving employ ees positive feedback for just
showing up. Land's End, Diamond Fiber Products, and the Scooter Store teach
managers how to give positive feedback to employees using e-mails, prize
packages, and public displays of appreciation. The 1.000-employee Scooter
Store, for instance, has a manager who uses a power wheelchair to wheel
around in while throwing confetti at employees. The manager also passes out
100 to 500 celebratory helium balloons once a week as a way of showing the
company's appreciation for employees showing up. Such positive feedback,
however, rarely improves performance because it is not targeted at specific
goals.

-Task Complexity
Task complexity refers to the cognitive processing that is needed by a person to
solve a ask. For simple tasks (e.g. answering telephones at Marriott's reservation
center), the effort encouraged by challenging goals leads directly to high task
performance. For more complex tasks (e.g., studying to achieve a high grade),
effort doesn't lead directly to effective performance. The individual must also
decide where and how to allocate effort.
 Mediators

Let's assume that an individual has challenging goals and that the moderating
factors support achievement of these goals. Mediators are links that join
challenge and per formance. How do the four links shown in Figure 7.2-direction,
effort, persistence, and task strategy-affect performance? Direction of attention
focuses behaviors on activities expected to result in gnal achievement and steers
the individual away from activities irrelevant to achieving the goals. At
Enterprise, employees direct their atten tion to the two factors on the Enterprise
Service Quality Index. The effort a person exerts unmally depends on the
difficulty of the goal. That is, the greater the challenge, the greater will be the
effort expended, assuming that the person is committed to reaching the goal.
Persistence involves a person's willingness to work at the task over an extended
period of ne until the results are achieved. Most sports require participants of
time to practice long and hard to hone their competencies and maintain them
at a high level. Finally, tak strategy is the way in which an individual often
through experience and instruction decides to tackle a task. That is, what to do
first.

 Performance

As suggested in Figure 7-2, one of the reasons why leaders and employees set
goals is to achieve a level of performance that helps the entire organization
achieve its goal(s). In Albuquerque, New Mexico, the Bernalillo County Parks and
Recreation Department has started a program designed to create a healthy
workforce. The One Step at a Time program was created to encourage
employees to seek preventive medical care. This program awards points to
employees who take care of themselves. The goal was to get 50 percent of its
400 employees to walk 10,000 step a day by the end of its 12-week program. To
track their performance, the department gave all employees pedometers to
measure how many steps they actually took during the day, After reaching the
desired performance level, employees were given water bottles, T-shirts, etc.

Three hasic types of quantitative indicators can be used to assess performance:

units of production or quality (amount produced or number of errors), dollars
(profits, costs, income, or sales), and time (attendance and promptness in
meeting deadlines). When auch measures are unavailable or inappropriate,
qualitative goals (customer sat isfaction, teamwork) and indicators may be used.
In addition, many organizations have developed a code of ethics to support
employees in setting ethical goals and making ethical decisions. Creating ethics
guidelines has several advantages that the Gap, GE, and Johnson & Johnson,
among others, consider important. Some of the advantages for setting ethical
goals are: to help employees identify what their organization recognizes as
acceptable behaviors,to legitimize the consideration of ethics as part of decision
making, to avoid uncertainties among employees about what is right and wrong,
and to avoid inconsistencies in decision making caused by an organizational
reward

system that appears to reward unethical behavior." Bonnie Nixon-Gardiner

works at Hewlett-Packard (HP) and her goal is to improve the working conditions
of employees in HP's overseas supply factories. As described in the following
Across Cultures Competency feature, she has sought to create industry-wide
changes by setting the standards for her employees and influenc ing what other
companies should do. She understands that change cannot happen in a day,
week, or even a year. If she can stimulate small changes in the way HP does
business, she feels that she has made a contribution."
 Rewards

When an employee attains a high level of performance, rewards are important

induce ments for individuals to continue performing at that level. Rewards can
be external (bonuses, paid vacations, and the like) or internal (a sense of
achievement, pride in accomplishment, and feelings of succes), Enterprise, PPC,
and Jeff Gordon's NASCAR organization all reward people for high performance.
However, what is viewed as a reward in one culture may not be viewed as a
reward in another. For example, doing business in Vietnam requires the
exchange of gifts during the first day of a business meeting. Although they may
be small and relatively inexpensive, gifts with a company logos are highly valued.
The gifts should be wrapped, but white or black paper should not be med
because these colors are asociated with death. In contrast, exchanging gifts at a
business meeting in the United States generally is not expected. Praising an
individual in public for achievement in Vietnam will embarrass the individual.
Rewards are not to be given in public. Conversely, public acclaim for
achievement in the United States is valued,
 Satisfaction

Many factors including challenging work, interesting coworkers, salary, the

oppor tunity to learn, and good working conditions-influence a person's
satisfaction with the job (see Chapter 3). However, in the goal-setting model,
the primary focus is on the employee's degree of satisfaction with performance.
Employees who set extremely high, difficult goals may experience less job
satisfaction than employees who set lower, more easily achievable goals.
Difficult goals are less frequently achieved, and satisfac tion with performance
is associated with success. Thus, some compromise on goal difficulty may be
necessary in order to maximize both satisfaction and performance. However,
some level of satisfaction is associated with simply striving for difficult goals,
much in responding to a challenge, making some progrem toward reaching the
goals, and the belief that benefits may still be derived from the experience
regardless of the outcome.

 Consequences

The consequences of a person reaching his or her goal include both a willingness
to accept future challenges and to increase his or her commitment to the
organization. If a person reaches a goal, it gives the leader a way to have the
person become emo tionally attached to achieving even more challenging
assignments. For example, one of the consequences of Martin Luther King's "I
Have a Dream" speech was that it d the hearts of millions of people pushing for
civil rights justice. For leaders, a captured th consequence is that employees
know what the goal is because their behaviors reflect the acceptance of the
goals. If the outcomes of goal attainment are positive, goal com mitment is
likely.

➢ Effects of Goal Setting

In recent years, leaders have recognized the importance of focusing their

employees efforts to achieve high organizational performance. Because lead ers
are not in the position to change individuals' personalities, they must try to
motivate employees. As we have pointed out in previous chapters, a major
problem for leaders is that motivation ultimately comes from within individuals
and, therefore, cannot be directly observed. The best that leaders can do is cre
ate the conditions that will lead to high levels of performance. As you read about
with Enterprise Rent-A-Car and Hewlett-Packard, goals lay the foundation for
organizational effectiveness. Therefore, what conditions increase or decrease
the benefits of goal setting?

 Conditions for Effective Goal Setting

Five conditions must come together generally come together for managers to
gain the benefits of a goal setting programme

1. The employee must have the knowledge and ability to attain the goal. If the
goalis to increase sales by 15 percent within the next 12 months and the
employee lacks the sales competencies needed to attain it, urging them to set
"stretch goals"usually isn't effective. It can make employees so anxious to reach
the goal that they scramble to discover ways (ethical and unethical) to reach the
goal, but do not learn the behaviors that are needed to be effective.
2. The employee must be committed to the goal, especially if the goal is difficult.
Achieving a difficult goal requires a great deal of effort.
3. People need feedback on their progress toward the goal. Feedback enables
employees to adjust their effort and behavior necessary for goal attainment.
When employees discover that they are not reaching their goals, they typically
increase their efforts because of the pride they have in their performance.
[Link] that are complex need to be broken down so that the employee can set
subgoals that c it can be attained. These subgoals yield information for
employees as to whether their progress is consistent with what is required for
them to attain their goal.

5. Situational constraints can make goal attainment difficult. One of the primary
roles of a manager is to ensure that employees have the resources necessary to
attain their goals and to remove obstacles in the way of accomplishing those
goals.

 Impact on Performance

One of the consequences of goal setting is that it motivates individuals to

achieve high performance. There are several reasons for this. First, difficult but
achievable goals prompt employees to concentrate on achievement of the
goals. At Enterprise Rent-A-Car, agents focus on customer satisfaction goals
because they know that results are measured monthly and ranked and that
these rankings affect their chances for advancement. Second, difficult guals
motivate employees to spend lots of time and effort on developing mods r
achieving them. At Enterprise, agents communicate with customers, sometimes
at length, so that the agents understand customers' needs and can provide the
most suitable vehicle to them, whether it is a sedan, convertible, pickup, or SUV.
Customer satisfaction and loyalty are vital to the success of the business. Third,
difficult goals increase employees' persistence in trying to achieve them. If
employees perceive that goals can be reached by luck or with little effort, they
tend to dismiss the goals an irrelevant and not follow through with the acticas
needed to reach them.
To sum up, specific, difficult goals affect motivation and performance by:
encouraging individuals to develop action programs to reach these goals,
• focusing individual's attention on these goal-relevant actions, .
.causing individuals to exert the effort necessary to achieve the goals, and
sparring individuals to persist in the face of obstacles.

