Importance of Employee Motivation and Appraisal as part of the

planning for a major company involving and implementing change in

the workforce.

Introduction:

Apex is a company that deals in the software. It has international exposure and
provides career growth opportunities to its employees. It sends its employees to
developed countries for workshops and practical assistance. The firm has 200
employees working under the lower management. The company is run by the most
expert professionals who have vast experience in their respective work.

Change and response to change:

Despite having one of the most develop system a company has a problem of employee
de motivation which if not dealt in right manner will create a negative impact on the
progress of the company. This case study is a classic example to show the importance
of the employee motivation in the planning process as here we can easily notice that a
company is well established and has an immense potential to do wonder but being
autocratic style of management has created a problem in the proper growth of the
employees. Employees do not feel motivated and they are not interested in taking any
initials because they know that they will not be appraised by the top management for
any efforts they make. Once the inner enthusiasm ends, the automatic negative
mechanism starts working on the mind map of the employees and they feel de-
motivated.

Significance Employee Motivation

It is of great importance for the organization to have employees who are satisfied with
their work and their capabilities shine by the way they are being dealt by the
organization. A motivated employee is always a beneficial asset for the organization.
To manage these assets in a productive manner, organization should always consider
its employees as their top priority. To make them feel that they are value by the
organization, an organization should involve their employees in process by allowing
them to participate in the organization. The participative management is a key to
success in the continuously changing settings. The policies and plans are continuously
circling with changes and therefore employees must be kept in focus when designing
the infrastructure.
An employee’s inner capabilities will groom more as this manager will acknowledge
his work and praise him for it. This will develop the sense of participation on the hand
of employee. (Hiam, 2003)
Man power resources should be utilized in an appropriate way so that the changes that
occur in the organization, it is accepted by the employee and on the other hand,
employees should willingly take initiative by participating through their ideas and
suggestion. These ideas and suggestion will help the organization in bringing change
and implementing policies which will help the organization as a whole in long term
aspects. Designing a job is a very critical stage for the Human Resource Management
department of an organization as it has indirect effect on the motivation’s level of
individual employees. In modern era, with a face paced environment, the continuous
feedback is also of great importance for the top level management to implement the
policies. (Garg and Rastogi, 2006)

