1. What will motivate employees to
improve performance?
Allison Smidt

2.  Employee motivation, wellbeing,
and retention are three very
important aspects organizations
must pay attention to. In order to
be successful with these issues,
organizations must concentrate
on finding ways to motivate their
employees to retain them and to
see an improvement in
performance. There have been
numerous studies done in which
many contradict each other on
what motivates employees. Some
say incentives are the biggest
motivator while others state that
motivation must come from
within.

3.  Gerson thinks motivation comes from within He
states, “Written goals provide a visual, public,
and intellectual commitment to their
achievement” (Russell, 2009).
 Stickler thinks that we need to be directed away
from operant conditioning and look for ways to
create conditions in which to motivate ourselves.
These conditions include organizations making
changes to become more values driven, create
safer working environments, and expecting
people to be responsible and accountable which
shall encourage high performance , therefore,
performance should no longer be based on
materialistic

4.  Ohly and Fritz did a study on
employee motivation in 2007
which proved that unless
incentives were present
motivation did not increase
(Ohly and Fritz, 2007)
 Deci also found that when the
job is interesting and
incentive systems are put in
place, employee performance
and intrinsic motivation
increases (Muchinsky &
Turnage 1976).

5.  Green and Podaskoff found that employee
satisfaction and performance does indeed decline
significantly, when pay incentives are taken
away (Greene & Podsakoff, 1981).
 The same goes for a study done by Kaplan and
Henderson. They found that when they gave one
half of a company a new and improved incentive
plan their performance improved while the other
half declined in performance (Kaplan and
Henderson, 2005).
 The strengths of these studies have made it clear
that employees receiving incentives are going to
work harder while those not receiving incentives
are going to push back and not work as hard.

6.  A study done was to see if employees
would perform better when paid
individual incentives or when they
were paid equally divided group
incentives (McGee, Dickinson, Huitema, and Culig, 2006).
 They found that they performed
better when paid individual
monetary incentives than when paid
through group incentives (McGee, Dickinson,
Huitema, and Culig, 2006).
 One thing they found to be
interesting is that an individual may
perform better when working in a
group because they want to perform
as well as their team members (McGee,
Dickinson, Huitema, and Culig, 2006).

7.  One study was done in the hotel industry to find out
what employees felt they needed in order to perform
better. They found that employees are looking for
financial incentives for their work as well as the
support for personal development which management
would provide (Maroudas, Kyriakidou, and Vacharis,
2008).
 The second study was designed to test how people will
respond to the structure of an incentive system when
the proper psychological conditions were in place
(Cammann and Lawler, 1973). The first group was
happy with their supervisor , the group they worked
with, and the incentive. The second was not happy with
their supervisor or the group they worked in, or the
incentive (Cammann and Lawler, 1973).

8.  The last study was done
on incentives along with
the level of stress people
are undergoing in their
jobs. An overall evaluation
through observation was
done to complete this
study. They were able to
determine that the levels of
motivation were down
based on stress even with
incentives in place (Martin,
2009).

9. Cammann, C. & Lawler, E.E., (1973). Employee Reactions to a Pay Incentive Plan. Journal of
Applied Psychology. 58(2), 263-172
Culig, K.M, & Dickinson, A.m., & Huitema, B.E., & McGee, H.M. (2006). The Effects of
Individual and Group Monetary Incentives on High Performance. Performance Improvement
Quarterly, 19(4), 107-130
Fritz, C., & Ohly, S. (2007). Challenging the status quo: What motivates proactive behavior?.
Journal of Occupational & Organizational Psychology, 80(4), 623-629.
Greene, C.N & Podasakoff, P.M. (1981). Effects of Withdrawal of a Performance-Contingent
Reward on Supervisory Influence and Power. Academy of Management Journal. 24(3), 206-210
Henderson, R., & Kaplan, S. (2005). Inertia and Incentives: Bridging Organizational Economics
and Organizational Theory. Organizational Science, 16(5), 509-521
Kyriakidou, O., & Mardoudas, L., & Vacharis, A. (2008). Employees’ motivation in the luxury
Hotel industry; the perceived effectiveness of human resource practices. Managing
Leisure. 13(3/4), 258-14.
Martin, A.J. (2009). Motivation and Engagement in the Workplace: Examining a
Multidimensional Framework and Instrument Form a Measurement and Evaluation
Perspective. American Counseling Association. 41, 223-243.
Russell, J.D. (2009). Achieving High Performance: A Research-Based Practical Approach:
Performance Improvement. 48(1), 45-47.
Strickler, J. (2006). What Really Motivates People?. The Journal For Quality & Participation,
29(1), 26-28.
Turnage, J.J & Muchinsky, P.M. (1976). The Effects of Reward Contingency and Participative
Decision Making on Intrinsically and Extrinsically Motivating Tasks. Academy of
Management Journal. 19(3), 482-489.