Costco Motivation

Be Motivated Like a

Employee

By: Aaron Coss

Why do people work? A lot of people misunderstand the reasons for why people take on employment. Most will say it is because they have to or for the money and while that is true sometimes, there are exceptions. There are always those people at a job who do so much more than they have to or are assigned. The reason being is because they are motivated by their work and wish to provide more. Many people have their own definition of motivation, but I will be using the definition from the book, Essentials of Organizational Behavior, by Stephen P. Robins and Timothy A. Judge. “Motivation is the process that accounts for an individual’s intensity, direction, and persistence of effort toward attaining a goal.”(P.106). It is important to understand what motivation is because it is a major part in any company’s success. In particular it plays a significant role in the prosperity of Costco Wholesale, which is one of the leading companies in the field of retail stores. A multitude of people wonder what brings so much success to Costco and it is because they know how to motivate their employees so that they work at an optimal capacity. There are many ways Costco motivates its employees to perform at optimal levels, but three main means are through pay, benefits, and employee involvement.

Though most say you cannot have low prices and pay high wages, Costco continuously proves that wrong throughout the years. If thought about, being paid an hourly wage should not affect motivation because no matter how well or how poorly the job is done employees will still receive the same amount of payment, but pay is actually a huge factor when it comes to attracting employees and retaining employees as well as motivating them. If an employee feels as though they are not being paid the right amount in respect to their workload then they are bound to leave or do the very minimum. Costco is a company that does not under estimate the...