One of the many firms that have put these principles into action is Lockheed
Martin. Lockheed Martin is facing a major challenge because many of its 70,000
engi neers are expected to retire within the near future. President and CEO
Robert Stevens has emphasized that the company must create a workforce that
is more diverse and inclusive, not only of racial and gender differences but also
differences in beliefs, back grounds, and experiences. The following Diversity
Competency feature highlights how the Lockheed Martin MS2 team developed
a program to achieve that goal."
 Limitations to Goal Setting

Goal setting has often been shown to increase performance in a variety of

settings. However, there are three potential limitations. First, when employees
lack the skills and abilities needed to perform at a high level, goal setting doesn't
work. Giving an employee a goal of writing a computer program will not lead to
high performance if the worker doesn't know how to write such a program. To
overcome this limitation, new hires at the Ritz-Carlton, for example, are
required to attend training sessions at which they are taught how to process
requests and complaints, build customer loyalty, and establish relationships
with restaurants, taxi services, golf courses, and others ser vices frequently
requested by guests.
Second, successful goal setting takes longer when employees are given compli
cated tasks that require a considerable amount of learning. Good performance
on complicated tasks also requires that employees be able to direct all of their
attention to the tasks and not be interrupted by side issues. Steve Letarte's
Rainbow Warriors pit crew is able to perform complicated tasks quickly because
they are the only tasks that the crew is focusing on while the car is in the pit.
Third, goal setting can lead to major problems when it rewards the wrong behav
iors. Rod Rodin is the CEO of Marshall Industries, a billion-dollar electronics
distribu tor in Los Angeles that serves more than 30,000 customers who order
more than 700,000 parts a month. He quickly recognized that the company's
reward program was encouraging behaviors that led to poor service, dissatisfied
customers, and, ultimately, lower profits. Rodin found that more than 20
percent of each month's sales were shipped to clients during the last three days
of the month. Managers were hiding customer returns or open ing bad credit
accounts just to make their monthly sales goals. Divisions were hiding products
from each other or saying that products had been shipped when they really had
none on hand. Salespeople fought over how to split commissions on revenue
from a customer who did design work in Chicago but made purchases in
Cleveland. Employee and team performance were reviewed and ranked on the
basis of numerical criteria, such as receivables outstanding and gross sales dol
lars. Rodin's solution was to scrap the incentive compensation program. He
declared that there would be no more contests, prizes, or bonuses for individual
achievements. Everyone at Marshall was put on a salary and shared in a
company-wide bonus pool if the organization as a whole met its goals. It worked.
 Insights for leaders

As you might expect, individuals who are both satisfied with and committed to
un organization are more likely to stay with and accept the challenges the
organization presents. Turnover and absenteeism rates for satisfied individuals
are lower. This link brings us full circle to the beginning of the goal-setting model.
What might happen if things go badly and an individual who had been satisfied
becomes dissatis fied? Individual responses fall into at least six categories: (1)
job avoidance (quitting), (2) work avoidance (absenteeism, arriving late, and
leaving carly), (3) pychological defenses (alcohol and/or drug abuse), (4)
constructive protest (complaining), (5) defi ance (refusing to do what is asked),
and (6) aggression (theft or assault). Quitting is the most common outcome of
severe dissatisfaction."

The goal-setting model has important implications for employees, leaders, and
teams alike. First, it provides an excellent framework to assist the leader or team
in diagnosing the potential problems with low- or average performing
employees. Diagnostic questions might include these: (1) How were the goals
set? (2) Are the goals challenging) (3) What is affecting goal commitment? and
(4) Does the employee know when he has done a good job? Second, it provides
concrete advice to the leader on how to create a high-performance work
environment. Third, it portrays the rela tionships and interplay among key
factors, such as goal difficulty, goal commitment, feedback, and rewards, to
achieve high performance.

➢ Reward Programs for Improving Performance

Managers agree that tying rewards to job performance is essential. However,

the actual implementation of programs designed to bring about such a
relationship is often quite difficult. Questions that arise include "Should rewards
be tied to the performance of an individual or team?" Recall that Rod Rodin, CEO
of Marshall Industries, found that rewarding individual performance only
created unhealthy com petition among employees and destroyed morale.
Deciding to reward all employees in the organization raises another question:
Should the rewards be based on cost savings or profits and be distributed
annually or when employees retire or otherwise leave the organization?
Considerable research has been done on how rewards affect individual and
teams performance. According to the Ascent Consulting organization, the ability
of rewards to motivate individuals or teams high performance was found to
depend on six factors:

1. Availability. For rewards to reinforce desired performance, they must be

available. Too little of a desired reward is no reward at all. For example, pay
increases are often highly desired but unavailable. Moreover, pay increases that
are below minimally accepted standards may actually produce negative
consequences, including theft, falsifying records, and the like. Organizations
spend an average of $850 per employee on reward and recognition programs,
but there are wide variations. Fifty percent of organizations spend less than
$100 per year per employee,65 percent spend less than $500, and 10 percent
spend more than $2,500 per employee annually.
[Link]. Like performance feedback, rewards should be given in a timely
manner.
A reward's motivating potential to reinforce. Most companies use a com is
reduced to the extent that it is separated in time from the performance bination
of on-the-spot awards and team/departmental performance, On-the spot
rewards are usually in the form of gift cards, dress casual days, time-off, and the
like.
3. Performance mingeary, Rewards should be closely linked with particular
performances. If a goal is met, the reward is given. The clearer the link between
goal achievement and rewards, the better able rewards are to motivate desired
behav iar. Farty percent of employees nationwide believe that there is no link
between their performance and rewards, such as bonuses and pay.
4. Durability. Some rewards last longer than others. Intrinsic rewards, such as
incressed autonomy, challenge, and accountability, tend to last longer than
extrin sic rewards, such as a gift card to a restaurant.
5. Equity. Employees' motivation to perform is improved when they believe that
the reward policies of their organization are fair and equitable. 6. Visibility. To
promote a reward program, leaders must ensure that rewards are vial ble
throughout an organization. Visible rewards, such as assignments to important
committees or promotion to a new job, send signals to employees that rewards
are for promor available, timely, and based on performance.
Many weight-loss programs, such as Jenny Craig and Diet Center, use these fac
tors when helping clients lose weight. In One Small Step Can Change Your Life,
author Robert Maurer challenges participants to "march in place for one minute
while watching television." One minute of low-intensity exercise then becomes
stretched to two, three, four, etc. As the participant sees his or her weight drop,
other stretch goals can be set. As the participant's weight drops, tote bags, T-
shirts, and other rewards are given to celebrate pounds and inches lost."

To the extent that reward programs are used to motivate employees to achieve
higher performance, we discuss four popular ones: informal, profit-sharing, skill
hased pay, and flexible benefit programs. The strengths and limitations of each
are summarized in Table 7.3.
  Informal Programs

Leaders have long underestimated the importance of informal rewards for

improving individuals performance. At a time when raises and promotions are
scarce, the use of informal rewards by leaders is gaining in popularity. In a recent
survey, 81 percent of employees say that they do not receive any reward for
increased productivity, and 60 percent indicate that their compensation will not
increase if their performance improves. Informal rewards refer to those that
result from iteractions between people. Informal rewards are designed to
encourage continuous improvement. For years, one of your authors has written
a personal note to all students who received an A in his class and mailed these
to the students' homes. The personal note thanks the students for their hard
work and dedication to the course and adds some personal statements Many
students show these notes to their fellow students and parents and keep them
for years. Sherry Burnside showed up in the office after graduating 15 years
earlier and said that she still remembers getting the note-in fact, she still has it-
and the impact that it had on her. Now a successful leader of research programs
at Presbyterian Hospital, she uses the same practice with her employees
thanking them for a job well done. Note that informal rewards are personal and
flexible, easy to use, and cost effective.

-Characteristics of Informal Rewards

What makes informal rewards effective? Informal rewards are most effective
when they directly reinforce the desired behavior,are given immediately,are
delivered personally, and are valued by the individual.
At Blanchard Training and Development in San Diego, California, leaders have
established the Eagle Award to recognize legendary service to customers one of
the organization's goal. The program was announced and explained at a
company wide meeting. The program is open to any employee who could submit
the name of another employee who had gone out of his or her way to satisfy a
customer request. The name is submitted with a brief description of the activity,
such as staying late to ship materials, helping a customer find a lost order,
resolving a billing problem, etc. The recognized employee is surprised by a visit
from Eagle Committee. The employee's picture is taken holding the award and
the photo displayed on the bulletin board in the company's lobby with a brief
description of the activity that is being rec ognized. The recipient keeps the eagle
statue on his or her desk until it is needed for the next recipient. At the end of
the year, by a vote of prior Eagle Award winners, one person is awarded!
engraved clock at the company's celebration program.

 Profit-Sharing Programs

Profit-sharing programs provide employees with a portion of the company's

earnings. As the name suggests, profit-sharing programs distribute profits to
employees. Average profit-sharing figures are difficult to calculate. According to
some experts, they typically range between 4 and 6 percent of a person's salary.
Steve Watson, managing director at Stanton Chase, an executive-recruiting firm,
contends that profit sharing may have a limited impact because employees may
feel that they can d n do little to influ ence the organization's overall profitability.
That is, company profits are influenced by many factors (eg, competitor's
products, state of the economy, and inflation rate) that are well beyond the
employees' control. However, profit-sharing programa are very popular in
Japan. For example, ut Seiko Instruments many managers and - receive bonuses
twice a year that equal four or five months salary. These bonuses are based on
the company's overall performance.!!
According to John Semyan, partner at TNS Associates, an executive-recruiting
firm, more than one-third of the companies that use profit sharing do not track
the results of such programs. In addition, 28 percent indicate that their profit-
sharing programs do not meet their goals. To reduce failure, the following
recommendations are offered:

• Involve line managers and employees in the program's creation to ensure their
[Link] clear goals for the program.
• Ensure that the employees understand the metrics that the program is
[Link] the program to the company's strategies.

