You meet a group of people one day at a local park and start chatting with them about their work. It turns out that they all work for the same insurance company. When you ask them about how long they have been with the company, many of them say “too long” and that they would leave but they need the money, there are few other jobs available right now, and the location is rather convenient. It seems most of the employees don’t really like the company all that much and don’t really feel that the company has done all that much for them (the company is just focused on profit!). The employees also tell you that they don’t see any real reason to work really hard in their jobs because their manager sets very high standards to get any real rewards (raises, promotions). Despite what the manager says, oftentimes, rewards are just based on favoritism anyway (whomever the boss likes the most gets raises and promotions), so it does not even really matter how hard one works. In fact, you can work much harder and have more experience than your coworkers and end up being paid the same, so why bother! Indeed, many employees who realize this just work slower and put in less energy. The company also does not seem very open to the idea of letting employees work from home, even though the employees do not really need to be at the workplace to get their jobs done and they would prefer working from home at least part of the time.
a. Would you say that these employees are committed to their organization? How do you know? Be sure to tie in specific course content. (2 marks)
b.Use two specific motivation theories from Chapter 5 to highlight why motivation might be lacking in these employees (make sure to tie your discussion to the specific details in the scenario above). For each theory, you discuss, provide a clear and concrete suggestion for how a manager might improve motivation according to the theory (and be sure to link the suggestion back to the theory). (6 marks total)
Sample Solution