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How Do You Motivate Employees - Unlocked
How Do You Motivate Employees - Unlocked
1968
Forget praise. How MANY ARTICLES, books,Speeches, pact on the market for snake oil, but
and workshops have pleaded plain- since the ideas expressed in it have been
Forget punishment. tively, "How do I get an employee to tested in many corporations and other
do what I want?" organizations, it will help-I hope-to
Forget cash.
The psychology of motivation is tre- redress the imbalance in the afore-
You need to make mendously complex, and what has been mentioned ratio.
unraveled with any degree of assurance
their jobs more is small indeed. But the dismal ratio "Motivating" with KITA
interesting. of knowledge to speculation has not In lectures to industry on the problem,
dampened the enthusiasm for new I have found that the audiences are
forms of snake oil that are constantly usually anxious for quick and practical
coming on the market, many of them answers, so ! will begin with a straight-
with academic testimonials. Doubtless forward, practical formula for moving
this article will have no depressing im- people.
What is the simplest, surest, and most psychologists have come to the rescue of I have a year-old schnauzer. When it
direct way of getting someone to do those who are no longer permitted to was a small puppy and I wanted it to
something? Ask? But if the person re- use negative physical KITA/'He took my move, I kicked it in the rear and it
sponds that he or she does not want rug away"; "I wonder what she meant by moved. Now that 1 havefinishedits obe-
to do it, then that calls for psychologi- that"; "The boss is always going around dience training, I hold up a dog biscuit
cal consultation to determine the rea- me"-these symptomatic expressions of when I want the schnauzer to move. In
son for such obstinacy. Tell the person? ego sores that have been rubbed raw are this instance, who is motivated-I or the
The response shows that he or she does the result of application of: dog? The dog wants the biscuit, but it is
not understand you, and now an expert Negative Psychological KITA. This I who want it to move. Again, 1 am the
in communication methods has to be has several advantages over negative one who is motivated, and the dog is
brought in to show you how to get physical KITA. First, the cruelty is not the one who moves. In this instance all
through. Give the person a monetary visible; the bleeding is internal and I did was apply KITA frontally; I exerted
incentive? ! do not need to remind the comes much later. Second, since it af- a pull instead of a push. When industry
reader of the complexity and difficulty fects the higher cortical centers of the wishes to use such positive KITAs, it has
involved in setting up and adminis-
tering an incentive system. Show the
person? This means a costly training
program. We need a simple way.
Have spiraling wages motivated people?
Every audience contains the "direct Yes, to seek the next wage i ncrease.
action" manager who shouts, "Kick the
person!" And this type of manager is
right. The surest and least circumlo- brain with its inhibitory powers, it re- available an incredible number and va-
cuted way of getting someone to do duces the possibility of physical back- riety of dog biscuits (jelly beans for hu-
something is to administer a kick in the lash. Third, since the number of psy- mans) to wave in front of employees to
pants-to give what might be called chological pains that a person can feel get them to jump.
the KITA. is almost infinite, the direction and site
There are various forms of KITA, and possibilities ofthe KITA are increased Myths About Motivation
here are some of them: many times. Fourth, the person admin- Why is KITA not motivation? If I kick
Negative Physical KITA. This is a lit- istering the kick can manage to be my dog (from the front or the back), he
eral application of the term and was above it all and let the system accom- will move. And when I want him to
frequently used in the past. It has, how- plish the dirty work. Fifth, those who move again, what must I do? I must kick
ever, three major drawbacks: i) It is in- practice it receive some ego satisfaction him again. Similarly, I can charge a per-
elegant; 2) it contradicts the precious (one-upmanship), whereas they would son's battery, and then recharge it, and
image of benevolence that most orga- find drawing blood abhorrent. Finally, recharge it again. But it is only when
nizations cherish; and 3) since it is a if the employee does complain, he or one has a generator of one's own that
physical attack, it directly stimulates the she can always be accused of being para- we can talk about motivation. One then
autonomie nervous system, and this noid; there is no tangible evidence of an needs no outside stimulation. One wants
often results in negative feedback-the actual attack. to do it.
employee may just kick you in return. Now, what does negative KITA ac- With this in mind, we can review
These factors give rise to certain taboos complish? If I kick you in the rear (phys- some positive KITA personnel practices
against negative physical KITA. ically or psychologically), who is m o that were developed as attempts to in-
In uncovering infinite sources of psy- tivated? / am motivated; you move! still "motivation":
chological vulnerabilities and the appro- Negative KITA does not lead to moti- 1. Reducing Time Spent at Work.
