Human Resource Performance Issues and Motivation

Human resource management and performance depends not only on the manager’s skill but the employees’ commitment level. Various motivational factors determine the level of work output from the employees. There are several factors, which are external to the workplace, but affect the workmanship of employees. Health, career, and finance are examples of such factors. This research paper discusses the financial factors that lead to poor human resource performance.

Financial satisfaction can be perceived as an individual’s contentment to their financial status. This evaluation is based on the net worth, living standards and the general cash management. A significant relation has been found to exist between an employee’s financial satisfaction or lack thereof and their commitment to the organization. Productivity at the workplace highly depends on how the employees perceive the pay rates to be. Conflict arises at the workplace when there is lack of financial satisfaction (Hayes and Nmeier, 2008).

Identifying individuals who are financially unsatisfied at the workplace is not a difficult task. This is because the work output reflects an employee’s attitude, behavior and performance level. It is evident that the least productive employees at the workplace have issues that hinder them from being fully productive. Employees who are uncomfortable with the numbers on their pay slips are the ones who are majorly affected. In most cases, they feel the pay they receive is not an equivalent measure of the job they do. Such discontentment is however not limited to junior employees only. There could also be employees at higher positions who have little or no difference in their remuneration.

Additionally, there are those whose financial issues arise from poor financial management skills and lack of financial discipline. Therefore, they are constantly wallowing in debts and loans. A financially dissatisfied employee will constantly be concerned about financial matters and how to best deal with them. These matters can metastasize into the workplace eventually affecting the employee’s output. Their concentration spans will be low and most of their attention will be drawn to personal financial matters which seem more urgent than the actual work.

Financial incentives to employees are one of the major promoters of productive, enthusiastic and self-driven workers. Productivity is the overall performance and effectiveness of the employees. Research conducted on the issue reveals that the level of productivity is largely determined by the financial satisfaction of the workers. Dissatisfied individuals have been known to portray a negative attitude towards the work they do. In the case of those who hold higher offices but get similar pay with the rest, they lack the incentive to strive and work harder. They consider it pointless to go the extra mile yet they still end up getting the same pay as the rest. Workers who take their financial problems to the workplace end up posting poor results and lower performances. This can lead to their demotion or sacking if the effects of their dissatisfaction are adverse (Baack, 2012).

Research has determined that most employees have a negative attitude towards their work. Furthermore, employees tend to resist supervision or neglect instructions given to them on how to fulfill the assigned tasks. In order to ensure that the employees perform optimally and produce quality goods or services, the managers need to ensure there is proper employee supervision at all times. Apart from supervision, the managers need to ensure that the employees are highly motivated. Highly motivated employees have high morale. This increases their performance as well as the quality of their output. Motivation is the driving force behind behaviors that are goal-oriented. Motivational forces can be cognitive, social, biological or emotional. Financial problems can drastically reduce the employee’s motivation and morale towards their work.

There are several theories of motivation that try to explain HR problems that arise as a result of employee’s finances. Additionally, they discuss the remedial measures that can be undertaken in order to ensure that the employees well motivated. These motivational theories include; the instinct theory of motivation, the incentive theory of motivation, the drive theory of motivation, the arousal theory of motivation and the humanistic theory of motivation. Each of these theories is individually limited when dealing with motivation. In order to benefit from them, researchers suggest borrowing the key ideas from each of them (Jackson, Schuler and Werner, 2011).

The instinct theory of motivation suggests that, people’s behaviors are motivated by the evolutionary process. It suggests that, people behave the way that they do because it is inherent in them to behave so. For employees, there are several instinctive behaviors that influence their finances. These include an attachment to material things, modesty and shame. Employees may be attached to material things and may end up making wrong financial decisions. They may end up taking loans that they cannot finance with their salaries. They, therefore, end up being frustrated and their potential at work may decline drastically (Jackson, Schuler and Werner, 2011).

From the incentive theory perspective, people get the motivation to carry out a particular task based on the expected external rewards. In the case of employees, they might be motivated to attend work as a result of pay that they expect to receive at the end of the month. However, in order to ensure that they are well motivated for long periods of time, the managers need to come up with several incentive programs. Managers can initiate incentive programs such as rewarding employees who have constant improvement in their performance. Additionally, the management could create a policy of adopting employee principles that are highly productive. This acts as an incentive to the employee as they feel they are actively engaged in the organization.

Financial tensions among the employees can cause employee morale and productivity to decline considerably. The drive theory of motivation suggests that people are pushed to act in a certain way in order to alleviate internal tensions. Employees may feel angry at the management for not recognizing the effort they have put into the organization. This anger, coupled with financial tensions, may result in low employee motivation and morale. According to the arousal theory of motivation, people are motivated to act in a particular way due to the level of arousal obtained from the activity. If employees feel that they are not properly remunerated, they tend to lose interest in the job and are less aroused by the idea of getting to work. In order to change this perspective, managers need to remunerate their employees competitively. This will ensure that the employees have a good financial standing and that they are able to focus on their tasks (Hayes and Ninemeier, 2008).

Conclusively this study shows that if the employees of an organization are given adequate financial education, then they will be able to realize financial satisfaction. This will in turn enable them to handle the tasks allocated to them at work. They will also be more satisfied and committed to their work.

References

Baack, D. (2012). Organizational Behavior. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.

Hayes, D. K., & Ninemeier, J. D. (2008). Human Resources Management in the Hospitality Industry. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Jackson, S. E., Schuler, R. S., & Werner, S. (2011). Managing Human Resources. Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.