Contemporary Issues in Business, Management and Marketing

Contemporary Issues in Business, Management and Marketing

What is meant by motivation in relation to managing people?

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Total Word Count: 2000

Introduction

In this study, there has been an explanation of the management of human resource management has been allocated in the process with the application of motivation will be assessed. Further, with analysis it can be shown that the process of human resource management has been engaged in the including in the process of understanding the contemporary environment and having a good understanding about the individual differences between people. On the other hand, motivation can be assisted to be understood as the factor which drives people to work for a present goals and the process includes beginning and being able to sustain the activities for the same (Kuswati, 2020). Further, it can be allocated to be one of the most important things and has been narrated to have to be taken into consideration for the encouraging the employees of a company to work well and help the same achieve their goals.

Discussion

Human resource management is used in the regulation conducted of the performance of the employees and this is useful for assigning them tasks based on their skills (Bratton et al., 2021). HRM in businesses are done with the aim of making sure that the activities of the employees are set up with the aim of achieving the goals of the same. The motivation of employees of the company are narrated to be engaged to make sure that the workers are satisfied with their work and in return, it is narrated to be important to take the initiative for the quality of their work. Marketing has been allocated to be invested in the process to refer to a set of processes and institutions which is able to create value and increase profits for the company and carry the desired message to the customers of the same (Plangger et al., 2022).

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs will be allocated to have been studied in the following essay to get a boarder understanding of the relevance of motivation. According to this theory, there are five basic needs of people and has been narrated to be catered to for them to be able to perform well in the market (?tefan, Popa and Albu, 2020). The first need is the physiological need, and has been engaged to states that some of the basic things needed by people are air, food, a place to sleep in and clothing. The second need is the fact that people have to feel safe and have to be given the scope to have good health. They have to get their social needs met, which means that the employees have to feel like they belong in an organisation and have an essential role to play.

This includes feeling like the people have friends, belongingness and so on. The next need which needs to be taken into account is that of the need for self-esteem, which includes being recognised for one’s own work. This requires people to succeed in their workplace and the last need is that of self-actualisation. This is a state, where people have reached the epitome of personal development and have learnt all that is there to be learnt. This is the theory which will be examined as this gives a holistic understanding of how companies can motivate their employees.
The first application of this theory comes in the form of making sure that the employees are paid enough for them to be able to live with dignity. One of the best examples of this is Asda, which pays their employees more than the national average of minimum wage. According to Indeed (2024), the salary satisfaction of the employees of the company is 47%. However, for the case of Asda alone, this is the only factor which is able to attract the employees of the company. The company is well-known for overworking their employees and having a high rate of turnover. The management is quite unsympathetic to the needs of the employees, and the reasons for them getting a high pay is due to the lack of enough staffing.

There are many trends and have emerged in the market, one of them being that culture is highly important for companies to motivate and retain their employees. This includes the management of the business structure and aligning it with the culture of the society (Hampden-Turner, Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner, 2020). Interactions with customers have become data driven and this means that forming a lasting relationship is done with the application of strategies formed based on data (Guerola-Navarro et al., 2024). Adoption of technology and innovation are at the core of all business processes and this makes the experiences of the customers different. Last, but not the least, focusing on achieving the needs of the people is important for the growth of the company. This includes not only the customers, but also the other stakeholders like the employees, the investors, the community and so on.

The external environment of the UK has certain factors which prove to be conducive to the growth of firms in the country. The index of political stability of the country is 0.05 (The Global Economy, 2024). The rate of inflation as recorded on August of 2024 was 2.2% (Statista, 2024). The rate of inflation in the country has been reducing from the double digits which were caused by the Brexit, COVID-19 and the war between Russia and Ukraine. The average median disposable income in the households was £32,350in 2022 (Statista, 2024). According to Statista (2024), the score of innovation is 114.8 for 2023, which has been a slight reduction from the 119 of the previous year (Statista, 2024). These are some of the environmental factors and affect the growth of companies. They also affect the motivation of the employees and the management of the same. Being a politically stable country means that the employees feel safe working in the same and will not migrate to a safer country and since the rate of inflation is lowering, so the employees will be able to live a good life. Since the country is highly inventive technologically, the companies will be able to make sure that they can continue to cater to the needs of their customers.

