Various applications of psychological principles to people working in business and industry make it easier to understand the scope of the typical activities of the industrial psychologists working in different industries nowadays. Industrial Relations which is a sub field of industrial organisational psychology, mainly deals with the prevention and settlement of disputes and negotiations of the agreements between the employers and the employees.
Motivating Workers in Industrial Sectors:
Motivating people to work is one of the most crucial problems of Industrial Psychology. Motivation to work is influenced by numerous factors in the work situation. However, by the proper study and control of these factors it is not difficult to motivate people.
Why is Motivation so important?
Motivation to work is a human state where competence to work and will of working fuse together. Both the factors are complementary to each other hence in the absence of one the other doesn’t produce results. Motivation assessment test is the ultimate test of effectiveness of industrial and business organisations. One of the reasons is because it directly relates to the results achieved. It provides an optimum use of human resources in an organisation through the involvement of employees and determines the performance of the unit organisation.
Work motivation of employees in any organisation, ultimately determines the state of the national economy because it is an aggregate of unit organisational performances which determine the national economy. Work motivation today is a major concern of management of any enterprise, as without employee motivation other resources (time, material, and finance) would become sterile.
Internal vs.External Motivation:
External incentives such as pay, praise, and reprimands in various forms are frequently offered to the employees by employers. But such external motivation stimulated by the external incentives is less successful than internal incentives. External motivation is effective only, if it corresponds to the internal needs of the person. However internal motivation comes from the social and psychological or ego needs of the person. That status and prestige attached to the job, self-respect, a sense of accomplishment in doing a job well enough, the sense of belongingness, with the work group or the organisation are some instances of internal motivation.
However whether the incentives offered by an industry will be effective or not depends more on the internal state of the employee:
- Level of aspiration
- Role perception
- Nature of interaction with the other people
- Perception of environment in which he is operating.
- Relationship in the domain of operation.
- Work group in the business territory.
Motivational Strategy for Managers and Supervisors:
A sound motivational strategy in the organisational context must serve two major objectives simultaneously.
- Achieving organisational results.
- Deriving overall employee satisfaction within its limits.
A complete understanding of human behaviour, the employees’ needs and expectations; and also their tendencies of approaching and avoidance towards the need satisfaction and deprivation are useful, in formulating a supervisory or managerial strategy for employee motivation.
Employee motivation in organisation is necessary derived through the managerial process of understanding, leading, directing, guiding, and controlling the expectations of the employees and matching mutually recognised and accepted expectations with suitable incentives.