Give the program time to succeed. It takes two or three years for a program to
change overall company performance. Provide up-to-date information that
allows employees to see how well they are performing against their goals."
The following Change Competency feature illustrates how Nucor uses its profit
sharing plan to reward employees. When Nucor entered the steel-making
business in 1986 an a mini-mill, it was an upstart company in a business
dominated by large producers, such as Bethlehem Steel, U.S. Steel, and National
Steel. Faced with a successful challenge from China and other steel-producing
nations, many of the steel mills in the United States have been closed. Nucor,
however, survived. Today, Nucor is among the largest steel companies in the
world, employing more than 18,000 and with coles exceeding $16 billion
annually. Until the latest recession, Nucor's sales had been growing at more than
12 percent a year. With such growth, Nucor has not laid off any employees since
it started production in 1986. One of the ressons for its success is found in its
profit-sharing plan

 Skill-Based Pay Programs

Paying employees according to their value in the labor market makes a great
deal of sense. After all, employees with highly developed skills and those who
develop multiple skills are particularly valuable assets to the organization. As we
emphasized carlier, the communication, team, and change competencies are
often based on mas tering a number of specific skills. Skill-based pay programs
are based on the number and level of job-related skills that an employee has
learned. Skill-based pay compensates employees for the skills they can use in
the organization, rather than for the specific jobs they are performing. Pay
changes do not necessarily go along with job changes. There is also little
emphasis on seniority. The underlying assumption is that by focusing on the
individual rather than the job, skill-based reward programs recog nize learning
and growth. Employees are paid according to the number of different skills they
can perform.

More than 16 percent of the Fortune 1000 companies use skill-based pay
programs to motivate employees. In the United Kingdom, the Norwich and
Peterborough Building Society, a mortgage and banking business, had a 12-level
reward program. It proved to be ineffective in curbing turnover, covered only
some of the employees, and basically confused employees. The new program
centers on a 5-level job skills reward program, such as customer service and
relationship management, that are linked to pay rate changes in the market.
Sixty-seven percent of employees now know that their pay progression is linked
to the attainment of these 5-level job skills. As a result, employee turnover
dropped to 17 percent from 25 percent, productivity increased, and customer
satisfaction improved. Employees report that the new pay system is simple,
transparent, and they understand what skills they need to learn to increase their
pay. And managers do not have to answer the question "Why is that person
earning more than I am

Of course, skill-based pay programs have some limitations. One major drawback
of skill-based pay is the tendency to "top our." Topping-out occurs when
employees learn all the skills there are to master and, hence, reach the top end
of the pay scale, with no higher levels to attain. Some organizations, such as GE
and United Technologies, have resolved the topping-out effect by installing a
gain-sharing program after most employees have learned all of the required
skills. Other organizations have resolved this limitation by making skills obsolete,
eliminating them, and adding new ones, thus raising the standards of employee
competence. Other limitations include inadequate management commitment
to the program, conflicts between the employees included in and those
excluded from the skill-based pay program, inadequate training of man agers,
and poor program designs that increase labor costs without providing offsetting
organizational benefits. Slall-based pay programs also require a heavy
investment in training, as well as measurement systems capable of assessing
when employees have learned the new skills.
 Flexible Benefit Programs

Flexible benefit programs allow employees to choose the benefits they want,
rather than having management choose for them. Flexible benefit programs
often are called cafeteria-style benefit programs. According to Leslie Ritter, a
principal in Sagen Consulting, a human resource consulting firm located in
Addison, Texas, a typical corporation's benefits pro gram costs between 25 and
30 percent of its total employee compensation package." This represents a huge
cost, considering that only 3 percent or less is set aside annually for merit pay
increases in most organizations. Under flexible benefit programs, employ een
decide beyond a base program which additional benefits they want, tailoring the
benefits package to their needs. The idea is that employees can make important
and intelligent decisions about their benefits. Some employees take all of their
discretion ary benefits in cash; others choose additional life insurance, child or
elder care, dental insurance, or retirement programs. Extensive benefit options
may be highly attractive to an employee with a family. However, many benefits
might be only minimally attractive to a young, single employee. Older
employees value retirement programs more than younger employees and are
willing to put more money into them. Employees with elderly parents may desire
financial assistance in providing care for them. At Travelers Insurance Company,
employees can choose benefits of up to $5,000 a year for the care of dependent
elderly parents.

Thousands of organizations now offer flexible benefit programs, They are very
popular because they offer three distinct advantages. First, they allow
employees to make important decisions about their finances and to match their
needs with their benefit programs. Second, such programs help organizations
control their costs, especially for health care. Employers can set the maximum
amount of benefit dollars they will spend on employees' benefits and avoid
automatically absorb ing cost increases. Third, such programs highlight the
economic value of many benefits to employees. Most employees have little idea
of the cost of benefits because the organization is willing to pay for them even
though employees might not want some of them or might prefer alternatives.

Some limitations are associated with flexible benefit programs. First, because
different employees choose different benefit packages, record keeping becomes
more complicated. Sophisticated computer systems are essential for tracking
the details of employees records, Second, it is dif ficult to accurately predict the
number of employees that might choose each benefit. Such uncertainty may
affect the firm's group rates for life and medical insurance, because the costs of
such programs are based on the number of employees covered.
 Insights for Leaders

Improving performance-based reward systems has come under attack,

especially dur ing the recent recession. CEOs at JPMorgan Chase. AT&T, and
Citigroup, among others, have been in the news for granting huge bonuses to
key employees when their firms are experiencing major financial losses.
Comcast has designed a reward a system that will pay its CEO, Brian Roberts, a
$47.5 million bonus if he dies on the job. Disney has even promised to keep
paying CEO Robert Iger's salary to his heirs for three years after he dies! Such
arrangements have stockholders and others shak ing their heads and demanding
to know how the company dare pay people who are dead and not performing.
While the compensation committees of these companies defend these deals as
a kind of life insurance to maintain talent, President Obama and members of
Congress have called for "anti-greed" proposals to stop such practices. Although
these instances are small in number, the magnitude of these rewards is what
people are disturbed about. Let's look at some of the more important practices
to improve effectiveness, as shown in Figure 7.3.

First, leaders need to link rewards to performance and set a measurement sys
tem in place that measures the behaviors that lead to effectiveness. In Chapter
5, we discussed how principles of reinforcement theory can be used to channel
and reward employees' behaviors. In Chapter 6, we discussed how expectancy
theory concepts can be used to reward proper behavior. The foundation for the
recom mendations using either concept is that good performers should be
rewarded more than poor performers. Leaders can improve the performance
reward linkage by using objective measures of performance along with
subjective ones, such as leadership, teamwork, and communications Objectives
measures, such as volume, customer complaints, and machine downtime, need
to be established and agreed

on by individuals. Both subjective and objective measures need to be related to

the organization's goals. Organizations also need to reward individuals soon
after the performance occurs and with a sufficient size reward so that individuals
experi ence positive emotions when receiving the rewards. This is one of the
reasons why
Nucor's profit-sharing program has been so successful-workers receive bonuses
on a weekly basis. Second, leaders need to make sure that rewards are relevant
and valued by employees. Employees need to see a connection between their
daily actions and a reward to be motivated to improve their performance. At
Whole Foods Market, each department within the store is run by a team with a
monthly payroll budget. If payroll money is unspent at the end of a month, the
surplus is divided among the members of that Whole Foods team.

Leaders should ask employees what they value. According to Dave Stoner, CEO
of ViewCast, employees don't always go for material things. They want rewards
that have value for them. For example, for years, on the Monday before
Thanksgiving, leaders at View Cast gave turkeys or hams to employees who
worked in the shipping department. But when asked, most of the employees
said that they valued only working a half day on Wednesday, instead of receiving
a turkey or ham, so they could travel to be with their families. They promised
that all of their work would be done prior to noon on Wednesday even if they
had to show up early to

achieve the result. Lastly, leaders need to watch out for unintended
consequences. Performance based reward systems sometimes have
undesirable effects on behavior. For example when Domino's pizza started it
advertising campaign "Fifteen minutes or it's free, the program delivered more
hot pizzas to customers. However, it also increased the number of accidents its
drivers were involved in because the program unintentionally rewarded drivers
for making the delivery within 15 minutes. To make this deadline,many drivers
had to speed.