Motivating the employees is highly important on the part of the company as this makes the teams of the same high performing. The employees have to be given autonomy for them to pursue their own work and this will give them the scope to take a creative approach in their work (Lee, Choi and Kang, 2021). This will also increase their loyalty to the company as they will understand that the organisation cares for them. Professional development is the only way in which the employees can be made to be satisfied and this is encourages them to work hard.

Having a positive working environment is also essential for the employees to remain motivated and this is meant to make sure that the organisations have to make sure that their employees are treated fairly (Parashakti et al., 2020). There needs to be teamwork and collaboration within the company and this will be able to make sure that the companies will be able to progress well. This includes the recognition of the achievements of the employees. According to Cooper (2020), understanding the individual difference of the employees is crucial to understanding what motivates the employees. People have different personalities and understanding how they operate is likely to make sure that the team can function easily (Shkoler and Kimura, 2020). The motivations of the employees will be understood well and since all employees have different skills and strengths, the same can be employed where they have to be.

Communication styles of various employees are also different, which is why it is important for the leaders to understand which method would suit them the best. Understanding and respecting the differences of the employees will increase their trust in the leaders and make the operational processes smoother. This is to be encouraged in companies as this would prove to make sure that the employees feel like they are a part of the team and that their interests are valued. Based on the belongingness aspect of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, this is essential for making the employees feel loyal to the company. They would also work harder as they will consider their role to be a crucial one in the company.

Motivations ensure that the employees ensure that the chances of retention get higher and hence, this is highly probable when the employees feel like they are welcome in the organisation. This is one of the most important reasons, why it is important for the companies to respect individual differences. It is also important not to micromanage the employees and value their inputs. This adds to their self-esteem and increases their focus and drive for work. There are also issues like employees not being motivated enough and to combat this, there are certain steps which have to be taken in organisations.

One of the things which have to be done is setting clear goals for the employees who are not motivated enough. Their balance between work and life has to be respected and the company have to see to it that the feedback given to these employees are realistic. This will give them the confidence about having good skills and they may get motivated enough. Having a sense of high self-esteem is needed for people to put in the best of their efforts. The culture of the company has to be kept as positive as possible and this would make sure that the same will motivate the employees to perform well. This would be able to make sure that the company would be able to make the most of all their employees and this will make it easier for the company to cater to the needs the customers. This would be able to make sure that the company can have a competitive advantage.

Not having employees who are motivated results in the productivity of the company being compromised and the employees are likely to leave often (Ali and Anwar, 2021). This can be highly costly for the company and can affect the established systems of production. There can be issues of poor communication and the environment of the company can be quite toxic, which can affect the growth of the company as well. The lack of efforts on the part of the employees results in increased absenteeism and can compromise the innovation of the company. This affects the morale of all the employees.

The employees have the responsibility to run the operations of the company and making sure that the processes of the same are smooth. This means that the companies have to see to it that they can focus on motivating their employees for them to be able to perform the functions of the company (Leatherbarrow and Fletcher, 2014). The overall productivity of the company is compromised when the employees are not motivated and these results in the company not bring able to focus on the needs of the customers. This reduces the competitive advantage of the company in the market. Motivating the employees of an organisation is not an easy task as every person within the organisation have different motivations. However, aligning them to the goals of the company makes sure that they can focus on their tasks and form a high performing team. This is the main reason why having unmotivated employees prove to be a problem in the organisation.

Conclusion

In this study, there has been an assessment of the considerations which have to be made by organisations for them to be able to motivate their employees. To study this, the theory of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs has been applied for understanding the factors which are able to motivate people. The impact of having motivated employees and unmotivated employees has been examined, along with how the motivation of both can be increased for the benefit of the company. The external factors of the UK market and the impact they have on the motivations of the people have been assessed and this has shown all the considerations which have to be made by companies when they have to manage people.

References

Ali, B.J. and Anwar, G. (2021)‘An empirical study of employees’ motivation and its influence job satisfaction.’  International Journal of Engineering, Business and Management, 5(2), pp.21-30.

Bratton, J., Gold, J., Bratton, A. and Steele, L. (2021) Human resource management. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Cooper, C. (2020) Individual differences and personality. Routledge.

