One of the most widely mentioned theories of motivation is the Hierarchy of Needs Theory put forth by Abraham Maslow. Maslow saw human needs in a form of hierarchy, ascending from the lowest to the highest. Once one set of needs were satisfied, this kind of need ceases to be a motivator. Maslow’s Theories of needs are: Physiological needs: These are important needs, for human life food, water, warmth, sleep, education. Without these needs satisfied to a degree, no other motivating factors can work. Security: The needs to be free from physical danger, and fear of losing a job, property.
This also includes protection against emotional harm. Social needs: They need to be accepted by others. This would satisfy their need for affection, acceptance and friendship. Esteem needs: This need is to satisfy their need to belong this produces such satisfaction as, power, prestige status and self-confidence. It includes internal esteem factors like self-respect and achievements. Need for self-actualisation: Maslow regards this as the highest need in his hierarchy. It is the drive to become what one is capable of becoming.
To maximise ones potential and to accomplish something. hhttp://www. laynetworks. com/Theories-of-Motivation. html. (n. d. ). accessed 25th April 2010 Jeremy Bentham’s “The Carrot and the Stick Approach”: Possibly the essence of the traditional view of people at work can be best appreciated by a brief look at the work of this English philosopher, whose ideas were also developed in the early years of the Industrial Revolution, around 1800. Bentham’s view was that all people are self-interested and are motivated by the desire to avoid pain and find pleasure.
Any worker will work only if the reward is big enough, or the punishment sufficiently unpleasant. This view – the ‘carrot and stick’ approach – was built into the philosophies of the age and is still to be found, especially in the older, more traditional sectors of industry. The various leading theories of motivation and motivators seldom make reference to the carrot and the stick. This metaphor relates, of course, to the use of rewards and penalties in order to induce desired behaviour.
It comes from the old story that to make a donkey move, one must put a carrot in front of him or dab him with a stick from behind. Despite all the research on the theories of motivation, reward and punishment are still considered strong motivators. For centuries, however, they were too often thought of as the only forces that could motivate people. At the same time, in all theories of motivation, the inducements of some kind of ‘carrot’ are recognized. Often this is money in the form of pay or bonuses. Even though money is not the only motivating force, it has been and will continue to be an important one.
The trouble with the money ‘carrot’ approach is that too often everyone gets a carrot, regardless of performance through such practices as salary increase and promotion by seniority, automatic ‘merit’ increases, and executive bonuses not based on individual manager performance. It is as simple as this: If a person put a donkey in a pen full of carrots and then stood outside with a carrot, would the donkey be encouraged to come out of the pen? The ‘stick’, in the form of fear–fear of loss of job, loss of income, reduction of bonus, demotion, or some other penalty–has been and continues to be a strong motivator.
Yet it is admittedly not the best kind. It often gives rise to defensive or retaliatory behavior, such as union organization, poor-quality work, and executive indifference, failure of a manager to take any risks in decision making or even dishonesty. But fear of penalty cannot be overlooked. Whether managers are first-level supervisors or chief executives, the power of their position to give or with hold rewards or impose penalties of various kinds gives them an ability to control, to a very great extent, the economic and social well-being of their subordinates. http://www. aynetworks. com/Theories-of-Motivation. html. (n. d. ). accessed April 25th , 2010, At a simple level, people do things, such as go to work, in order to get stuff they want and to avoid stuff they don’t want. Overall the basic perspective on motivation looks something like this: Behavior Satisfaction Needs http://www. analytictech. com/mb021/motivation. htm. (n. d. ). Accessed April 25th 2010 Evaluating the strengths of motivation within my teaching role not only needs to be with the learners work in the training room but with the goals they have set for progression from training.
Finding the placement they need to support the pre-appretnicship they are doing. This then aids the knowledge and skills they already have learnt and expands them more, making their motivation a lot higher and seeing they can achieve this, makes them want more. Motivating the learners who are not so focused on what they would like to progress too, motivating them can be done by praising them for good work achieved within a session and to look on a one to one basis, where they would like to progress to and how to achieve it. This little process can really motivate a learner, who is otherwise unfocused.
Evaluating the limitations of motivation. Begins with looking at the learner’s progression goals and making sure they are not set too high and decide if they are set too high, encourage them to reduce them to increase their self confidence to achieve these. Ensuring goals are not set too high can result in a lack of self esteem and confidence, this would show when they felt they were not progressing as quickly as they would like. Learner’s who show a lack of motivation, encouragement and recognition when the work they have complete is to a standard of there current level and to increase the motivation look at rewarding them.
Reflect on Motivation A reflect of motivation within the training room would be a learner, who had not been on programme long, was asked if they had completed any Friday work. Friday work can be job search, taking work home that needs completing or being at a placement. This work is to be bought in on a Monday and the appropriate decision is made for attendance on that Friday. I asked the learner what Friday work had been done and the learner’s response to job search was ‘There is no jobs out there, so what is the point of looking. I explained that it is not easy to find a job within the current recession and they may not find jobs every week, but if they were actively looking, for example in the job centre, Thursday Job page in the news, various websites. Then they have a better chance of finding the employment they require. This changed the learner’s motivation for looking for a job. Another reflection on motivation within the training room was a learner who needed to update there CV, as being new to the programme had yet to create on and save it on there login. Was asked to do this, the response was ‘Oh can’t be bothered, why do I have to do this. To motivate the learner into doing this, I explained that once they had created there CV and it was on there login, if there were any jobs they wanted to apply for that needed a CV, they could apply for them straight away. Also if any updates were needed, this could also be done straight away. This then motivated the learner to create there CV. I agree that will all need some motivation in our lives to achieve the things we need. This also can motivate the learners to do the needed and mundane things to achieve jobs and the up skill of there qualifications.