priate methods to play tunes on them, vation, but to movement. So: This represents a marvelous way of mo-
Positive KITA. Let us consider moti- tivating people to work-getting them
Frederick Herzberg, Distinguished Pro- vation. If I say to you, "Do this for me or off the job! We have reduced (formally
fessor of Management at the University the company, and in return I will give and informally) the time spent on the
of Utah in Salt Lake City, was head ofthe you a reward, an incentive, more status, job over the last 50 or 60 years until we
department of psychology at Case West- a promotion, all the quid pro quos that are finally on the way to the "6/=-day
ern Reserve University in Cleveland when exist in the industrial organization," am weekend." An interesting variant of this
he wrote this article. His writings include I motivating you? The overwhelming approach is the development of off-hour
the book Work and the Nature of Man opinion I receive from management recreation programs. The philosophy
(World, 1966). people is,"Yes, this is motivation." here seems to be that those who play
together, work together. The fact Is that People spend less time working for knowing how to deal with people. The
motivated people seek more hours of more money and more security than next KITA easily followed.
work, not fewer. ever before, and the trend cannot be 4. Human Relations Training. More
2. Spiraling Wages. Have these moti- reversed. These benefits are no longer than 30 years of teaching and, in many
vated people? Yes, to seek the next wage rewards; they are rights. A 6-day week is instances, of practicing psychological
increase. Some medievalists still can be inhuman, a 10-hour day is exploitation, approaches to handling people have
heard to say that a good depression will extended medical coverage is a basic de- resulted in costly human relations pro-
get employees moving. They feel that if cency, and stock options are the salva- grams and, in the end, the same ques-
rising wages don't or won't do the job, tion of American initiative. Unless the tion: How do you motivate workers?
reducing them will. ante is continuously raised, the psycho Here, too, escalations have taken place.
3. Fringe Benefits. Industry has out- logical reaction of employees is that the Thirty years ago it was necessary to re-
done the most welfare-minded of wet- company is turning back the clock. quest, "Please don't spit on the floor."
fare states in dispensing cradle-to-the- When industry began to realize that Today the same admonition requires
grave succor. One company I know of both the economic nerve and the lazy three "pleases" before the employee
had an informal "fringe benefit of the nerve of their employees had insatiable feels that a superior has demonstrated
month club" going for a while. The cost appetites, it started to listen to the be- the psychologically proper attitude.
of fringe benefits in this country has havioral scientists who, more out of a The failure of human relations train-
reached approximately 25% of the wage humanist tradition than from scientific ing to produce motivation led to the
dollar, and we still cry for motivation. study, criticized management for not conclusion that supervisors or managers
themselves were not psychologically of the technique, as a failure to really 6. Communications. The professor of
true to themselves in their practice of (five times) conduct proper sensitivity communications was invited to ioin the
interpersonal decency. So an advanced training courses. faculty of management training pro-
form of human relations KITA, sensitiv- With the realization that there are grams and help in making employees
ity training, was unfolded. only temporary gains from comfort and understand what management was do-
5.SensitivityTraining. Doyoureally, economic and interpersonal KITA, per- ing for them. House organs, briefing ses-
really understand yourself? Do you sonnel managers concluded that the sions, supervisory instruction on the
really, really, really trust other people? fault lay not in what they were doing, importance of communication, and all
Do you really, really, really, really coop- but in the employee's failure to appre- sorts of propaganda have proliferated
erate? The failure of sensitivity training ciate what they were doing.This opened until today there is even an Interna-
is now being explained, by those who up the field of communications, a new tional Council of Industrial Editors. But
have become opportunistic exploiters area of"scientificaiiy"sanctioned KITA. no motivation resulted, and the obvious
EXHIBIT I
Factors characterizing 1,844 events on the job Factors characterizing 1,753 events on the job
that led to extreme dissatisfaction that led to extreme satisfaction
Percentage
50% 40 30 20 10 10 20 30 40 50%
frequency
achievement
growth
company policy
and administration
supervision
statu5 I I
security I
thought occurred that perhaps man- ployees unburden themselves by talk- munist countries), have since been com-
agement was not hearing what the em- ing to someone about their problems. pleted, making the original research one
ployees were saying. That led to the Although the counseling techniques of the most replicated studies in the
next KITA. were primitive, the program was large field of job attitudes.