 Reward Practices in Different Cultures

Organizations in various countries utilize different reward programs. Cultural

values learned in childhood are passed down from one generation to the next
and serve differentiate one country from another. In Chapter 3, we presented a
framework for examining various feelings, ideas, values, and ways of thinking
that differentiate people of one culture from another." We discussed the five
dimensions on which cultures can vary: power distance, individualism
collectivism, gender role orientation, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term
orientation. Please reread pages 72-75 to refresh yourself with these
dimensions and then take a look at the information shown in Table 7.4, which
was taken from several large international studies that examined reward pro
gram differences in more than 50 cultures. Using what you've learned about the
cul tural dimensions and Table 74, let's explore how four of these five
dimensions impact differences in reward programs,"

In high power distance cultures, rewards are based on one's level within the
managerial hierarchy. There are wide salary ranges between the top and lower
level employees. Perquisites and status symbols are popular and expected.
Profit sharing and other forms of variable compensation systems are relied on
to motivate employees. Subordinates are motivated by the threat of sanctions.
In individualistic cultures, organizations expect individuals to look out for their
own personal interests. The employee-employer compensation relationship is a
busi ness deal based on what the "labor market" will pay. Incentives are given
to individu als. Therefore, skill-based programs and MBO programs are popular
because they reward an individual's achievements. In collective cultures, team-
based pay is used to reinforce the team or group's achievements. At NSK, a ball-
bearing manufacturer, and Toto, a toilet producer, when business slows down,
these Japanese companies permit all workers to work shorter shifts and receive
smaller paychecks.
In cultures that do not have a strong gender role orientation, equality among
members is stressed. There are fewer differences in pay based on gender
differences Flexible benefit programs that allow the individual a wide choice of
non-work-related benefits(eg, child care, sabbatical leaves) are used to motivate
employees to perform. For example, in Sweden, women in management take
having families for granted and expect managers to find creative ways to help
them work through this childbearing time. In high uncertainty avoidance
cultures, reward programs emphasize seniority: There is strong loyalty to the
company that leads to long-term employment. Rewards based on seniority are
easy to administer and understand. These programs expose the employee to
little risk because they are based on the performance of the company and not
on individual and/or team efforts. There is high fear of failure. In Japan and other
Asian cultures, employees receive their annual pay raise on their anniversary
date (the day they joined the company). Instead of dismissing an employee for
poor perfor mance, managers move people from one department to another or
into a "window seat," a job with little authority and responsibility. These
practices allow the employee to save face.
The nature of stress
Stress:-
Stress has been defined in many ways, but most definitions say that stress is caused by a
stimulus, that the stimulus can be either physical or psychological, and that the individual responds
to the stimulus in some way. Therefore, stress as a person's adaptive response to a stimulus that
places excessive psychological or physical demands on him or her.

Given the underlying complexities of this definition, we need to examine its components
carefully. First is the notion of adaptation, people may adapt to stressful circumstances in any of
several ways. Second is the role of the stimulus. This stimulus, generally called a stressor, is anything
that induces stress. Third, stressors can be either psychological or physical. Finally, the demands the
stressor places on the individual must be excessive for stress to actually result. Of course, what is
excessive for one person may be perfectly tolerable for another. The point is simply that a person
must perceive the demands as excessive or stress will not actually be present.

There has been a marked increase in stress reported by airline workers in the last few years.
A combination of increased pressure for salary and benefit reductions, threats to pensions,
demotions, layoffs, and heavier workloads have all become more pronounced. And today's rising
energy prices are likely to increase these pressures. As a result, more airline workers than ever
before are seeking counseling services; turnover and absenteeism are also on the rise.

The Stress Process:-

Much of what we know about stress today can be traced to the pioneering work of Dr. Hans
Selye. Among Selye's most important contributions were his identification of the general adaptation
syndrome and the concepts of eustress and distress.

General Adaptation Syndrome

The figure 1 offers a graphical representation of the general adaptation syndrome (GAS).
According to this model, each of us has a normal level of resistance to stressful events. Some of us
can tolerate a great deal of stress and others much less, but we all have a threshold at which stress
starts to affect us.
 The GAS begins when a person first encounters a stressor. The first stage is called "alarm."
At this point, the person may feel some degree of panic and begin to wonder how to cope. The
individual may also have to resolve a "fight-or flight" question: "Can I deal with this, or should I run
away?" For example, suppose a manager is assigned to write a lengthy report overnight. Her first
reaction may be, "How will I ever get this done by tomorrow?

If the stressor is too extreme, the person may simply be unable to cope with it. In most
cases, however, the individual gathers his or her strength (physical or emotional) and begins to resist
the negative effects of the stressor. The manager with the long report to write may calm down, call
home to tell her kids that she's working late, roll up her sleeves, order out for dinner, and get to
work. Thus, at stage 2 of the GAS, the person is resisting the effects of the stressor.

Often, the resistance phase ends the GAS. If the manager completes the report earlier than
she expected, she may drop it in her briefcase, smile to herself, and head home tired but happy. On
the other hand, prolonged exposure to a stressor without resolution may bring on phase 3 of the
GAS: exhaustion. At this stage, the person literally gives up and can no longer fight the stressor. For
example, the manager may fall asleep at her desk at 3 am and fail to finish the report.

Figure 1

The GAS perspective describes three stages of the stress process. The initial stage is called
Alarm- a person's resistance often dips slightly below the normal level during this stage.
Next comes actual resistance to the stressor, usually leading to an increase above the
person's normal level of rasistance. Finally, in stage 3, exhaustion may set in, and the
person's resistance declines sharply below normal levels.

Distress and Eustress

Selye also pointed out that the sources of stress need not be bad. For example, receiving a
bonus and then having to decide what to do with the money can be stressful. So can getting a
promotion, making a speech as part of winning a major award, getting married, and similar "good"
things. Selye called this type of stress eustress. As we will see later, eustress can lead to a number of
positive outcomes for the individual. i.e., eustress is the pleasurable stress that accompanies positive
events.
 Of course, there is also negative stress, called distress, this is what most people think of
when they hear the word stress. Excessive pressure, unreasonable demands on our time, and bad
news all fall into this category. As the term suggests, this form of stress generally results in negative
consequences for the individual. i.e., distress is the unpleasant stress that accompanies negative
events. For purposes of simplicity, we will use the simple term stress, but remember that stress can
either good or bad. It can motivate and stimulate us, or it can lead to any number of dangerous side
effects.

Common causes of stress:-

Many things can cause stress. Figure shows two broad categories: organizational stressors
and life stressors. It also shows three categories of stress consequences: individual consequences,
organizational consequences, and burnout.

Figure 2

Organizational Stressors

Organizational stressors are various factors in the workplace that can cause stress. Four
general sets of organizational stressors are task demands, physical demands, role demands, and
interpersonal demands.

Task Demands
 Task demands are stressors associated with the specific job a person performs. Some
occupations are by nature more stressful than others. Table 3 lists a representative sample of
relative high- and low-stress jobs, based on one study. As you can see, the jobs of surgeon and
commercial airline pilot are among the most stressful, while the jobs of actuary and dietitian are
among the least stressful jobs.

Table 3

Beyond specific task-related pressures, other aspects of a job may pose physical threats to a
person's health. Unhealthy conditions exist in occupations such as coal mining and toxic waste
handling. Lack of job security is another task demand that can cause stress. Someone in a relatively
secure job is not likely to worry unduly about losing that position; however, threats to job security
can increase stress dramatically.

A final task demand stressor is overload. Overload occurs when a person simply has more
work than he or she can handle. The overload can be either quantitative (the person has too many
tasks to perform or too little time to perform them) or qualitative (the person may believe he or she
lacks the ability to do the job). We should note that the opposite of overload may also be
undesirable. As figure 4 shows, low task demands can result in boredom and apathy just as overload
can cause tension and anxiety. Thus, a moderate degree of workload related stress is optimal,
because it leads to high levels of energy and motivation.

Figure 4
Physical demands

The physical demands of a job are its physical requirements on the worker; these demands
are a function of the physical characteristics of the setting and the physical tasks the job involves.
One important element is temperature. Working outdoors in extreme temperatures can result in
stress, as can working in an improperly heated or cooled office. Strenuous labor such as loading
heavy cargo or lifting packages can lead to similar results. Office design can be a problem, as well. A
poorly designed office can make it difficult for people to have privacy or promote too much or too
little social interaction. Too much interaction may distract a person from his or her task, whereas too
little may lead to boredom or loneliness. Likewise, poor lighting, inadequate work surfaces, and
similar deficiencies can create stress. And shift work can cause disruptions of people because of the
way it affects their sleep and leisure-time activities.

Role Demands

Role demands can also be stressful to people in organizations. A role is a set of expected
behaviors associated with a particular position in a group or organization. As such, it has both
formal (ie, job-related and explicit) and informal (ie, social and implicit) requirements. People in an
organization or work group expect a person in a particular role to act in certain ways. They transmit
these expectations both formally and informally. Individuals perceive role expectations with varying
degrees of accuracy and then attempt to enact that role. However, "errors" can creep into this
process, resulting in stress-inducing problems called role ambiguity, role conflict, and role overload.

Role ambiguity arises when a role is unclear. If your instructor tells you to write a term
paper but refuses to provide more information, you will probably experience ambiguity. You do not
know what the topic is, how long the paper should he, what format to use, or when the paper is due.
In work settings, role ambiguity can stem from poor job descriptions, vague instructions from a
supervisor, or unclear cues from coworkers. The result is likely to be a subordinate who does not
know what to do. Role ambiguity can thus be a significant source of stress.

