Business

HR Performance Issues and Motivation

BUS 610: Organizational Behavior

Neil Mathur

September 9, 2014

HR Performance Issues and Motivation

Explaining why people do what they do at work has been the goal of behavioral scientists for nearly 100 plus years. Motivation is what starts, maintains, and stops behaviors. Many HR performance issues result from underlying motivational problems both internal and external to the work environment such as health, career, and finances. “Cognitive process theories examine the thought processes or mental reasoning processes that lead to behaviors” (Baack, 2012). As the assignment states, “The style of leadership, job design, resources on the job, and environment can all have a significant effect on the satisfaction of employees and their performance. Performance is also influenced by individual motivations (e.g., social, recognition, financial reward, personal growth and development, and/or intrinsic satisfaction) and can equally impact the organization.” A key component for working through performance gaps is collaborating with internal resources to dig into issues and opportunities” (Jaenke, 2013, para 2). Work-related person perceptions are used to understand when another person behaves based on internal causes and when external causes result in the behavior. Distinctiveness, consensus, and consistency shape perceptions of internal and external causes. Physical perceptual errors occur when an individual encounters confusing stimuli or when an individual has a learning disability. Person perceptual errors include selective perception, halo/horn, stereotyping, contrast effects, and project.

In many organizations the lack of motivation presents a performance issue which could have been easily avoided. Jaenke tells us, “It is critical to determine the root cause behind performance issues, and when training is not the answer.” A more realistic example of this would be when an employer or supervisor does not set clear...