7. Two-Way Communication. Man- indeed. The findings of these studies, along
agement ordered morale surveys, sug- The counseling approach suffered as with corroboration from many other in-
gestion plans, and group participation a result of experiences during World vestigations using different procedures,
programs. Then both management and War II, when the programs themselves suggest that the factors involved in pro-
employees were communicating and lis- were found to be interfering with the op- ducing job satisfaction (and motivation)
tening to each other more than ever, eration ofthe organizations; the coun- are separate and distinct from the fac-
but without much improvement in mo- selors had forgotten their role of be- tors that lead to job dissatisfaction. (See
tivation. nevolent listeners and were attempting Exhibit 1, which is further explained
The behavioral scientists began to to do something about the problems below.) Since separate factors need to
take another look at their conceptions that they heard about. Psychological be considered, depending on whether
and their data, and they took human re- job satisfaction or job dissatisfaction is
lations one step further. A glimmer of being examined, it follows that these
truth was beginning to show through two feelings are not opposites of each
in the writings ofthe so-called higher- The opposite of job other. The opposite of job satisfaction is
order-need psychologists. People, so not job dissatisfaction but, rather, no job
they said, want to actualize themselves. dissatisfaction is not satisfaction; and similarly, the opposite
Unfortunately, the "actualizing" psy- of job dissatisfaction is not job satisfac-
chologists got mixed up with the human job satisfaction, but tion, but no job dissatisfaction.
relations psychologists, and a new KITA Stating the concept presents a prob-
emerged. no job dissatisfaction. lem in semantics, for we normally think
8. Job Participation. Though it may of satisfaction and dissatisfaction as op-
not have been the theoretical intention, posites; i.e., what is not satisfying must
job participation often became a "give counseling, however, has managed to be dissatisfying, and vice versa. But
them the big picture" approach. For ex- survive the negative impact of World when it comes to understanding the
ample, if a man is tightening 10,000 nuts War n experiences and today is begin- behavior of people in their jobs, more
a day on an assembly line with a torque ning to flourish with renewed sophisti- than a play on words is involved.
wrench, tell him he is building a Chevro- cation. But, alas, many of these pro- TWO different needs of human beings
let. Another approach had the goal of grams, like all the others, do not seem to are involved here. One set of needs can
giving employees a "feeling" that they have lessened the pressure of demands be thought of as stemming from hu-
are determining, in some measure, what to find out how to motivate workers. mankind's animal nature-the built-in
they do on the job. The goal was to pro- Since KITA results only in short-term drive to avoid pain from the environ-
vide a sense of achievement rather than movement, it is safe to predict that the ment, plus all the learned drives that
a substantive achievement in the task. cost of these programs will increase become conditioned to the basic bio-
Real achievement, of course, requires steadily and new varieties will be devel- logical needs. For example, hunger, a
a task that makes it possible. oped as old positive KITAs reach their basic biological drive, makes it neces-
But still there was no motivation. This satiation points. sary to earn money, and then money
led to the inevitable conclusion that the becomes a specific drive. The other set
employees must be sick, and therefore Hygiene vs. Motivators of needs relates to that unique human
to the next KITA. Let me rephrase the perennial question characteristic, the ability to achieve and,
9. Employee Counseling. The initial this way: How do you install a generator through achievement, to experience
use of this form of KITA in a systematic in an employee? A brief review of my psychological growth. The stimuli for
fashion can be credited to the Haw- motivation-hygiene theory of job atti- the growth needs are tasks that induce
thome experiment ofthe Western Elec- tudes is required before theoretical and growth; in the industrial setting, they
tric Company during the early 1930s. At practical suggestions can be offered. The are the job content. Contrariwise, the
that time, it was found that the em- theory was first drawn from an exami- stimuli inducing pain-avoidance behav-
ployees harbored irrational feelings that nation of events in the lives of engineers ior are found in the job environment.
were interfering with the rational oper- and accountants. At least i6 other in- The growth or motivator factors that
ation of the factory. Counseling in this vestigations, using a wide variety of pop- are intrinsic to the job are: achieve-
instance was a means of letting the em- ulations (including some in the Com- ment, recognition for achievement, the
approach to personnel management is tors), have been the problem of earlier These are common forms of horizon-
generally to emphasize some form of job enlargement programs. Job loading tal loading that frequently come up in
human relations education, in the hope merely enlarges the meaninglessness preliminary brainstorming sessions of
of instilling healthy employee attitudes of the job. Some examples of this ap- job enrichment. The principles of ver-
and an organizational climate that is proach, and their effect, are: tical loading have not all been worked
considered to be felicitous to human •Challenging the employee by in- out as yet, and they remain rather gen-
values. The belief is that proper atti- creasing the amount of production ex- eral, but I have furnished seven useful
tudes will lead to efficient job and orga- pected. If each tightens 10,000 bolts starting points for consideration in
nizational structure. a day, see if each can tighten 20,000 Exhibit 2.