Guerola-Navarro, V., Gil-Gomez, H., Oltra-Badenes, R. and Soto-Acosta, P. (2024)‘Customer relationship management and its impact on entrepreneurial marketing: A literature review.’ International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 20(2), pp.507-547.

Hampden-Turner, C., Trompenaars, F. and Hampden-Turner, C. (2020) Riding the waves of culture: Understanding diversity in global business. Hachette UK.

Indeed (2024) ASDA salaries: How much does ASDA pay in the United Kingdom? Available at: https://uk.indeed.com/cmp/Asda/salaries#:~:text=Average%20ASDA%20hourly%20pay%20ranges,in%20the%20past%2036%20months (Accessed: 19 September 2024).

Kuswati, Y. (2020)‘The effect of motivation on employee performance.’ Budapest International Research and Critics Institute-Journal (BIRCI-Journal), 3(2), pp.995-1002.

Leatherbarrow, C. and Fletcher, J. (2014) Introduction to human resource management: a guide to HR in practice. Kogan Page Publishers.

Lee, W.R., Choi, S.B. and Kang, S.W. (2021)‘How leaders’ positive feedback influences employees’ innovative behavior: The mediating role of voice behavior and job autonomy.’ Sustainability, 13(4), p.1901.

Parashakti, R.D., Fahlevi, M., Ekhsan, M. and Hadinata, A. (2020) April. ‘The influence of work environment and competence on motivation and its impact on employee performance in health sector.’ In 3rd Asia Pacific International Conference of Management and Business Science (AICMBS 2019) (pp. 259-267). Atlantis Press.

Plangger, K., Grewal, D., de Ruyter, K. and Tucker, C. (2022)‘The future of digital technologies in marketing: A conceptual framework and an overview.’ Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 50(6), pp.1125-1134.

Ramakrishnan, S., Barker, C.D., Vervoordt, S. and Zhang, A. (2018)‘Rethinking cross-cultural adaptability using behavioral developmental theory: An analysis of different migrant behaviors.’ Behavioral Development, 23(2), p.138.

Shkoler, O. and Kimura, T. (2020)‘How does work motivation impact employees’ investment at work and their job engagement? A moderated-moderation perspective through an international lens.’ Frontiers in psychology, 11, p.38.

Statista (2024)Annual median household disposable income in the United Kingdom from 1994/95 to 2021/22. Available at:https://www.statista.com/statistics/591342/united-kingdom-uk-average-yearly-household-income/#:~:text=In%202021%2F22%20the%20median,even%20decline%20in%20some%20years(Accessed: 19 September 2024).

Statista (2024)European innovation score in the United Kingdom from 2015 to 2023. Available at:https://www.statista.com/statistics/1245752/innovation-score-uk/#:~:text=Innovation%20score%20in%20the%20UK%202015%2D2023&text=According%20to%20the%20European%20Innovation,119%20in%20the%20previous%20year(Accessed: 19 September 2024).

Statista (2024)European innovation score in the United Kingdom from 2015 to 2023.Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1245752/innovation-score-uk/#:~:text=Innovation%20score%20in%20the%20UK%202015%2D2023&text=According%20to%20the%20European%20Innovation,119%20in%20the%20previous%20year(Accessed: 19 September 2024).

Statista (2024)Inflation rate for the Consumer Price Index (CPI) in the United Kingdom from January 1989 to August 2024. Available at:https://www.statista.com/statistics/306648/inflation-rate-consumer-price-index-cpi-united-kingdom-uk/#:~:text=The%20UK%20inflation%20rate%20was,11.1%20percent%20in%20October%202022(Accessed: 19 September 2024).

?tefan, S.C., Popa, ?.C. and Albu, C.F. (2020)‘Implications of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory on healthcare employees’ performance.’ Transylvanian Review of Administrative Sciences, 16(59), pp.124-143.

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Appendix

Figure 1: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

(Source: Ramakrishnan et al., 2018)

Figure 2: Political Stability of UK

(Source: The Global Economy, 2024)

Figure 3: Inflation rate for the Consumer Price Index (CPI) in the United Kingdom from January 1989 to August 2024

(Source: Statista, 2024)

Figure 4: Annual median household disposable income in the United Kingdom from 1994/95 to 2021/22

(Source: Statista, 2024)