Here in this case study, Rohit is not motivated to work because the head has an
autocratic approach. She does not consider employees suggestion as an important
factor to groom them. Her communication was only one way which was flowing as an
order rather than giving a chance to employees to step up with their suggestion and
ideas. Employees feel that their suggestion no matter how creative it would be but the
top management is not going to appreciate it. The relationship between employer and
employee are not very improved one which is a serious worry for an organization
because wellbeing at work and mutual co relations are one of the motivating factors to
bring change in the organization and manage the diverse workforce. Employees need
motivation to work in the organization but some time manger does not recognises that
every individual needs motivation in a different way. (Marcum, 2000; Hiam, 2003)
In Apex, top management has approach of scientific era, where money was regarded
as an important motivating factor. Employees were given handsome pay hikes but
they were supposed to work in a scientific and calculated manner. The feeling of
employees was not given much importance. According to (Fredrick Taylor, 1911)
economic efficiency can make the movement of employees more energetic and
increase the productivity but this approach is not very valid in the changing era as
Maslow argued that the needs dominate the human in different phases. Here an
employee is fully secured and is not working for satisfying his basic needs, but
working for his self actualization. He wants challenges and believes in creativity but
the autocratic environment hinders him in achieving his goal.
An employee is in stage where he is self willing to work and has a creative ideas in
mind to suggest so he is at the top of the pyramid of hierarchy of needs but lack o
democratic approach in the organization has left him with not much of choice because
he is not being appreciated for his work, therefore he is not involve in his job. Once
the appraisal off employee is not recognised properly than slowly his development
also get slow. When employees are not admired for their skills and ideas, they are not
motivated to work in organization because they feel they are not given any
importance. This also results in reluctance for change.
In neo classical theories, Fayol has given a concept of sprit de corps which means
team work is essential to groom employees so it refers that organization should ensure
steps to make its employee participate and work as a group. He stressed on the
incentives which means that handsome salary should be given to employee which will
drive them to work hard in organization. The neo classical approach is most
consistently based on the economic reward. There is less concern about the inner
feelings as a motivating force which is a drawback. Not all sort of employees will feel
money as an important factor because the fifth stage of Maslow’s need is about the
self actualization, this means that more than money some individual will give a
preference to growth and learning environment where they are being provided with
the opportunity to groom themselves.
The company has ensured to rectify these errors by giving a chance to employees to
participate in organization’s decision making process. This is a way to keep their
employees motivated and retain them. A company has learned to work change their
policies according to the need of the situation. They have ensured that employees
express their views about things. Employees are having the feelings of security, and
they do not have to worry about their job security. So in this sense they are satisfied
but there was no career growth before and once yourself actualization is not
completed, the person will regress to need which he has already completed. For
instance, returning to self esteem when self actualization does not get completed. An
employee will have the insecurities about various things.
Conclusion:
This case study shows that employees are more motivated when they are provided a
chance to participate in decision making. Employees are not robots who will follow
the orders and fulfil them. Human is more motivated when their decision making
skills are used in efficient manner. I do agree that Apex did exceptionally well by
altering their policies but if I was part of top management I would have introduced a
system of rating and polling in which employees would have been provided a chance
to even rate the policies of management according to the strong impact of the policies
on them. I would have introduced a system of team work with rotating responsibilities
so that each individual comes up with his talent to manage things in a proper way.
Apex has just introduced a system by altering some of the policies which is good sign
but I could have gone for a proper job rotation activity. The desk bunch system would
have been introduced where on one desk, the bunch of employees would have set to
discuss their plans and then the leader would have forwarded the suggestion or
proposals to the top management. Along with this the duty of the group leader will be
to monitor the efforts of employees that how much effort do they put in coming up
with ideas and suggestions. This will evaluate the individual performance of the
employees and the skills of the group leader will also enhance and improve, he will
judge the individual responses and his critical evaluation skills will groom. These
skills in future a company can utilize in time of need. Even it can provide an
opportunity to get a promotion in to top management so this will boost the morale of
the employees to a greater level. Another thing that company should think is to make
sure that employees are motivated by introducing a seminar system. Employees
should be encouraged to attend seminars and implement of workplace what they have
learn through seminars.
References:

Books:

Fayol, H. (1916). The Administrative Theory of Management. Transaled by S. Geer. New

York NY. Pp. 99-114.

Garg, P. & Rastogi, R. (2006). New model of job design: motivation employees’
performance. Journal of Management Development, volume 25, issue 6, Pp. 572-587.

Hiam, A. (2003), Motivational Management: Inspiring you people for maximum

[Link] York: ebary,Inc

Marcum, J. (2000). Out with motivation, in with engagement. National productivity review,
autumn, Pp. 57-60.

Maslow, A. (1970). Motivation and Personality. 2nd Edition Pp 20-44.

Taylor, W. F. (1910). The Principles of Scientific Management. Pp. 7-31

Websites:

Business Education [The Foundation of Henry Fayol Administrative Theory] Available:

[Link] Last accessed:
10 April 2011.

Scribd [Employee Motivation Case Study] Available:

[Link] Last
accessed: 11 April 2011.

Business Balls [Maslow’s need of heirarchy] Available:

[Link] Last accessed: 11 April 2011.

[Link], Employee Motivation [Manager’s role in successful Employee Motivation:]

Available:
[Link]
l_Employee_Motivation.htm. Last accessed: 8 April 2011.
Employee Motivation - A Short Case
Study
Rohit Narang joined Apex Computers (Apex) in November after a successful stint at
Zen Computers (Zen), where he had worked as an assistant programmer. Rohit felt
that Apex offered better career prospects, as it was growing much faster than Zen,
which was a relatively small company. Although Rohit had enjoyed working there, he
realized that to grow further in his field, he would have to join a bigger company, and
preferably one that handled international projects. He was sure he would excel in his
new position at Apex, just as he had done in his old job at Zen.

Rohit joined as a Senior Programmer at Apex, with a handsome pay hike. Apex had
international operations and there was more than a slim chance that he would be sent
to USA or the UK on a project. Knowing that this would give him a lot of exposure,
besides looking good on his resume, Rohit was quite excited about his new job.

