Sunday, 8 May 2011

Blog 2 - Improving staff performance

There are two different types of theories relating to motivation, process theories and content theories. The difference between the two is that content theories attempt to explain those specific things that actually motivate the individual at work. These theories are concerned with identifying people’s needs and their relative strengths, and the goals they pursue in order to satisfy their needs. These place emphasis on the nature of needs and what motivates. While process theories attempt to identify the relationship among the dynamic variables that make up motivation. These theories are concerned more with how behaviour is initiated, directed and sustained. These place emphasis on the actual process of motivation.
Wembley stadium was rebuilt in 2007 to replace the old stadium. It is the home of the England football team but does offer more events such as concerts. It holds 90000 people and is the second largest stadium in Europe. Wembley stadium offer a variety of motivational techniques in the form of incentives and training programmes. One of the main benefits of working for Wembley is that they are always running incentives to win free tickets to the football games. Often it is how many tickets can be sold for the stadium tour or selling a specific item that is on promotional offer. This is a very good incentive as it offers the chance for everyone to participate and have a chance of winning the tickets. Other incentives are that all staff get a 25% discount on all club Wembley items including football shirts and merchandise. Wembley are very good at motivating their staff and also have small incentives running everyday so there is always something to work towards, such as getting paid lunch break or the option of leaving one hour early. These techniques that are used by Wembley enable the staff to have something to work towards and increase morale and atmosphere within the staff.
One process theory that I believe to be relevant and important would be the goal-setting theory. Goal-setting theory was researched by Dr Edwin Locke in the late 1960’s. Goals or intentions motivate workers to meet higher performance levels. Employees are more likely to target reachable goals, but allowing them to take part in goal setting can increase their commitment to even those goals that are more difficult to attain. He found that specific and difficult goals led to better task performance than vague or easy goals. Locke believes that people’s intentions or goals play an important part in determining behaviour; people often strive to achieve goals in order to satisfy their emotions and desires. Locke subsequently pointed out that ‘goal-setting is more appropriately viewed as a motivational technique rather than as a formal theory of motivation. I believe that this is important within the workplace as employees feel more motivated when they have something to aim for, so they are working towards something. The schemes Wembley carry out are similar to Locke’s goal-setting theory as all the incentives allow the employee to aim towards a goal. The goals that are set must be SMART goals, this stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time bound. This allows the goal to be achievable and if a goal is set following this outline then it is more likely that it will be reached. Although management have to set a goal that is reachable and a challenge as there is no point setting a goal that is easily attained.
Process theories help to provide an understanding relating to motivation within the workplace. There are other process theories which are important to consider when looking at motivation, these are; Adams equity theory and Victor Vrooms Expectancy theory. Looking at the research into Wembley stadium and the way in which they motivate their staff it can be seen that they use a variety of incentives to cater to each staffs needs and offers something to work towards. These allow their staff to work effectively and to the best of their abilities at all times. Lockes goal setting theory is what I believed to be the most appropriate as nearly all techniques used by Wembley are goal orientated and offer the employee something extra in return for their hard work and loyalty.

References
Mitchell,T and Larson,J.(1987) People in organisations: An introduction to organizational behaviour.3rd ed. Singapore: McGrow-Hill Book Co (pg 165 – locke)
Mullins, L. (2010) Management and organisational behaviour.9th ed. Essex: Pearson Education Limited.

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