Motivation In The Workplace Research Paper

Great Essays
As defined by Merriam-Webster dictionary, motivation is “the act or process of giving someone a reason for doing something”. Simply put, motivation is what causes people to act. It is the driving force behind actions as simple as eating dinner, reading a book, or going for a run. Each different motivation example is extremely subjective, however. What motivates one person to go for a run may have zero correlation to what motivates their neighbor to go for a run. Because every single person is unique, motivation to act will vary from person to person and situation to situation. Motivation comes into play in all aspects of life; motivation in the workplace being a huge one. What motivates people to get a job? What motivates people to go to work? …show more content…
Because every single person is different, everyone works and reacts to things differently. Motivation is often based on values, and since each person has a different set of values, it is absolutely ineffective to generalize when attempting to motivate a group of people. Modern managers need to not only understand and recognize that everyone is different, but they must in turn personalize their methods of motivation. As the workplace gets more and more diverse, embracing individualism and differences in the work setting is necessary. Simply having a diverse company doesn’t mean much without figuring out how to embrace each every one’s differences and collaborate them all together. This starts with first knowing and understanding each person. How can managers expect to motivate their staff if they don’t first understand each person’s values and what’s important to them? It’s impossible to put together a puzzle without first identifying each individual piece.
Besides the difficulties that modern managers face due to increased diversity in the workplace, they also face more challenges because of the fast-pace of today’s changing world. The statement claims that “too many conflicting priorities at work, and too many distractions away from work are impacting this process in ways that are entirely new”. This statement is true; business managers from previous generations did not have to deal with this obstacle
…show more content…
Especially since the employees were opening fake accounts with no money in it, which doesn’t seem to benefit the bank much. Since Wells Fargo focuses on cross-selling, selling as many products as possible to existing customers is ideal. Because of this, each employee had a target of selling each customer at least eight products, which eventually increased to ten. This created a “high pressure sales culture” for the employees, considering the quotas were nearly impossible to reach (Gobry). As demonstrated in demotivation models, when someone faces a barrier to get to their goals, they often are led to frustration. In this case, the Wells Fargo employs hit barriers and couldn’t hit their expected quotas, so they resorted to frustration and cutting corners illegally to get the job done.
Managers at Wells Fargo could have prevented this demotivation in a number of different ways. They could have focused on recognition and rewards, and instead of setting a high expected quota, positively recognized workers who got above a certain mark. They could have also focused more on effective communications in order to ensure no fraud made it through the system. They also could have attempted to understand the individual’s perception of the situation better, understanding that employees could not meet their high

Related Documents

  • Great Essays

    Case of Eileen Foster v. BofA and Countrywide The story starts March 7, 2007. Eileen Foster was promoted to Executive Vice President, Fraud Risk Management while she was working for the Countrywide Financial Corp. This role requires our whistleblower to supervise and monitor internal bank processes and mortgage fraud investigations, if needed, organize and send conclusion in the form of suspicious activity report to the U.S. Treasury as well as the board of directors. During her time, she learned that Full Spectrum Lending Division (FSL) managers in the Boston area were subject to several fraud allegations, she directed an investigation into the matter, found conclusive evidence of “egregious fraud”, including document and invoice forgery,…

    • 1666 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the novel Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich, Barbara is an undercover journalist looking to write on how people in the lower class get by on minimum wage. She finds out through her journey, that most of them don’t. She has many different experiences, but she really evolves toward the end of her journey. She realises that the managers, and the bigger companies treat the employees like suspected criminals. I believe that this influences the employees morale negatively and therefore impacting their work negatively.…

    • 783 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    AT & T Case Summary

    • 496 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Article Title: AT&T Retention Practices Blasted by Longtime Employee Link: http://www.rcrwireless.com/20150914/carriers/whistleblower-calls-out-att-for-unethical-retention-practices-tag20 Summary: AT&T, an American Telecommunication Company, is under fire for a practicing unethical retention practices. In this article, a long time employee of 17 years called the company out for their retention methods. The company set up a system for the employee to get pinned on for all customers that they lose. Customer Representatives are constantly under pressure to meet their new quota. With these circumstances, the whistleblower stated that, “The only way to meet these numbers is to be a liar or a sleaze” (Jackson, 2015).…

    • 496 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Wells Fargo faces a civil lawsuit filed by Mike Feuer, Attorney of the city of Los Anglos. Wells Fargo is accused of unethical behavior by setting impartial sales targets for its employees. The company enforces quotes that were nearly impossible to meet which triggered unethical and fraudulent tactics. Under tremendous pressure due to impartial goals, Wells Fargo employees adopted fraudulent methods for meeting these goals. Investigation findings showed evidence of bankers opening unauthorized and unnecessary accounts, issuing unauthorized lines of credit and forging client’s signatures.…

