The emphasis on employee motivation has grown exponentially in the recent past with researchers establishing that motivated employees are more engaged in their work and are more committed to their organizations (Vance, 2006). When researchers such as Ryan & Deci (2000) established that employee motivation takes the general form of Intrinsic motivation and Extrinsic motivation, they went on to argue that the performance of an employee who is intrinsically motivated is different to one that is extrinsically motivated. More recently, researches such as George & Jones (2012) claimed that intrinsic and extrinsic motivation are not contradictory since an employee can be both intrinsically and extrinsically motivated at the same time.
The most elementary differences between the two general forms of motivation is that intrinsic motivation refers to doing something purely because that activity is fundamentally enjoyable, interesting and pleasurable. On the other hand, extrinsic motivation refers to doing an activity because it results in a distinguishable outcome (DeCenzo et al., 2016). On the same lines, Ryan & Deci (2000) goes on to establish that doing something because it leads to a separable outcome can be referred to as extrinsic motivation while Giancola (2014) argues that extrinsic motivation is linked to external results of carrying out a task, such as financial rewards and incentives, rather than the pleasure or satisfaction one gets from performing the task.
Despite the cruciality and the importance of intrinsic motivation, is should be noted that most activities individuals engage in are not essentially intrinsically motivated. As the freedom to be intrinsically motivated declines after childhood due to social and other demands, individuals focus on roles that are more extrinsically motivated. This is evident in schools where it appears that the levels of intrinsic motivation in students decline with each advancing grade (Ryan & Deci, 2000).
For an example, if a student forces himself to submit an assignment before the deadline only because he can then avoid the penalty that is brought about by not doing so, can be considered as extrinsically motivated since he is submitting the assignment on time to gain the consequence of avoiding the penalty. Alternatively, if an employee puts in extra hours at work everyday and never calls in sick in an effort to please his superiors and ensure a raise or a promotion, can also be considered as extrinsically motivated since he does this purely to achieve the distinguishable outcome of getting a raise or a promotion and not to gain pleasure or satisfaction doing it.
In a nutshell, we must keep in mind that employees can be either intrinsically motivated or extrinsically motivated or even parallelly both. Employees who are intrinsically motivated tend to value challenges at work, making contributions to important decisions at the workplace and realizing their full potential at their jobs while extrinsically motivated employees tend to value things like earning a good salary, getting promoted and having a high status in society. In this context we must bear in mind that a workplace consists of both these types of employees and motivating them effectively according to their orientation falls on the organisation and its management (George & Jones, 2012).
In the next post we take a closer look at the theories of motivation.
References
• DeCenzo, D.A., Robbins, S.P. & Verhulst, S.L. (2016) Fundamentals of human resource management. John Wiley & Sons.
• George, J. M. & Jones, G. R. (2012) Understanding and Managing Organizational Behaviour, 6th ed, Reading, MA: Prentice Hall, pp.159-60.
• Giancola, F. L. (2014) Should HR Professionals Devote More Time to Intrinsic Rewards? Compensation & Benefits Review, 46(1), pp.25-31.
• Ryan, R.M. & Deci, E.L. (2000) Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations: Classic definitions and new directions. Contemporary educational psychology, 25(1), Academic Press, pp.54-67.
• Vance, R. J. (2006) Employee Engagement and Commitment - A guide to understanding, measuring and increasing engagement in your organization. SHRM Foundation, 1, p.1.