Rohit joined Aparna Mehta's five-member team at Apex. He had met Aparna during
the orientation sessions, and was looking forward to working under her. His team
members seemed warm and friendly, and comfortable with their work. He introduced
himself to the team members and got to know more about each of them.

Wanting to know more about his boss, he casually asked Dipti, one of the team
members, about Aparna. Dipti said, "Aparna does not interfere with our work. In fact,
you could even say that she tries to ignore us as much as she can."

Rohit was surprised by the comment but decided that Aparna was probably leaving
them alone to do their work without any guidance, in order to allow them to realize
their full potential.

At Zen, Rohit had worked under Suresh Reddy and had looked up to him as a guide
and mentor - always guiding, but never interfering. Suresh had let Rohit make his own
mistakes and learn from them. He had always encouraged individual ideas, and let the
team discover the flaws, if any, through discussion and experience.

He rarely held an individual member of his team responsible if the team as a whole
failed to deliver - for him the responsibility for any failure was collective. Rohit
remembered telling his colleagues at Zen that the ideal boss would be someone who
did not interfere with his/her subordinate's work.

Rohit wanted to believe that Aparna too was the non-interfering type. If that was the
case, surely her non-interference would only help him to grow.

In his first week at work, Rohit found the atmosphere at the office a bit dull.
However, he was quite excited. His team had been assigned a new project and was
facing a few glitches with the new software. He had thought about the problem till
late in the night and had come up with several possible solutions.
He could not wait to discuss them with his team and Aparna. He smiled to himself
when he thought of how Aparna would react when he told her that he had come up
with several possible solutions to the problem. He was sure she would be happy with
his having put in so much effort into the project, right from day one.

He was daydreaming about all the praise that he was going to get when Aparna
walked into the office. Rohit waited for her to go into her cabin, and after five
minutes, called her up, asking to see her.

She asked him to come in after ten minutes. When he went in, she looked at him
blankly and asked, "Yes?"Not sure whether she had recognized him, Rohit introduced
himself. She said, "Ok, but why did you want to meet me?"

Rohit started to tell her about the problems they were having with the software. But
before he could even finish, she told him that she was busy with other things, and that
she would send an email with the solution to all the members of the team by the end
of the day, and that they could then implement it immediately.
Rohit was somewhat taken aback. However, ever the optimist, he thought that she had
perhaps already discussed the matter with the team.

Rohit came out of Aparna's cabin and went straight to where his team members sat.
He thought it would still be nice to bounce ideas off them and also to see what
solutions others might come up with. He told them of all the solutions he had in mind.

He waited for the others to come up with their suggestions but not one of them spoke
up. He was surprised, and asked them point-blank why they were so disinterested.

Sanjay, one of the team members, said, "What is the point in our discussing these
things? Aparna is not going to have time to listen to us or discuss anything. She will
just give us the solution she thinks is best, and we will just do what she tells us to do;
why waste everyone's time?"

Rohit felt his heart sink. Was this the way things worked over here? However, he
refused to lose heart and thought that maybe, he could change things a little.

But as the days went by, Rohit realized that Aparna was the complete opposite of his
old boss. While she was efficient at what she did and extremely intelligent, she had
neither the time nor the inclination to groom her subordinates.

Her solutions to problems were always correct, but she was not willing to discuss or
debate the merits of any other ideas that her team might have. She did not hold the
team down to their deadlines nor did she ever interfere.

In fact, she rarely said anything at all! If work did not get finished on time, she would
just blame her team, and totally disassociate herself from them.

Time and again, Rohit found himself thinking of Suresh, his old boss, and of how he
had been such a positive influence. Aparna, on the other hand, even without actively
doing anything, had managed to significantly lower his motivation levels.

Rohit gradually began to lose interest in his work - it had become too mechanical for
his taste. He didn't really need to think; his boss had all the answers.

He was learning nothing new, and he felt his career was going nowhere. As he
became more and more discouraged, his performance suffered. From being someone
with immense promise and potential, Rohit was now in danger of becoming just
another mediocre techie.

A company realizes that there is a sudden blockage in production and they redesign
their internal policies. Employees were unwilling and there was sudden decline so
management started to work on employee retention and encouraged participative
management. Apex started employee friendly policies in order to retain its
employees.