Financial and Non-Financial Methods of Motivation - Essay Example

The paper "Financial and Non-Financial Methods of Motivation" is an outstanding example of an essay on finance and accounting. For centuries, companies have been using financial incentives to motivate employees. This method is still practiced and has proved its worth over the years; however, time never remains the same. The shape and operational style of organizations are changing. Corporate heads have started to realize that financial motivators are not that productive when the company is project-oriented and achieves its short term goals through group work. Individual financial incentives can be counterproductive in group work. In these fierce times of financial competition, it may be hard for the organization to spare extra cash for incentives. It is important to identify those tools that corporates can use to motivate employees and don’t involve finances.

A fair wage for a fair day’s work is sufficient for employees to have an interest in their work. Holidays, breaks and chances of promotions can help motivate employees. Putting in more money to squeeze their greed juice won’t be helpful. This scenario can be explained through simple logic. Humans can never become robots. Non-financial motivators have their roots of reason in the logic that money can never be the only fuel to keep employees working. They need other incentives too that can include relaxing.

Corporates need to make sure that all processes must be considered in making the product. It means that the workers will contribute and they will be aware of their contribution. This gives the employees a sense of achievement, and accomplishment that makes them more loyal to the company.  This is called the principle of closure (Chambers & Gray, 2008).

It might appear hard to believe but another motivational factor is the sense of responsibility itself. Employees knowing that they are responsible for their quality of work and no one is sitting at the end to check the quality, gives them a sense of responsibility as well as authority. They will acknowledge that they are in charge and they need to make it work to the end. It’s like a small stake that every individual has in the company. Monotony can be the biggest hurdle in creating employee’s interest in work and the cure is to kill it. Adding variety to the tasks can be a very rewarding experience. Variety is very motivational, and to achieve this, job rotation and re-scheduling can be very helpful. Task variety, when fused with self-regulation, can be an exceptionally rewarding motivational factor.  Employees should have some form of freedom over their job, this could mean giving them the freedom to pace their work as they please or giving them the liberty to take brakes when they feel like and not on a scheduled basis.     

However, on the other hand, financial motivators can also be very beneficial. The logic behind this notion is that workers see work as a means to an end which is their paycheck. If they get more of it, they will work more (as explained above, this is not always true). Many scientific theories support financial motivators. Financial rewards no matter how rewarding can sometimes prove counterproductive. For instance, when it comes to wages, employees get paid for ‘day’s work’ when in fact they are mostly idle after 3 pm. Some organizations have taken care of this system flaw by shifting to an ‘annualized work hours’ system. So employees get paid for the number of hours they work.

In this case, it can be very beneficial to offer financial rewards to employees. The organization gets more hours worked and employees get extra money for it. This financial attraction can also be offered in piece rates where a commission is tied in every product produced. A more practical approach towards ‘motivators’ can be offering a choice to employees, a choice between financial or no financial motivators. For instance, if an employee is more interested in having time off from work (vacations) rather than a bonus, it would be unjust to hold them for additional work.

The purpose of a reward system is to support the achievement of corporate objectives by motivating people to become part of the organization (Armstrong, 2002). Financial motivators don’t always come in the form of handing cash to employees, fringe benefits can also be a great way to motivate employees. The great thing about them is they are tax-free and can be a better substitute for cash (paying for medical expenses of an employee when they’re going under a surgery would mean a lot to employees).