Role conflict occurs when the messages and cues from others about the role are clear but
contradictory or mutually exclusive. One common form is inter-role conflict-conflict between roles.
For example, if a person's boss says that to get ahead one must work overtime and on weekends,
and the same person's spouse says that more time is needed at home with the family, conflict may
result. Intra-role conflict may occur when a person gets conflicting demands from different sources
within the context of the same role. A manager's boss may tell her that she needs to put more
pressure on subordinates to follow new work rules. At the same time, her subordinates may indicate
that they expect her to get the rules changed. Thus, the cues are in conflict, and the manager may be
unsure about which course to follow.

Intra-sender conflict occurs when a single source sends clear but contradictory messages.
This might occur if the boss says one morning that there can be no more overtime for the next
month but after lunch tells someone to work late that same evening. Person-role conflict results
from a discrepancy between the role requirements and the individual's personal values, attitudes,
and needs. If a person is told to do something unethical or illegal, or if the work is distasteful (for
example, reprimanding or firing a close friend), person-role conflict is likely. Role conflict of all
varieties is of particular concern to managers. Research has shown that conflict may occur in a
variety of situations and may lead to a variety of adverse consequences, including stress, poor
performance, and rapid turnover.

A final consequence of a conflicting role structure is role overload, which occurs when
expectations for the role exceed the individual's capabilities. When a manager gives an employee
several major assignments at once while increasing the person's regular workload, the employee will
probably experience role overload. Role overload may also result when an individual takes on too
many roles at one time. For example, a person trying to work extra hard at his job, run for election
to the school board, serve on a committee in church, coach Little League baseball, maintain an active
exercise program, and be a contributing member to his family will probably encounter role overload.

Interpersonal Demands

A final set of organizational stressors consists of three interpersonal demands: group

pressures, leadership, and interpersonal conflict. Group pressures may include pressure to restrict
output, pressure to conform to the norms, and so forth. For instance, as we have noted before, it is
quite common for a work group to arrive at an informal agreement about how much each member
will produce. Individuals who produce much more or much less than this level may be pressured by
the group to get back in line. An individual who feels a strong need to group's expectations (perhaps
to get a pay raise or promotion) will experience a great deal of stress, especially if acceptance by the
group is also important to him or her.

Leadership style also may cause stress. Suppose an employee needs a great deal of social
support from his leader. The leader, however, is quite brusque and shows no concern or compassion
for him. This employee will probably feel stressed. Similarly, assume an employee feels a strong
need to participate in decision making aspects of management. Her boss is very autocratic and
refuses to consult subordinates about anything. Once again stress is likely to result.

Conflicting personalities and behaviors may cause stress. Conflict can occur when two or
more people must work together even though their personalities, attitudes, and behaviors differ.
For example, a person with an internal locus of control-that is, who always wants to control how
things turn out-might get frustrated working with a person with an external locus who likes to wait
and just let things happen. Likewise, an employee who likes to have a quiet and peaceful work
environment may experience stress if the adjacent office is assigned to someone whose job requires
him or her to talk on the telephone much of the day.
 Finally, we should also note that in today's world many job holders experience stress from a
variety of sources simultaneously. One clear example is an airport security screener. These
individuals must deal with some potentially dangerous individuals. They face pressure from travelers
to perform their job as quickly as possible but also are constantly reminded of the potential
consequences of an error. Indeed many individuals involved in security-related jobs face higher
stress levels today than ever before.

Life Stressors

Stress in organizational settings also can be influenced by events that take place outside the
organization. Life stressors can be categorized in terms of life change and life trauma.

Life Change

Life stressors are tensions, anxieties, and conflicts that stem from pressures and demands in
people’s personal lives. People must cope with a variety of life stressors; they deal with these
stressors differently because of personality, age, gender, experience, and other characteristics.
However, life stressors that affect almost everyone are those caused by significant life changes:
divorce, marriage, death of a family member, and the like. Too much change too quickly can exhaust
the body’s ability to respond and result in negative consequences for a person’s physical and mental
health.

Holmes and Rahe first developed and popularized the nation of life change as a source of
stress. A life change is any meaningful change in a person's personal or work situation. Holmes and
Rahe reasoned that major changes in a person's life can lead to stress and eventually to disease.
Table 5 summarizes their findings on major life change events. Several events relate directly (fired
from work or retirement) or indirectly (change in residence) to work.

Each event's point value supposedly reflects the event's impact on the individual. At one
extreme, a spouse's death, assumed to be the most traumatic event considered, is assigned a point
value of 100. At the other extreme, minor violations of the law rank only 11 points. The points
themselves represent life change units, or LCUs. Note also that the list includes negative events
(divorce and trouble with the boss) as well as positive ones (marriage and vacations).

Holmes and Rahe argued that a person can handle a certain threshold of LCUs but that
beyond that level, problems can set in. In particular, they suggest that people who encounter more
than 150 LCUs in a given year will experience a decline in their health the following year. A score of
between 150 and 300 LCUS supposedly carries a 50 percent chance of major illness, while the
chance of major illness is said to increase to 70 percent if the number of LCUs exceeds 300. These
ideas offer some interesting insights into the potential cumulative impact of various stressors and
underscore our limitations in coping with stressful events.

Life Trauma

Life trauma is similar to life change, but it has a narrower, more direct, and shorter-term
focus, A life trauma is any upheaval in an individual's life that alters his or her attitudes, emotions, or
behaviors. To illustrate, according to the life change view, a divorce adds to a person's potential for
health problems in the following year. At the same time, the person will obviously also experience
emotional turmoil during the actual divorce process itself. This turmoil is a form of life trauma and
will clearly cause stress, much of which may spill over into the workplace.

Major life traumas that may cause stress include marital problems, family difficulties and
health problems initially unrelated to stress. For example, suppose a person learns she has
developed arthritis that will limit her favorite activity, skiing. Her dismay over the news may
translate into stress at work. Similarly, a worker coping with the traumatic aftermath of the death of
her or his child will almost certainly go through difficult periods, some of which will affect her or his
job performance. And millions of individuals experienced traumatic stress in the wake of the
September 11th terrorist attacks.

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCE AND STRESS

➢ We have already alluded to the fact that stress can affect different people in different ways.
The most fully developed individual difference relatingspecifically to stress is the distinction
between Type A and Type 8 personality profiles.

The extreme Type A individual is extremely competitive, very devoted to work, andhas a strong
sense of time urgency. Moreover, this person is likely to be aggressive, impa tient, and highly work
oriented. He or she has a lot of drive and motivation and wants to accomplish as much as possible in
as short a time as [Link] extreme .

Type B person, in contrast, is less competitive, is less devoted to work,and has a weaker sense of
time urgency. This person feels less conflict with either peopleor time and has a more balanced,
relaxed approach to life. He or she has more confidence and is able to work at a constant pace.
A commonsense expectation might be that Type A people are more successful than Type B people.
In reality, however, this is not necessarily true-the Type B person is not necessarily any more or less
successful than the Type A. There are several possible explanations for this,Friedman and
Rosenman's initial research on the Type A and Type B profile differences yielded some alarming
findings. In particular, they suggested that Type A's were much more likely to get coronary heart
disease than were Type B's. In recent years, how ever, follow-up research by other scientists has
suggested that the relationship betweenType A behavior and the risk of coronary heart disease is
not all that straightforward.

➢ Hardiness and Optimism :-Two other important individual differences related to stress are
handiness and optimism

Hardiness is a person's ability to cope withstress. People with hardy personalities have an inter nal
locus of control, are strongly committed to the activities in their lives, and view change as an oppor.
tunity for advancement and growth. Such people are seen as relatively unlikely to suffer illness if
they experience high levels of pressure and stress. On the other hand, people with low hardiness
may have more difficulties in coping with pressure and stress.

Optimism is the extent to which a person sees life in positive or negative terms. A popular
expressionn used to convey this idea concerns the glasss “half filled with water.” A person with a lot
of optimism will tend to see it as half full,

whereas a person with less optimism (a pessimist) will often see it as halff empty. In general,
optimistic people tend to handle stress better. They will be able to see the positive characteristics of
the situation and recognize that things may eventually improve. In contrast, less optimistic people
may focuss more on the negative characteristics of the situation and expect things to get worse, not
better.

➢ Cultural differences are also important in deter mining how stress affects people. For
[Link] suggests that American executives may expe rience less stress than
executives in many other coun tries, including Japan and Brazil.
➢ Other research suggests that women are perhaps more prone to experience the psycho
logical effects of stress, whereas men may report more physical effects.

CONSEQUENCES OF STRESS

Stress can have a number of consequences. As we already noted, if the stress is positive,the result
may be more energy, enthusiasm, and motivation. Of more concern, of course,are the negative
consequences of stress. we see that stress can produce individual consequences, organizational
consequences, and burnout.

We should first note that many of the factors listed are obviously interrelated. For example, alcohol
abuse is shown as an individual consequence, but it also affects the organization the person works
for. An employee who drinks on the job may perform poorly and create a hazard for others. If the
category for a consequence seems somewhat arbitrary, be aware that each consequence is
categorized according to the area of its primary influence.
1. Individual Consequences
The individual consequences of stress, then, are the outcomes that mainly affect the individual. The
organization also may suffer, either directly or indirectly, but it is the individual who pays the real
price.16 Stress may produce behavioral, psychological, and medical consequences.

