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"Organisations are concerned with the development of their employees, with self-reflection, personal and business-related skills being highly sought after capabilities. Discuss how organisations may ensure they attract and retain a highly motivated workforce with appropriate skills who are keen to engage in further development."

Different organisations operate in different markets, with different levels and types of skills required. However, all employees need incentives/motivation to complete the job to the best of their ability, and this is why it is important organisations ensure they retain a motivated workforce who are keen to further their development with the organisation.

"People are our most important asset", ... "All we have is our people", are statements we increasingly hear, and statements which are all too often unsubstantiated by reality... the actuality of organizational life is that they do not feel they are treated as the most important assets" (Gratton:2010). This therefore emphasizes the importance organisations have to place on motivating their workforce. "Work and private life in the new millennium will continue to revolve around the 12 human needs" (Farren:2000). The 12 human needs (Fig.1) underpin what motivates humans; these can be categorised into two simple divisions, intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation.

As explained by Mullins (2011), "extrinsic motivation is related to 'tangible' rewards such as salary, fringe benefits, security and working environment; such rewards are often out of the hands of line managers and are often determined by the Human Resource Department of the organisation. On the other hand, intrinsic motivation is related to the 'psychological' rewards such as the opportunity to use one's ability, a sense of challenge and achievement and receiving appreciation; this type of motivation is usually determined by the behaviour and actions of managers. For an organisation to retain a motivated workforce they must integrate intrinsic and extrinsic motivation techniques throughout the organisation, this is why organisations heavily rely on their HR department.

"Human resource management is the process of acquiring, training, appraising and compensating. The basic idea behind strategic HRM is simple: in formulating HRM policies and activates, the manger’s aim must be to produce the employee skills ... the company needs to achieve its strategic aims" (Dessler:2011). The role of the HR department is indispensible and central to the success of any organisation, without a HR department organisations would implode. I believe one of the key roles in any organisation is the HRM manager(s). "One of their many roles includes carrying out an innovative role, by providing up-to-date information on current trends for better utilizing the company's employees and motivating them to achieve the highest productivity" (Dessler:2011). The HR manager often is at the core of strategic decisions about how to best motivate employees, there are many content and process theories about how to best motivate employees as discussed by Mullins (2011).

"Content theories attempt to explain those specific thing that actually motivate the individual to work. These theories identify people's needs and places emphasis on the nature of needs and what motivates" (Mullins:2011). Maslow's hierarchy of needs model (1943) proposition is that people are wanting beings, they always want more, and what they want depends on what they already have (Maslow:1987) although it was never intended to be used in the workplace. Steers and Porter (1991) created an adaptation to the model that lists general rewards and organisational factors used to satisfy different needs. Figure 2 illustrates how Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is often represented as a pyramid, with the lower levels representing the more fundamental needs, and the upper levels representing the growth/being needs, and ultimately the need for...
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