    • 258 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    White collar crime can be described as illegal acts, performed by educated people, for personal or organizational gain resulting from deception (Ferrell, Fraedrich, & Ferrell, 2013). With the growth in technology and globalization, individuals often discover loop holes in order to achieve internet fraud, credit card fraud, and healthcare fraud, in addition to insider trading. In addition, good people can be influenced into making bad decisions by following leaders within their organization. Therefore, I believe that white collar crime, for the most part, is the result of a weak organizational code of ethics, providing that a code may exist but not necessarily followed.…

    • 812 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The author (2017) believes substantial piece of their compensation drove them to act unethically. When bankers were unable to sign different customers up for bank accounts or credit cards, they would target senior citizens, college students, and even illegal immigrants. They would have the clients open accounts up to use for their grocery shopping or gas. While…

    • 743 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Mr. Brian Ruvalcaba has been an employee at Las Casuelas Restaurant for two years and worked in the kitchen was a Kitchen Prep Cook, while he worked alongside with another Kitchen Prep Cook; Ms. Miramontes. He was not related to her and did not know of her before she was hired in August 2016, to help and assist him, as well the Chiefs who prepared the meals for their customers. Mr. Ruvalcaba found Ms. Miramontes followed direction and did what was asked of her when she performed her daily functions without being argumentative or debitive with him or with the Chief. The duties and tasks they were both assigned were 100% physical in nature, which required for them to perform on a regular basis. There functions and tasks they performed required the use of their fingers, hands, arms, back, shoulders, legs, and feet.…

    • 1001 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The Puzzle of Motivation presented by Dan Pink was very informational, as well as, inspiring. The way we conduct business in the 21st century is very different than the way it was practiced in the previous ones. However, with the constant shifts, the way leaders and organizations motivate and inspire employees has not. Motivation of employees is vital to the success of the employees, in addition to, the organization. The following essay will discuss and describe how Dan Pink’s theories of motivation relate to the people alignment aspect of change management.…

    • 1027 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Motivation is important for business because if an employee is not motivated, this might lead to an increase in absenteeism or even lower rates of labour One of the earliest theories of motivation was the theory of human relation management put forward by Elton Mayo (1930). This was based on the principle that workers would be more motivated and therefore perform better when working conditions and social needs are a key incentive. Mayo believed that having someone take an interest in another’s work, in itself, leads to better productivity. What he also believed in was that employees respond to changes in the working environment. The theory states that the workplace is a social system and that employees like to work in groups.…

    • 1803 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    So what exactly is ‘motivation’? - Well, motivation may be described as an internal process that makes a person move toward a specific goal. Motivation, like intelligence, can’t be directly observed. Instead, motivation can only be inferred by noting a person’s behaviour. Motivation can be described in many ways.…

    • 1537 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Case Analysis conducted on Wells Fargo’s Scandal. Akande, Sodiq. East Tennessee State University Case Analysis conducted on Wells Fargo’s Scandal.…

    • 2080 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In any organization, it is beneficial for the management team to understand what drives workers to perform to their utmost potential. These underlying forces which pushes people to strive and persevere can be defined as motivation. Each and every individual within an organization has different personal goals and desires that keep them going, in essence the performance of an employee is quite commonly affected a great deal through their motivation. It is due to this fact that often, management in organizations are constantly under pressure to keep members of their workforce motivated in order to maintain high productivity levels, thus resulting in the achievement of organizational goals. The aim of this paper is to explore and articulate the…

    • 1163 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The motivation bridges the gap between the ability to work and willingness to work and willingness always improves efficiency Employee motivation promotes workplace harmony. Workers who receive constant motivation from their employers tend to be happier and more focused. When workers constantly receive approval from their superiors, they in turn create strong bonds and good working relationships. These relationships go a long way and end up in prosperous businesses. To achieve success in a business, it is essential to maintain a positive attitude in business.…

    • 1698 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Unethical Productive Employee There are many companies that help to increase our money, but the problem is which companies can we trust. There are ways customers can lose their money and it is hard for them to lose their profits, so we have to study carefully before we invest in any company. However, there are ways some employees will use bribery to gain more profits and will give unethical advice or information about the business to close deals and sign contracts. Have you ever worked with an unethical productive employee when you are in a hurry? What should we do to reduce or terminate unethical productive employees?…

    • 776 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    MOTIVATING EMPLOYEES IN DIFFICULT ECONOMIC TIMES In hard economic times, many companies perceive it too difficult to motivate employees with little or no monetary incentives. After weeks of exhaustive research, Union University Consultants will answer the three of the most important questions about motivating employees. How does one motivate employees? What are other companies doing to motivate employees?…

    • 772 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays