HERZBERG TWO FACTOR THEORY

HERZBERG TWO FACTOR THEORY
WHO IS HERZBERG?

Frederick Irving Herzberg (1923–2000) was a psychologist who became one of the
most influential names in business management. He is most famous for introducing
job enrichment and the Motivator-Hygiene theory(Two Factor Theory). His 1968
publication "One More Time, How Do You Motivate Employees?" had sold 1.2 million
reprints by 1987 and was the most requested article from the Harvard Business
Review.

HOW THEORY WAS MADE?

 Frederick Herzberg and his associates (1959) conducted extensive interviews

with two hundred engineers and accountants using the critical-incident
method for data collection. Herzberg made a theoretical departure from the
traditional continuum concept by suggesting that job satisfaction was
hypothesized to operate on a continuum which ranged from high to no job
satisfaction-while job dissatisfaction operated on another continuum which
ranged from no to high job dissatisfaction. these two continua were
hypothesized to be independent of each other. Based on extensive empirical
investigation, Herzberg set forth a two-factor theory of job satisfaction which
received both widespread support and criticism. The research was designed
to discover the importance of attitudes toward work and experiences, both
good and bad, reported by workers.

CONTENT:
 The Two-factor Theory, or Motivation and Hygiene Theory, purports to
differentiate between intrinsic and extrinsic aspects of the job. The authors
referred to the intrinsic factors as content or motivators, and they include:
achievement, advancement, the work itself, responsibility, and recognition.
The extrinsic factors were referred to as hygiene and included: company
policy and administration, technical supervision, working conditions, salary,

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and interpersonal supervision. Herzberg proposed the Motivation-Hygiene

Theory, also known as the Two factor theory (1959) of job satisfaction.
According to his theory, people are influenced by two sets of factors:

Motivator Factors Hygiene Factors

 Pay and Benefits
 Company Policy and Administration
 Achievement  Relationships with co-workers
 Recognition  Physical Environment
 Work Itself  Supervision
 Responsibility  Status
 Promotion  Job Security
 Growth  Salary
 Working Conditions
 Personal life

He proposed several key findings as a result of this identification.

1. People are made dissatisfied by a bad environment, but they are seldom
made satisfied by a good environment.
2. The prevention of dissatisfaction is just as important as encouragement of
motivator satisfaction.
3. Hygiene factors operate independently of motivation factors. An individual can
be highly motivated in his work and be dissatisfied with his work environment.
4. All hygiene factors are equally important, although their frequency of
occurrence differs considerably.
5. Hygiene improvements have short-term effects. Any improvements result in a
short-term removal of, or prevention of, dissatisfaction.
6. Hygiene needs are cyclical in nature and come back to a starting point. This
leads to the "What have you done for me lately?" syndrome.
7. Hygiene needs have an escalating zero point and no final answers.

Herzberg believed that all factors fell into one of these categories and therefore had
separate consequences. His research concluded that some factors fell into both

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categories although they held a stronger position in one of them. See the diagram
below for examples of the factors that he determined for each category.

By

looking at the diagram, it shows that a sense for achievement, recognition of their
effort, the nature of the work itself, and the desire for responsibility are all strong
factors for motivation. At the bottom of the diagram, the way the business is run, how
they are supervised, the work conditions and their pay, are all factors that can lead
to job dissatisfaction if not met to the standards of the employee.

The size (or width) of the bars that represent each factor compensate for the level at
which it is a concern. For example, from the diagram, the way the business is run is
a higher dissatisfaction cause (if it is run badly) then the concern of bad working
conditions. You may look at 'pay' and think that this bar should be a lot wider on the
job dissatisfaction side, but most people would not take the job in the first place if
they considered the pay as 'totally unacceptable'.

Take another example: the employee does not see the lack of personal responsibility
as major job dissatisfaction, but when people do seek responsibility, it is a huge

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motivational factor for them: hence the long extension of the bar more on the
motivation side of the diagram.

You will further notice that those factors encouraging motivation (job satisfaction)
have little connection with money and are more associated with personal
development and achievement. Hygiene factors concern more the employees’
personal attitudes towards the context of their job and involve money in most cases
to provide a solution to the issue.

