Title: Employee Motivation – COVID Edition
Description: This presentation seeks to understand what it means to motivate employees of different backgrounds, work styles, and age groups during an uncertain time for the job market. The age of COVID-19 has demonstrated that the ability to work is and never has been guaranteed, and it is essential that managers are effectively able to better motivate employees to produce quality work regardless of the monumental shifts happening around us. This presentation will uncover the need for proper motivation, provide data to support how different groups of the workforce think, as well as dismantle some of the more fruitless efforts that companies have made to energize their employees and customers.
Bastons, Miquel, Mas, Marta, and Rey, Carlos. (2017). “Pro-stakeholders Motivation: Uncovering a New Source of Motivation for Business Companies.” Journal of Management & Organization 23.5. 621-32. Web.
- This article is focused on the three main types of motivation; extrinsic, intrinsic and prosocial motivation. These motivations are usually not used together but the article is trying to highlight how stakeholders and managers can use all three types of motivation at the same time to influence and motivate employees. It talks about how employees can gain motivation when they can see their work influencing both the stakeholders and company as whole.
- This article matters for our topic because it is an OB article and when we look at employees during the time of COVID it is important to talk about the different styles that can motivate employees. This will contribute to our project by giving us a great idea of how employees are motivated and what has changed due to COVID.
Chanana, N., Dr, & Sangeeta, Dr. (2020). Employee engagement practices during COVID-19 lockdown (J Public Affairs, Tech.).
https://onesearch.library.wwu.edu/permalink/f/1tp6vj8/TN_cdi_proquest_miscellaneous_2449992781
- In this paper, Dr. Chanana and Dr. Sangeeta use their research of various resources to look into the issue with maintaining employee engagement through the transition to working from home as we have seen during the COVID-19 pandemic. Both of these authors are assistant professors and researchers of organizational behavior and HR practices at universities in India. In their paper they discuss what being an engaged employee means and how managers can lead their employees so they may be engaged.
- They continue to address the effects that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on employees’ mental health and success at work. Lastly, they introduce authors and researchers who they have learned from and share what they suggest is important for keeping employees engaged. The most important factor for maintaining engagement among employees was suggested to be exceptional and personal leadership. They continued to use their research to suggest tips for managers to help their employees through struggles they may be facing due to the pandemic.
- One of the most important factors to employee engagement included management being empathetic and flexible towards the needs of their employees through these changing times. Keeping employees motivated and satisfied is another key factor to employee engagement. It was suggested that this could be encouraged by close communication, continued learning opportunities, webinars aimed at stress control, family engagement and online recognition.
EHRENBERG, M. (2020). The Great RESET: The new culture of work & work enablement. Facility Management Journal / FMJ, 30(6), 098-101.
- This source explains the great “reset” that companies have had to deal with during the covid-19 pandemic. Companies have made a digital transformation in the way they operate business. The work from home model has allowed flexibility for employees including, saving money, spending time at home with family and overall less stress from work.
- The positive experience from working at home has resulted in a potential new way of operating business once covid-19 is over, companies are considering using their central office building solely for meetings, events or team activities that would not be as effective online. These flex-work options are important for employee motivation because it provides employees with more freedom. These factors help employees feel more motivated to work for their company because of the trust and respect built between management and employees.
Rožman, M., Treven, S., & Čančer, V. (2017). Motivation and Satisfaction of Employees in the Workplace. Business Systems Research: International journal of the Society for Advancing Innovation and Research in Economy, 8(2), 14-25.
https://hrcak.srce.hr/ojs/index.php/bsr/article/view/12597/6211
- This source presents hard data connecting higher employee motivation with higher performance workplaces in Slovenia. It approaches this from an angle focused on age groups, and comes to the conclusion that older workers are more motivated by autonomy, equal treatment, and working at their own individual paces. Younger workers seem to be more motivated by higher salaries and opportunities for career advancement.
- Since the workforce is steadily growing older as more people put off retirement, this article is essential for understanding age diversity and how to motivate different age groups to provide similar outcomes.
Yang, J & Mundel, J. (2021, March 09). “Are We All in This Together?”: Brand Opportunism in COVID-19 Cause Related Marketing and the Moderating Role of Consumer Skepticism. Taylor & Francis Online. https://www-tandfonline-com.ezproxy.library.wwu.edu/doi/full/10.1080/10496491.2021.1888181
- This researched how people view some companies as too opportunistic during covid and become skeptical of the ‘we are here for you’ slogans. People began to think all that those companies wanted was money and did not actually care. Employees that work with those companies may also feel unmotivated and feel like the companies are not there for them because everyone is working from home.
- The resources the companies provide, most of them are no longer there because for those working from home. The research focuses more on how people in general react to the company’s message but it can also be applied to the employees. Even if the company says they are there for the employees, the employees might not feel the same way.
By: Arnav SenGupta, Jared Stiger, Angela Makarova, Luke Layton and Maddy Odell