Assignment
Read the Harvard Business Review article "How an Accounting Firm Convinced Its Employees They Could Change the World" How an Accounting Firm Convinced Its Employees They Could Change the World (hbr org) where KPMG (website: re:Work - KPMG: Motivating Employees Through a Deeper Sense of Purpose)
Select a company of your choice and analyze the company's practices in the undermentioned areas, identify the issues and problems in each area, and give report covering:
I. A brief overview of the company, its vision, mission and values, products, location, organizational objectives, performance motivations such bonuses, perks, increment, etc.
II. The challenges and benefits the company is facing with executive training program. Executive training is "a one-on-one development process formally contracted between a coach and a management-level client to help achieve goals related to professional development and/or business performance."
III. Suppose department heads are asked to apply the best practices of both the expectancy theory and the goal theory to improve the performance of his team. What options would department heads have in this regard? See the note below.
IV. What are the conclusions of these motivational activities on the company and eye openers of these trainings and how these made a difference on everyone's livese) Recommendations for improvement in each of the above areas, applying the learnings, concepts, processes, and practices taught in the course specifically to the company.
Task
Leadership skills and behaviors associated with expectancy theory:
I. Determine what levels and kinds of performance are needed to achieve organizational goals. Motivating others proceeds best when workers have a clear understanding of what needs to be accomplished. At the same time, a leader should make sure that the desired levels of performance are possible. For example, sales quotas might be set too high because the market is already saturated with a particular product or service.
II. Make the performance level attainable by the individuals being motivated. If the group members believe that they are being asked to perform extraordinarily difficult tasks, most of them will suffer from low motivation. A task must generally be perceived as attainable to be motivational.
III. Train and encourage people. Leaders should give group members the necessary training and encouragement to be confident they can perform the required task. Some group members who appear to be poorly motivated simply lack the right skills and self-confidence.
IV. Make explicit the link between rewards and performance. Group members should be reassured that if they perform the job to standard, they will receive the promised reward.
V. Make sure the rewards are large enough. Some rewards that are the right kind fail to motivate people because they are not in the right amount. The promise of a large salary increase might be motivational, but a 1 percent increase will probably have little motivational thrust for most workers.
VI. Analyze what factors work in opposition to the effectiveness of the reward. Conflicts between the leader's package of rewards and other influences in the work group may require the leader to modify the reward. For example, if the work group favors the status quo, a large reward may be required to encourage innovative thinking
VII. Explain the meaning and implications of second-level outcomes. It is helpful for employees to understand the value of certain outcomes, such as receiving a favorable performance evaluation. (For example, it could lead to a salary increase, assignment to a high-status task force, or promotion.)
VIII. Understand individual differences in valences. To motivate group members effectively, leaders must recognize individual differences or preferences for rewards.