• Behavioral Consequences The behavioral consequences of stress may harm the person
under stress or others. One such behavior is smoking. Research has clearly documented that
people who smoke tend to smoke more when they experience stress. There is also evidence
that alcohol and drug abuse are linked to stress, although this relationship is less well
documented. Other possible behavioral consequences are accident proneness, aggression
and violence, and appetite disorders. The Change box entitled “A Disturbance in the Work
Force,” discusses the possible role of the current economic downturn as a contributing
factor in recent incidents of workplace violence.
• Psychological Consequences The psychological consequences of stress relate to a person’s
mental health and well-being. When people experience too much stress atwork, they may
become depressed or find themselves sleeping too much or not enough.17 Stress may also
lead to family problems and sexual difficulties.
• Medical Consequences The medical consequences of stress affect a person’s physical well-
being. Heart disease and stroke, among other illnesses, have been linked to [Link]
common medical problems resulting from too much stress include headaches,backaches,
ulcers and related stomach and intestinal disorders, and skin conditions such as acne and
hives.
2. Organizational Consequences
Clearly, any of the individual consequences just discussed can also affect the organization.
Other results of stress have even more direct consequences for [Link] include
decline in performance, withdrawal, and negative changes in attitudes.
• One clear organizational consequence of too much stress is a decline in performance. For
operating workers, such a decline can translate into poor-quality work or a drop in
productivity. For managers, it can mean faulty decision making or disruptions in working
relationships as people become irritable and hard to get along with.
• Withdrawal Withdrawal behaviors also can result from stress. For the organization, the two
most significant forms of withdrawal behavior are absenteeism and quitting. People who are
having a hard time coping with stress in their jobs are more likely to call in sick or consider
leaving the organization for good. Stress can also produce other, more subtle forms of
withdrawal. A manager may start missing deadlines or taking longer lunch breaks. An
employee may withdraw psychologically by ceasing to care about the organization and the
job. As noted above,employee violence is a potential individual consequence of stress. This
also has obvious organizational implications, especially if the violence is directed at another
employee or at the organization in general.
• Attitudes Another direct organizational consequence of employee stress relates to attitudes.
As we just noted, job satisfaction, morale, and organizational commitment can all suffer,
along with motivation to perform at high levels. As a result, people may be more prone to
complain about unimportant things, do only enough work to get by, and so forth.

3. Burnout
Burnout, another consequence of stress, has clear implications for both people and organizations.
Burnout is a general feeling of exhaustion that develops when a person simultaneously experiences
too much pressure and has too few sources of satisfaction.
People with high aspirations and strong motivation to get things done are prime candidates for
burnout under certain conditions. They are especially vulnerable when the organization suppresses
or limits their initiative while constantly demanding that they serve the organization’s own ends.

In such a situation, the individual is likely to put too much of himself or herself into the job. In other
words, the person may well keep trying to meet his or her own agenda while simultaneously trying
to fulfill the organization’s expectations. The most likely effects of this situation are prolonged stress,
fatigue, frustration, and helplessness under the burden of overwhelming demands. The person
literally exhausts his or her aspirations and motivation, much as a candle burns itself out. Loss of
self-confidence and psychological withdrawal follow. Ultimately, burnout may be the result. At this
point, the individual may start dreading going to work in the morning, may put in longer hours but
accomplish less than before, and may generally display mental and physical exhaustion.

MANAGING STRESS IN THE WORKPLACE

Many strategies have been developed to help manage stress more effec in the workplace. Some are
for individuals, and others are geared toward organizations.

[Link] Coping Strategies

Many strategies for helping individuals manage stress have been proposed. Figure 7.4 lists five of the
more popular.

 Exercise Exercise is one method of managing stress. People who exercise regularly are less
likely to have heart attacks than inactive people. More directly, research has sug gested that
people who exercise regularly feel less tension and stress, are more self confident, and show
greater optimism. People who do not exercise regularly feel more stress, are more likely to
be depressed, and experience other negative consequences.
 Relaxation A related method of managing stress is relaxation. We noted at the beginning of
the chapter that coping with stress requires adaptation. Proper relaxation is an effective way
to adapt. Relaxation can take many forms. One way to relax is to take regular vacations. One
study found that people's attitudes toward a variety of workplace characteristics improved
signif icantly following a vacation." People can also relax while on the job. For example, it
has been recom mended that people take regular rest breaks during their normal workday
24 A popular way of resting to sit quietly with closed eyes for ten minutes every afternoon.
(Of course, it might be necessary to have an alarm clock handy.
 Time Management Time management is often recommended for managing stress. The idea
is that many daily pressures can be eased or eliminated if a person does a better job of
managing time. One popular approach to time management is to make a list every morning
of the things to be done that day. Then you group the items on the list into three categories:
critical activities that must be performed,important activities that should be performed, and
optional or trivial things that can be delegated or postponed. Then, of course, you do the
things on the list in their order of [Link] strategy helps people get more of the
important things done every day. It also encourages delegation of less important activities to
others.
 Role Management Somewhat related to time management is the idea of role man agement,
in which the individual actively works to avoid overload, ambiguity, and con flict. For
example, if you do not know what is expected of you, you should not sit and worry about it.
Instead, ask for clarification from your boss. Another role management strategy is to learn to
say "no." As simple as saying "no" might sound, a lot of people create problems for
themselves by always saying "yes." Besides working in their regular jobs, they agree to serve
on committees, volunteer for extra duties, and accept extra assignments. Sometimes, of
course, we have no choice but to accept an extra obligation (if our boss tells us to complete
a new project, we will probably have to do it). In many cases, however, saying "no" is an
option.
 Support Groups A final method for managing stress is to develop and maintain support
groups. A support group is simply a group of family members or friends with whom a person
can spend time. Going out after work with a couple of coworkers to a basketball game, for
example, can help relieve the stress that builds up during the day. Supportive family and
friends can help people deal with normal stress on an ongoing basis. Support groups can be
particularly useful during times of crisis. example, sup pose an employee has just learned
that she did not get the promotion she has been work ing toward for months. It may help
her tremendously if she has good friends to lean on, be it to talk to or to yell at.
[Link] Coping Strategies
Organizations are also increasingly realizing that they should be involved in managing their
employees' stress. There are two different rationales for this view.
One is that because the organization is at least partly responsible for creating the stress, it
should help relieve it. The other is that workers experiencing lower levels of harmful stress
will function more effectively.
Two basic organizational strategies for helping employees manage stress are institutional
programs and collateral programs.
o Institutional Programs :- Institutional programs for managing stress are undertaken
through established organizational mechanisms. For example, properly designed jobs
and work schedules can help ease stress. Shift work, in particular, can cause major
problems for employees, because they constantly have to adjust their sleep and
relaxation patterns. Thus, the design of work and work schedules should be a focus of s
organizational efforts to reduce stress.
The organization’s culture also can be used to help managestress. In somesome
organizations, for example, there is a strong norm against taking time offor going on
vacation. In the long run, such norms can cause major stress. Thus, the organization should
strive to foster a culture that reinforces a healthy mix of work and nonwork activities.
Finally, supervision can play an important institutional role in managing stress. A supervisor
can be a major source of overload. If made aware of their potential for assigning stressful
amounts of work, supervisors can do a better job of keeping workloads reasonable.
o Collateral Programe :-A collateral stress program is an organizational program
specifically created to help employees deal with stress. Organiza tions have adopted
stress management programs, health promotion programs, and other kinds of programs
for this purpose.
More and more companies are developing their own programs or adopting existing pro
grams of this type. For example, Lockheed Martin offers screening programs for its
employees to detect signs of hypertension.
Many firms today also have employee fit ness programs. These programs attack stress
indirectly by encouraging employees to exer cise, which is presumed to reduce stress. On
the negative side, this kind of effort costs con siderably more than stress management pro
erably more grams because the firm must invest in physical facilities. Still, more and more
companies are exploring this option.
Finally, organizations try to help employees cope with stress through otherinds of programs.
For example, existing career development programs, are used for this purpose. Other
companies use programs pro moting everything from humor to massage to yoga as
antidotes for stress.
FRAMEWORK FOR PREVENTIVE STRESS MANAGEMENT
Stress is an inevitable feature of work and personallife. Individual and organisational
distress is not inevitable. A framework is understanding preventive stress management is
presented in the figure 13.6.

