Motivation in Organization Behavior

1.0 Background

Organization Behavior is a research for the individuals or groups and organizations for the purpose to improve an organization effectiveness. Organization Behavior is a way for company to improve their interpersonal skills, developing managers had to have interpersonal skills to attract and keep high performances employees, highly efficient and skills employees has become a scarcity for every companies. Organization Behavior is also a guide for the company to build their image.

2.0 Motivation

In Organization Behavior, to maximize the employees job effort, motivation is one of the things that can maximize their job effort. Motivation is the process that account for an individual’s intensity, direction, and persistence of effort toward attaining a goal. Basically, motivation is an encouragement that makes the employees able to work without any complain but have a competitive mindset between employees to achieve the goals.

Let’s take a case for an example, Google the one company that have their employees have the most privilege. The employee can enjoy the nice office designs, laissez-faire working environment and being a part of the google community. They also have the freedom to use the assets available in the company such as vehicles, gym and other entertainment products. The best part is that they have a cafeteria which usually consider as heaven, the foods are prepared by the gourmet chef, most importantly it is free of charge. (2016, Ayrton Braga)

When individual felt motivated, he will have job satisfaction. A motivation driven employee will achieve more than employees that are not motivation driven. Motivation will help a lot of individual to train their self-development, through motivation, individuals can achieve their personal goals, motivation can be happened when everyone in the team have a dedicated mindset.

3.0 Maslow Hierarchy of Needs

There is one needs that can help the employees to get their max satisfaction. The theory is called Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a well-known theory of motivation, there are five needs that every human able to have and these are Physiological needs, Safety Needs, Social Needs, Love and Belongings, Esteem and Self-actualization. The needs are separated into higher and lower orders, as need becomes substantially satisfied, the next need becomes dominant. In conclusion, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a need of motivation that can drive employees to the maximum job effect.

Let’s take AirAsia as an example for the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, the benefits that the AirAsia provide for the employees are, 5-day work week, Career Progression, Performance Bonus, Loyalty Service Award, Exam Leave, Hospitalization and Surgical Expenses, Insurance (Accident and Life Coverage), Food and drink subsidies. These benefits that AirAsia had fulfilled are physiological needs and safety needs, the company did provide their staff food and drink subsidies and provide a lot of hospitalizations and surgical expenses.

The limitation of this theory is that all the employees must follow the same order of the needs, the needs cannot be change once the company had set the hierarchy. This will make some of the employees feel uncomfortable when they prioritize the self-actualization needs more than the social needs, different culture employees will have different kind of prioritize in needs. In Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, the theory itself makes a great amount of sense from an intuitive perspective, but there is only a very little evidence to fully support its hierarchical phase. For an example, the idea of self-actualization is when the person achieved full potential, the level of hierarchy reaches its highest. This may not be apply on all of the people.

4.0 Hertzberg Theory

There is another theory of motivation and that’s called Hertzberg Theory, the Two-Factor Theory. This theory is developed by Frederick Hertzberg when he investigated the purpose of people having their jobs, the theory had concluded as advancement, recognition, responsibility, and achievement seem to be related to job satisfaction. Dissatisfied respondents tended to cite extrinsic factors, such as supervision, pay, company policies, and working conditions.

Moreover, the opposite of satisfaction is not dissatisfaction. Removing dissatisfying characteristics from a job does not necessarily make the job satisfying. Job satisfaction factors are separate and distinct from job dissatisfaction factors.

There are also some limitations upon the Two-Factor Theory, the theory only relied on self-report which when the employees do not have a consistent discipline on oneself, they will not have a mess up employees in their company. And one of the limitations is that no overall measure of satisfaction was utilized, the employees will not free from prejudice as the employees will have just give dissatisfaction on the external factors that have to pay to use and the policies, Similarly, the employees will give credits to themselves for the work.

5.0 Implication to employees and organizations

Employees that have a privilege usually will have more discipline to their own working style, these kinds of employees usually love their job very much and will be more loyal to the company. Having a culture freedom and joy in the working environment will also make the company grow faster. For an example, SAYS a company that rewarded as the fastest growing social news site, have employees that shares a same mission and they have a freedom to speak up their ideas and imagination in order to find out the best one. (2015, Mei Mei Chu)

Usually having a freedom during work are called as laissez-faire, a company that have a laissez-faire working condition are usually a company that require creative mind to do the project. Company that must have zero mistake cannot have a laissez-faire working conditions as the job must be done accurately. If having a laissez-faire in a company that produce supplements, the worker will likely make mistake and such a small mistake made by the worker will have cause a big disaster, if worst the company will lose their images and will go bankrupt.

5.0 Conclusion

In conclusion there are two theories that can help to motivate the employees, and these are the Maslow’s Hierarchy Needs and the Hertzberg Theory known as the Two-Factor Theory. In my opinion, these two theories can be good for certain company, company that is mainly focus on creative will suitable for Two-Factor Theory while the company that is focus on business will suitable for Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Of course, these two theories will have their limitation and advantages, if the company can apply these theories well on the employees, the company itself will become better and better.


  1. Ayrton Braga, Thursday May 19 2016, Founder’s Guide
  2. Mei Mei Chu, 01 May 2015, Lifestyle

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