X began his engineering apprenticeship with CM8 manufacturing ten years ago before moving abroad to work for other companies. He has now returned to work for CM8 as Operations Manager of one of its factories. He is now reflecting with his mentor on his first week in post.
Much has changed since X last worked for the company. The company has grown significantly and now has many more factories. The mass production techniques he once remembered have now been replaced by lean operations and cellular manufacturing. The workplace itself is uncluttered and clean and has been redesigned so that machines are grouped according to what is being produced. Multi-skilled workers are formed into semi-autonomous modular work teams to manufacture complete products or complex components.
Explain how the thinking of either Maslow or Herzberg relates to CM8's modular teams.
The study of motivation is difficult, not least because it involves behaviours, individuals and internal processes. As a consequence, there are several different, sometimes competing, theories associated with motivation. So-called 'content theories' of motivation is a group of theories that attempts to explain and categorise the needs that influence behaviour. Amongst these theories are, famously, Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of requires and Frederick Herzberg's Dual Factor theory.