framework for Preventive Stress Management

The above figure explains that the three stages of prevention are primary, secondary and
tertiary prevention
Primary Prevention
Primary prevention is intended to reduce, modify or eliminate the demand or stressor
causing stress. True organisational stress prevention is largely primary in nature, because it
changes and shapes the demands the organisation places on people work.
Secondary Prevention
Secondary prevention is intended to alter or modify the individual's response to a demand
or stressor. People must learn to manage the inevitable.
Tertiary Prevention
Territory prevention is intended to heal the individual of symptoms of distress and strain.
Tertiary prevention is therapeutic aimed at arresting distress and healing the individual.
ORGANISATIONAL TECHNIQUES FOR STRESS PREVENTION
Organisations and individuals are highly concerned about stress and its effects. In
attempting to manage stress, they have stems from so many different factors and conditions
that to eliminate it entirely from our lives is impossible. Bot three broad options: prevent or
control it, escape from it, or learn to adapt to it. However, we can reduce the intensic stress
and minimise its harmful effects when it occurs. The underlying assumption of wellness
programmes is that brought minimising employees' adverse reaction to stress, they will be
healthier, less likely to be absent and consequently, more productive on the job. Some of
the wellness programmes found in corporate enterprises are described here:
 [Link] Assistance Programmes (EAP): Modern corporate organisations have some kind
of formal programmes in place to help employees with various problems they may face in
their personal life. Such efforts are called Employer Assistance Programmes (EAP)". EAPs are
systematic ways of promoting the welfare of employees Many companies are today, seeking
the assistance of specialised organisations with whom they can contract to offer istance
programmes for their employees. By outsourcing these services to professional firms,
companies are free to focus on their usual business and also entore that their employee's
needs are taken care of. When EAPs are sponsored by worker's Linjoms, it is known as
Member Assistance Programmes (MAPS).
[Link] Social Support System. Some people experience stress because they are
detached from the world around them and they lack warm interpersonal relationships. To
achieve their success, they often sacrifice fulfilment of their social needs. Their lack of social
attachments may result in anger, anxiety and loneliness-all producing stress in their lives.
Organisational Social Support Systems (OSSS) is a network of interactions and relationships
that provide employers with fulfilment of their social needs. Social support may come from
supervisors, co-workers, friends or family. Research suggests that when employees have at
least one person from whom they can receive social and emotional support, they will
experience lower stress. Organisations may need to allow time for employees to support
develop and nurture their social t networks at work.
3. Wellness Programmer: Wellness programmes are systematic efforts to train employees in
a variety of things they can do to promote healthy lifestyles. Very broad-based wellness
programmes usually consist of workshops in which employees can learn many things to
reduce stress and maintain their health. Yoga, meditation, exercise, nutrition and weight
management counselling are the most popular areas covered under the wellness
programme. In general, there is a trend towards in-house programmes of preventive
maintenance for personal wellness. Corporate wellness centres may include disease
screening, health education and fitness centres. Healthcare specialists can recommend
practices to encourage changes in lifestyles, such as breathing regulation, muscle relaxation,
positive imagery, nutrition management and exercise enabling employees to use more of
their full potential. The key is to create a better fit between people and their work
environment, and alternative approaches may be useful for different employees.
4. Relaxation: The relaxation response involves quiet, concentrated inner thought in order
to rest the body physically and emotionally. It helps to remove people temporarily from the
stressful world and reduce their symptoms of stress Practicing a simple relaxation response
is like taking a time-out at work. It requires only a few minutes and can be especially fruitful
just before or after a tense encounter.

JOB ATTITUDE.
• People’s attitudes also affect their behaviour in organizations. Attitudes are
complexes of beliefs and feelings that people have about specific ideas,
situations, or other people. Attitudes are important because they are the
 mechanism through which most people express their feelings. An
employee’s statement that he feels underpaid by an organization reflects
his feelings about his pay.
• ATTTITUDE STRUCTURE: Attitudes are usually viewed as stable dispositions to behave toward
objects in a certain way.
• For any number of reasons, a person might decide that he or she does not like a particular
political figure or a certain restaurant (a disposition).
• A person expresses consistently negative opinions of the candidate or restaurant and to
maintain the consistent, predictable intention of not voting for the political candidate or not
eating at the restaurant.

Attitudes are generally formed around a sequence of cognition, affect, and behavioral intention.
That is, we come to know something that we believe to be true (cognition). This knowledge triggers
a feeling (affect). Cognition and affect then together influence how we intend to behave in the
future. These three components are connected to each other.

And in the context of organisation these components are seemed to be very important.

ABC Components of Attitude.

Affect

• A person’s affect is his or her feelings toward something. In many ways, affect is similar to
emotion—it is something over which we have little or no conscious control.
• For example, most people react to words such as “love,” “hate,” “sex,” and “war” in a
manner that reflects their feelings about what those words convey.
• you may like one of your classes, dislike another, and be indifferent toward a third. If the
class you dislike is an elective, you may not be particularly concerned.
• But if it is the first course in your chosen major, your affective reaction may cause you
considerable anxiety.

Behavioural Intension

• Intention guides a person’s behavior.

• If you like your instructor, you may intend to take another class from him or her next
semester.
• Intentions are not always translated into actual behavior,
• If the instructor’s course next semester is scheduled for 8 a.m., you may decide that another
instructor is just as good.
• Some attitudes, and their corresponding intentions, are much more central and significant
to an individual than others. You may intend to do one thing (take a particular class) but
later alter your intentions because of a more significant and central attitude (fondness for
sleeping late).

Cognition

• constitute the knowledge a person presumes to have about something.

• You may believe you like a class because the textbook is excellent, the class meets at your
favourite time, the instructor is outstanding, and the workload is light. This “knowledge”
may be true, partially true, or totally false.
 • For example, you may intend to vote for a particular candidate because you think you know
where the candidate stands on several issues. In reality, depending on the candidate’s
honesty and your understanding of his or her statements, the candidate’s thinking on the
issues may be exactly the same as yours, partly the same, or totally different.
• Cognitions are based on perceptions of truth and reality, and, perceptions agree with reality
to varying degrees.
• Cognitive dissonance is the anxiety a person experiences when simultaneously possessing
two sets of knowledge or perceptions that are contradictory or incongruent.
• Cognitive dissonance affects people in a variety of ways. We frequently encounter situations
in which our attitudes conflict with each other or with our behaviors.
• Dissonance reduction is the way we deal with these feelings of discomfort and tension. In
organizational settings, people contemplating leaving the organization may wonder why
they continue to stay and work hard.
• As a result of this dissonance, they may conclude that the company is not so bad after all,
that they have no immediate options elsewhere, or that they will leave “soon.

ATTITUDE CHANGE: Attitude of an individual remain unchanged for a prolonged period unless he or
she is influenced by some kind of external factors. Attitudes are not as stable as personality
attributes.

For example, new information may change attitudes. A manager may have a negative attitude about
a new colleague because of the colleague’s lack of job-related experience. After working with the
new person for a while, however, the manager may come to realize that he is actually very talented
and subsequently develop a more positive attitude. That is, if the object of an attitude changes, a
person’s attitude toward that object may also change.

Attitudes can also change when the object of the attitude becomes less important or less relevant to
the person.

SOURCES OF ATTITUDE DEVELOPMENT

Attitudes are acquired from parents, teachers, and peer group members. We model our attitudes
after those we admire respect or fear

. We observe the way family and friends behave and we shape our attitudes and behaviour to align
with theirs People also imitate the attitudes of popular individuals and those they admire and
respect.

Attitudes are an integral part of the world of work. It is important for managers to understand the
antecedents to attitudes as well as their consequences.

Managers also need to understand the different components of attitudes, how attitudes are formed
and the major attitudes that affect work behaviour and how to use persuasion to change attitudes.

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE THEORY

• Leon Festinger, in 1957, proposed the theory of cognitive dissonance.
• According to this theory, people want their beliefs to be with one another and want their
behaviours to be consistent with their beliefs.
• When people become aware of inconsistency among their beliefs or between their attitudes
and their behaviour, they experience "cognitive dissonance", an unpleasant state of arousal
that motivates them a attitudes or by changing their behaviours.
• if a person behaves in a way that runs counter to his or her attitude re-establish consistency
by changing one of the cognitive dissonance is created in that person.
• He or she then attempts to reduce the dissonance by changing either the attitude or the
behaviour.
• When two sets of cognitions or perceptions are contradictory or incongruent, a person
experiences a level of conflict and anxiety called cognitive dissonance.
• Cognitive dissonance also occurs when people behave in a fashion that is inconsistent with
their attitudes. For example, a person may realize that smoking and overeating are
dangerous yet continue to do both.
• Because the attitudes and behaviors are inconsistent with each other, the person probably
will experience a certain amount of tension and discomfort and may try to reduce these
feelings by changing the attitude, altering the behavior, or perceptually distorting the
circumstances. For example, the dissonance associated with overeating might be resolved by
continually deciding to go on a diet “next week.”
• Cognitive dissonance affects people in a variety of ways. We frequently encounter situations
in which our attitudes conflict with each other or with our behaviors. Dissonance reduction
is the way we deal with these feelings of discomfort and tension.
• In organizational settings, people contemplating leaving the organization may wonder why
they continue to stay and work hard. As a result of this dissonance, they may conclude that
the company is not so bad after all, that they have no immediate options elsewhere, or that
they will leave “soon.”
• No individual can completely avoid dissonance.
• So, how do people cope with dissonance the dissonance, the degree of influence, the
individual believes he or she has over the elements and the rewards that may be involved in
dissonance.
• Importance of the Elemente: If the elements creating the dissonance are relatively
unimportant, the pressure to correct this imbalance will be low.
• Degree of Influence: The degree of influence that individuals believe they have over the
elements will have an impact on how they will react to the dissonance. If they perceive the
dissonance to be uncontrollable, they are less likely to be receptive to attitude change
• . Rewards: Rewards also influence the degree to which individuals are motivated to reduce
dissonance. High rewards accompanying high dissonance tend to reduce the tension
inherent in the dissonance.
• These moderating factors suggest that just because individuals experience dissonance, they
will not necessarily move directly towards consistency, that is, towards reduction of this
dissonance.
• If the issues underlying the dissonance are of minimal importance, if an individual perceives
that the dissonance is externally imposed and is substantially uncontrollable by him or her or
if rewards are significant enough to offset the dissonance, the individual will not be under
great tension to reduce the dissonance.
 TYPES OF ATTITUDE

