Working life is something that could not be separated from our daily

routines. Since the notable Hawthorne Experiment conducted in the early 19 th

century, researchers in the workplace had shown tremendous interest in the
organisational behaviour which aims at what and how to motivate the
employees (Terpstra, 1979). Nevertheless, this leads to the study of
motivation at work and the Business Process Reengineering (BPR) in recent
years. Even though it seems hard to interlink between the work motivation
and BPR, it may not come as surprise due to the complexity and diversity of
organisational behaviour.
According to Hammer and Champy (1993), BPR is defined as a
fundamental and radical overhaul to streamline the business operations to
achieve dramatic improvements in certain key areas, such as cost, quality,
service and speed. Meanwhile, motivation is the creation of stimuli,
incentives and working environments that enable the employees to perform
the best of their ability (Mullins, 2011). However, tweaking the business
process to get in line with a series of motivational measures in place to
encourage the employees can only be done with a strong knowledge
foundation of motivation.
In BPR, the adoption of information technology (IT) into the
organisational operations has been amongst the hotly debated aspect in the
industry (Bird, 2010). Throughout the years, many organisations have
welcomed the advancement of IT and integrated it with their procedural
settings. In a news report carried by The Independent dated back to 2010,
the hotel staff from InterContinential, the world renowned luxury hotel chain,
will be given an iPad to keep their customers inform with the travelling
information within the vicinity. The spokesperson of the hotel revealed that
the step taken is to enhance the guest experience as well as to facilitate the
staff in doing their job. This is in line with what BPR had been advocated for,
which is to enhance the customer service and cut the operational cost in long
term to become the world-class competitor (US Accounting Office, 1997).
Apart from that, the aspect of motivation had also been touched on. Say, the
satisfaction of customers judging from their face expression or a mere thank
you ensued the service provided could encourage the staff greatly through
intrinsic motivation (face expression) and also extrinsic motivation (thank
you verbal expression).
Apart from that, BPR encourages the restructure of the organisations in
terms of business processes in which a change in the managerial decisions
entails. As BPR is a customer-centric initiative, an overhaul in the service
provided by the staff is also required (Gallbreath and Roger, 1999). First of all,
the managers have to strive hard to boost the inner motivation of the
employees to provide better service to their customers. This is done by
looking at the conventional motivation approaches and theories proposed by
some of the respected academicians. As a frontline staffer, he is bound to
interact with the customers frequently and unceasingly, therefore, the social
needs in Maslows hierarchy of needs prevails. Physiological and safety

needs, however, must be pursued before heading to the social needs based
on the Maslows theoretical boundaries. In light of this, the employer can fulfil
the first two needs by paying them an acceptable-cum-competitive wage and
providing them a long-term contract for job security. To further strengthen the
point, this initiative is practised by the leading Asian carrier, Singapore
Airlines (Wirtz et al., 2008).

Last but not least, a great understanding of motivation theories is in

serious need in the implementation of BPR. Based on the real-life examples
stipulated in this essay, it is suffice to say that these two elements are
inextricably linked to each other with no exception included. Due to its
similarities and relativity, some motivation theories which are not listed can
also be applied to the case studies above, namely Alderfers ERG theory (a
replica of Maslows) and Banduras social-cognitive theory, a part of the
process theories focuses on the persons cognition and personal feelings, as
in the feedback provided by the customer to the staffer in the Hotels
example. As what the Chinese proverb said: sail with the wind, all the
theories should be applied in a practical manner and reviewed from time to
time to keep abreast with any developments, be it at the national or
international level.