Things That Really Hurt Motivation

Things that really hurt motivation

Tom Janissen

ANR: 732056

In the research article of Dean R. Spitzer (1995), it is stated that when you walk through a typical workplace, you will find numerous people who are slacking on their job. He says that their energy levels are really low and they just merely go through the daily routines of the job. Also they would probably be delivering half hearted service, showing little initiative and engaging in many off-tasks behaviours. But these employees would also tell you that they want to be enthusiastic about their job and want to put all the energy they have into the job. According to a study of Arvey, McCall, Bouchard, Taubman and Cavanaugh (1994) it seems that personality plays a role in job satisfaction. People who are more satisfied in one job are more likely to be satisfied in another job, satisfaction is thus heritable across jobs. Although some people might be more motivated by means of personality, there are some factors that hold people back in engaging with full commitment in their job.

Not feeling valued

One of the reasons employees lack motivation, might be because they do not feel valued by their colleagues or by the managers in the company. People find it very important to be valued by others and themselves and have the feeling that they have achieved something. People have the need to achieve something because they want to do the best they can, to do the best they can, to do better than they previously did, to do better than others, to have status, to have money and wealth (Cassidy & Lynn, 1989). Achievement will make people value each other and therefore people strive for it. This occurrence can also be found in Herzberg’s two-factor-theory (1959) where achievement is seen as a motivator. In that theory only motivators can lead to motivation and the lack thereof cannot cause dissatisfaction, but employees would not feel motivated if there is no achievement. Not achieving...