Job satisfaction, job involvemnt,organisatuonal commitment

JOB SATISFACTION

• Job satisfaction reflects the extent to which people find fulfilment in their work.
• Low job satisfaction can result in costly turnover, absenteeism, tardiness, and even poor
mental health.
• Job satisfaction is of great interest to managers and team leaders.
• The feelings of employees reflect their attitude towards their job which may result in
dissatisfaction or satisfaction on their jobs.
• The sources of job satisfaction and dissatisfaction vary from person to person.
• Sources important for many employees include the challenge of the job, interest that the
work holds for the employee, physical activity required, working conditions, rewards
available from the organisation. nature of co-workers, etc.
• it can be suggested that employers have a moral obligation to make the experience
personally rewarding. In other words, work or job should have the minimum discomfort,
should not be painful or dehumanising.
• Workers' physical and mental well-being has positive correlation with job satisfaction.
• Job satisfaction can also play an important role in a company's ability to attract and retain
qualified workers.

ORGANISATIONAL FACTORS

1. Reward System: There is ample evidence to suggest that pay and other monetary benefits
contribute significantly to job satisfaction.
• Satisfaction increases when the pay is seen as fair with respect to both levels of
compensation.
• adequate pay as the most critical need for both supervisors and managers as it is the area
where greatest perceived deficiencies in satisfaction were recorded.
• it is not salary per se. but salary received as recognition of good work that showed high
positive correlation with job satisfaction.
2. Work: Flexibility freedom and discretion available in the performance of one's job
contribute heavily satisfaction.
• Confusing instruction and unclear understanding of the job leads to job dissatisfaction.
• Mentally challenging work that the individual can successfully accomplish is satisfying
• Tiring work is dissatisfying
• Personally interacting work is satisfying.
3. Supervisory Behaviour: Studies have also indicated that satisfaction tends to be higher when
employees believe their to job supervisors to be competent, have their best interest in mind
and treat them with dignity and respect.
• Supervisory style that influences job satisfaction is the degree to which the supervisor takes
a personal interest in the employee's welfare, provides advice and communicates at a
personal level.
• "Managerial apathy" has been found to be negatively related to job satisfaction.
4. Working condition is a broad-based concept and includes not only the organisational policies
but the work environment as well. A wide variety of components constitute the working
conditions of an organisation:
(a) Job satisfaction of the employees is directly proportionate to the degree of participation in the
process of decision-making.

(b) Satisfaction with supervisory style has been found to correlate significantly with job satisfaction.

(c) Co-workers also play a significant role in job satisfaction.

(d) Training and development facilities offered to employees go a long way in generating higher
levels of job satisfaction.

(e) Job satisfaction, to some extent is dependent on working environment. Poor perception of
working creates dissatisfaction with the job.

(f) Degree of job satisfaction is directly proportionate to the degree of job insecurity.

• Satisfaction depends on the match between working conditions and physical needs
• Working conditions that promote goal attainment are satisfying.
5. Co-workers. Individuals will be satisfied with supervisors, co-workers or subordinates who
help them attain rewards.
• Also, individuals will be more satisfied with colleagues who see things the same way they do.

Job dissatisfaction leads to decline in employee outcome and output .

JOB SATISFACTION AND PRODUCTIVITY

• Most people believe that satisfied workers are more productive workers. The reason is that
satisfied employees are inclined to be more involved with their work and therefore, are
more productive.
• It must be stated that though this is believed by people, research has not identified or
suggested any strong relationship between job satisfaction and productivity.
• people tend to overestimate the influence of job satisfaction and underestimate other
factors that contribute to productivity.
• we must state here that although we can explain the lack of support of a relationship
between performance and satisfaction, we cannot refuse the proposition that such a
relationship can exist.
• Satisfaction can have a direct impact on performance.
• It is important to find a positive association between job satisfaction and productivity.
• If superior performers are receiving greater rewards than poor performers, satisfaction
levels should be higher among performers.
• The consequence of such a state of affairs is that satisfaction and performance will be
positively correlated. Therefore, the extent to which satisfaction and performance are
positively correlated within an organisation is an indication of the extent to which
organisation is healthy.
• Managers should therefore strive to create linkages between performance and satisfaction
by offering highly attractive equitable rewards that are tied to performance.
• Job turn or : No: of years an employee worked in organisation job.
• Based on commitment and organisation satisfaction and turn over changes .
• Absentees and job satisfaction are inversely related i.e. high job satisfaction leads to low
absenteeism and vice versa.
• Low stress level leads to high job satisfactions and good mental and physical health.
• The term "job satisfaction" refers to an individual's general attitude toward his or her job.
 • A person with a high level of job satisfaction holds positive attitude toward the job; a person
who is dissatisfied with his or her job holds negative attitudes about the job.
• because of managers' concern for creating a humane and high performance workplace,
researchers continue to search for definite answers about the causes and consequences of
job satisfaction.
• The term job satisfaction refers to an individual's pleasurable or positive emotional style
toward his or her job.
• Job satisfaction is related to the five specific dimensions of the job: pay; the work itself;
promotion opportunities; supervision, and co-workers.
• When people speak of employee attitude, more often than not, they mean job satisfaction.

JOB INVOLVEMENT AND COMMITMENT.

• Job involvement is the degree to which a person identifies with his or her job, actively
participates in it and considers his or her performance important to self-worth.
• Employees with a high level of job involvement strongly identify with and really care about
the kind of work they do.
• High levels of job involvement have been found to be related to fewer absences and lower
resignation rates.
• Commitment, involvement, satisfaction are connected to each other.
• If one is involved in their job there will be no workload no fatigue , full time energetic
• Organisational commitment is the degree to which an employee identifies with a particular
organisation and its goals and wishes to maintain membership in the organisation.
• High organisational commitment means identifying with one's employing organisation.
• Organisational commitment is an attitude about employee's loyalty to their organisation. It
is a process through which employees identify with the organisation and want to maintain
membership in the organisation.
• Organisational commitment means identifying with one's employing organisation.
• Organisational commitment is usually stronger among longer-term employees, and those
who have relished personal success in the organisation.
• It is like a strong magnetic force attracting one metallic object to another, organisational
commitment is a measure of the employees' willingness to remain with a firm in the future
also.
• Organisational commitment is characterised by three factors:
✓ The desire on the part of the employee to remain as a member of the organisation.
✓ A support of and acceptance of the organisation goals and belief in the values of the
organisation
✓ Willingness to exert considerable effort on behalf of the organisation.

Types of organisational commitment.

1. Affective Commitment

Affective commitment is an employee's intention to remain in an organisation because of a strong

desire to do so. Affective commitment encompasses loyalty, but it is also a deep concern for the
organisation's welfare. Affective commitment stems from three factors:

✓ A belief in the goals and values of the organisation

✓ A willingness to put forth efforts on behalf of the organisation
✓ A desire to remain as a member of the organisation
Affective commitment is the strength of people's desires to continue working for an organisation
because they agree with its underlying goals and values

. People feeling high degree of affective commitment desire to remain in their organisations because
they endorse what the organisation stands for and are willing to help it in its mission.

2. Continuance Commitment

Continuance commitment refers to the strength of a person's desire to remain working for an
organisation due to or her belief that it may be costly to leave.

Many people are committed to staying on their jobs simply because they unwilling to risk losing
these things.

Such individuals may be said to have a high degree of continuance commitment. Continuous
commitment stems from the fact that the employee wants to remain in the organisation because
the person cannot afford to leave the organisation.

Alternatives to leave the organisation are very bleak because probably, he may have to remain
jobless or there is less probability of securing a lucrative job.

continuance commitment is not as high as it used to be in the past. Traditionally, people sought jobs
that would offer them lifetime employment.

Many employees would stay on their jobs their whole working lives, starting from the bottom and
working their way up to the top.

[Link] Commitment

Normative commitment refers to employees' feelings of obligation to stay with their organisations
because of pressures from mothers.

People who have high degrees of normative commitment are greatly concerned about what others
would think of them for leaving. They would be reluctant to disappoint their employers and
concerned that their fellow employees might think poorly of them for resigning.

Normative commitment is the perceived obligation to remain with the organisation Normative
commitment is also in employees who have benefited from the organisation in the past and feel that
they should have some loyalty for the organisation and therefore, should not leave the organisation
for better prospects.

Affective and normative commitment leads to :

✓ lower rates of absenteeism

✓ higher quality of work
✓ , increased productivity , and
✓ several different types of performance.

Job satisfaction is the response to specific job, micro work attitude while job commitment is the
global response to all organisation, macro level orientation and consistent organisation.
➢ Antecedents of organisational commitment are : personal variables, work situation,
organisation characters and work experience