There is always a lively debate con- bolts a day. The arithmetic involved A Successful Application. An exam-
cerning the overall effectiveness of the shows that multiplying zero by zero still ple from a highly successful job enrich-
approaches of organizational theorists equals zero. ment experiment can illustrate the dis-
and industrial engineers. Manifestly, • Adding another meaningless task tinction between horizontal and vertical
both have achieved much. But the nag- to the existing one, usually some rou- loading of a job. The subjects of this
ging question for behavioral scientists tine clerical activity. The arithmetic here study were the stockholder correspon-
has been: What is the cost in human is adding zero to zero. dents employed by a very large corpo-
problems that eventually cause more ex- • Rotating the assignments of a num- ration. Seemingly, the task required of
pense to the organization-for instance, ber of jobs that need to be enriched. these carefully selected and highly
turnover, absenteeism, errors, violation This means washing dishes for a while, trained correspondents was quite com-
ofsafety rules, strikes, restriction of out- then washing silverware.The arithmetic plex and challenging. But almost all in-
put, higher wages, and greater fringe is substituting one zero for another zero. dexes of performance and job attitudes
benefits? On the other hand, behavioral • Removing the most difficult parts were low, and exit interviewing con-
scientists are hard put to document of the assignment in order to free the firmed that the challenge ofthe job ex-
much manifest improvement in person- worker to accomplish more ofthe less isted merely as words.
nel management, using their approach. challenging assignments. This tradi- A Job enrichment project was initi-
The motivation-hygiene theory sug- tional industrial engineering approach ated in the form of an experiment with
gests that work be enriched to bring amounts to subtraction in the hope of one group, designated as an achieving
about effective utilization of personnel. accomplishing addition. unit, having its job enriched by the
Such a systematic attempt to motivate
employees by manipulating the moti-
vator factors is just beginning. The term EXHIBIT 2
Job enrichment describes this embryonic
Principles of vertical job loading
movement. An older term, Job enlarge-
ment, should be avoided because it is Principle Motivators involved
associated with past failures stemniing
from a misunderstanding of the prob- A. Removing some controls while retaining Responsibilily and personal
lem. Job enrichment provides the op- accountability achievement
portunity for the employee's psycho-
B. Increasing the accountability of individuals Responsibility and recognition
logical growth, while job enlargement
for own work
merely makes a job structurally bigger.
Since scientific job enrichment is very C. Giving a person a complete natural unit Responsibility, achievement,
new, this article only suggests the prin- of Vifork (module,division,area,and soon) and recognition
ciples and practical steps that have re- D. Granting additional authority to employees Responsibility, achievement,
cently emerged from several successful i n their activity; job freedom and recognition
experiments in industry.
E- Making periodic reports directly available Internal recognition
Job Loading. In attempting to enrich to the workers themselves rather than to
certain Jobs, management often reduces supervisors
the personal contribution of employees
rather than giving them opportunities F. Introducing new and more difficult tasks Growth and learning
not previously handled
for growth in their accustomed jobs.
Such endeavors, which I shall call hori- C, Assigning individuals specific or specialized Responsibility, growth,
zontal job loading (as opposed to verti- tasks, enabling them to become experts and advancement
cal loading, or providing motivator fac-
principles described in Exhibit 2. A The changes for the achieving unit speed of response to stockholders' let-
control group continued to do its job were introduced in thefirsttwo months, ters of inquiry. The index of a current
in the traditional way. (There were also averaging one per week of the seven month was averaged into the average
two "uncommitted" groups of corre- motivators listed in Exhibit 2. At the end of the two prior months, which means
spondents formed to measure the so- of six months the members of the that improvement was harder to obtain
called Hawthorne effect - that is, to achieving unit were found to be out- if the indexes of the previous months
gauge whether productivity and atti- performing their counterparts in the were low. The "achievers" were per-
tudes toward the iob changed artificially control group and, In addition, indicated forming less well before the six-month
merely because employees sensed that a marked increase in their liking for period started, and their performance
the company was paying more atten- their jobs. Other results showed that the service index continued to decline after
tion to them in doing something dif- achieving group had lower absenteeism the introduction of the motivators,
ferent or novel. The results for these and, subsequently, a much higher rate evidently because of uncertainty after
groups were substantially the same as of promotion. their newly granted responsibilities. In
for the control group, and for the sake Exhibit 3 illustrates the changes in the third month, however, performance
of simplicity I do not deal with them performance, measured in February and improved, and soon the members of this
in this summary.) No changes in hy- March, before the study period began, group had reached a high level of
giene were introduced for either group and at the end of each month of the accomplishment.
other than those that would have been study period. The shareholder service Exhibit 4 shows the two groups' atti-
made anyway, such as normal pay index represents quality of letters, in- tudes toward their job, measured at
increases. cluding accuracy of information, and the end of March, just before the first
EXHIBIT 3 EXHIBIT 4
60
• control
• achieving
55
50
45
II .