You may also have noticed that two bars on the diagram (achievement and pay) are
shaped differently. This is to illustrate that, for Achievement, it is something that is
only acquired for a short term and is therefore an ongoing need that is searched for
over and over again. In other words: one week you may achieve, say, a good
personal sales figure, and the following week your standard drops to a disappointing
level in which you seek to achieve this figure yet again. The Pay factor (salary) also
has a similar concern: you may increase an employee's salary that removes job
dissatisfaction at first, but in time (can be as low as days) the employee will increase
their personal spending to what they are earning and will eventually, again, become
dissatisfied. In such a case, it may be for your benefit that you offer an additional
incentive to keep the employee further satisfied to prevent this on-going cycle from
occurring.

Combining the hygiene and motivation factors results in four scenario's:

 High Hygiene + High Motivation: The ideal situation where employees are
highly motivated and have few complaints.
 High Hygiene + Low Motivation: Employees have few complaints but are
not highly motivated. The job is perceived as a paycheck.
 Low Hygiene + High Motivation: Employees are motivated but have a lot of
complaints. A situation where the job is exciting and challenging but salaries
and work conditions are not up to par.
 Low Hygiene + Low Motivation: The worst situation. Unmotivated
employees with lots of complaints.

Herzberg suggests that often work can and should be arranged in the following
ways:

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- job enlargement

- job rotation, and/or

- job enrichment.

A Practical Example to Illustrate Herzberg’s Theory:

One of the most commonly used examples in management textbooks to illustrate
how Herzberg’s theory works is that of people who complain about working
conditions on the job, such as poor lighting, dirt, cold temperatures and noise, yet go
home and put up with similar conditions working on their own car in a dirty, dingy,
drafty garage. This apparent inconsistency is explained by pointing out the fact that
working on your own car is more motivational than a routine job where you don’t feel
personally engaged.

One of Herzberg’s main ideas was that his two sets of factors are independent, that
they are not just two ends of one scale. Thus, it is possible to be satisfied at work
even though the working conditions are poor and it is possible to be relatively
content with the latter even though you may not be very motivated to put in any extra
effort.

CRITICISM OF THE THEORY:

Critics of Herzberg's theory argue that the two-factor result is observed because it is
natural for people to take credit for satisfaction and to blame dissatisfaction on
external factors. Furthermore, job satisfaction does not necessarily imply a high level
of motivation or productivity.

 The procedure that Herzberg used is limited by its methodology. When things
are going well,people tend to take credit themselves.Contrarily,they blame
failure on the extrinsic environment.

 The reliability of Herzberg’s methodology is questioned.Raters have to make

interpretations,so they may contaminate the findings by interpreting one
response in one manner while treating a similar response differently.

 No overall measure of satisfaction was utilized. A person may dislike part of

his or her job yet still think the job is acceptable.

 The theory is inconsistent with previous research.The two-factor theory

ignores situational variables.

 Herzberg assumed a relationship between satisfaction and productivity,but

the research methodology he used looked only at satisfaction not at
productivity.To make such research relevant,one must assume a strong
relationship between satisfaction and productivity.

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ACHIEVEMENT:
Regardless of criticisms,Herzberg’s theory has been widely read and few managers
are unfamiliar with his recommendations.The popularity over the past 35 years of
vertically expanding jobs to allow workers greater responsibility in planning and
controlling their work can probably be attributed largely to Herzberg’s findings and
recommendations.

CONCLUSION:
The moral of this story is that it is sometimes a mistake to take people’s complaints
at work too literally. Instead of fixing the working conditions that employees are
complaining about, you might be further ahead to find new ways of recognizing their
efforts. This is why a number of companies have employee-of-the-month schemes –
a little recognition goes a long way. A simple technique is to hold regular meetings
where each employee is asked to say what went well for them since the last
meeting, what they did that they are especially pleased about. This simple practice
gives employees an opportunity to tell their colleagues what they did and get some
public recognition for a job well done.

The continuing relevance of Herzberg is the fact that there must be some direct
connection between performance and reward, whether extrinsic as in recognition or
intrinsic as in naturally enjoyable work, to motivate employees to work harder and to
improve their job satisfaction. So, if you are thinking creatively about how to
recognize employees, make sure that whatever you offer is directly dependent on
the output you want to achieve.