40
35 March September
are rarely followed in practice. This tion of the experiment. Pre- and post- their time to reviewing performance
might seem obvious, but the motivator installation tests of performance and and administering thorough training.
words have never lefr industry; the sub- job attitudes are necessary to evaluate What has been called an employee-
stance has just been rationalized and the effectiveness ofthe job enrichment centered style of supervision will come
organized out. Words like "responsibil- program. The attitude test must be lim- about not through education of super-
ity," "growth," "achievement," and "chal- ited to motivator items in order to di- visors, but by changing the jobs that
lenge," for example, have been elevated vorce employees'views of the jobs they they do.
to the lyrics ofthe patriotic anthem for are given from all the surrounding hy-
all organizations. It is the old problem giene feelings that they might have. Job enrichment will not be a one-time
typified by the pledge of allegiance to 9. Be prepared for a drop in perfor- proposition, but a continuous manage-
thefiagbeing more important than con- mance in the experimental group the ment function. The initial changes
tributions to the country-of following first few weeks. The changeover to a should last for a very long period of
the form, rather than the substance. new job may lead to a temporary re- time. There are a number of reasons
6. Screen the list to eliminate any hor- duction in efficiency. for this:
izontal loading suggestions. 10. Expect your first-line supervisors • The changes should bring the job up
7. Avoid direct participation by the to experience some anxiety and hostil- to the level of challenge commensurate
employees whose jobs are to be en- ity over the changes you are making. with the skill that was hired.
riched. Ideas they have expressed previ- The anxiety comes from their fear that • Those who have still more ability
ously certainly constitute a valuable the changes will result in poorer per- eventually will be able to demonstrate
source for recommended changes, but formance for their unit. Hostility will it better and win promotion to higher
their direct involvement contaminates arise when the employees start assum- level jobs.
* The very nature of motivators, as op-
posed to hygiene factors, is that they
The very natureof motivators, as opposed to have a much longer-term effect on em-
ployees' attitudes. It is possible that the
hygiene factors, is that they have a much longer- job will have to be enriched again, but
this will not occur as frequently as the
term effect on employees' attitudes. need for hygiene.
Not all jobs can be enriched, nor do
all jobs need to be enriched. If only a
the process with human relations hy- ing what the supervisors regard as their small percentage ofthe time and money
giene and, more specifically, gives them own responsibility for performance. that is now devoted to hygiene, however,
only a sense of making a contribution. The supervisor without checking du- were given to job enrichment efforts, the
The job is to be changed, and it is the ties to perform may then be left with return in human satisfaction and eco-
content that will produce the moti- little to do. nomic gain would be one ofthe largest
vation, not attitudes about being in- After successful experiment, however, dividends that industry and society have
volved or the challenge inherent in set- the supervisors usually discover the ever reaped through their efforts at bet-
ting up a job. That process will be over supervisory and managerial functions ter personnel management.
shortly, and it is what the employees will they have neglected, or which were The argument for job enric hment can
be doing from then on that will deter- never theirs because all their time was be summed upquite simply: If you have
mine their motivation. A sense of par- given over to checking the work of their employees on a job, use them. If you
ticipation will result only in short-term subordinates. For example, in the R&D can't use them on the job, get rid of
movement. division of one large chemical company them, either via automation or by se-
8. In the initial attempts at job en- I know of, the supervisors of the labo- lecting someone with lesser ability. If
richment, set up a controlled experi- ratory assistants were theoretically re- you can't use them and you can't get rid
ment. At least two equivalent groups sponsible for their training and evalu- of them, you will have a motivation
should be chosen, one an experimental ation. These functions, however, had problem. ^
unit in which the motivators are sys- come to be performed in a routine, un-
tematically introduced over a period of substantial fashion. After the job en- Reprint R030IF
time, and the other one a control group richment program, during which the To order reprints, see the last page
supervisors were not merely passive ob- of Executive Summaries.
in which no changes are made. For both
groups, hygiene should be allowed to servers of the assistants' performance, For more on this topic, go to
follow its natural course for the dura- the supervisors actually were devoting http://explore.hbr.org.