First Level Leadership

Herzberg Questions, “… And What Salary Do You Ask to Stay Motivated?”

Herzberg says, “Pay yourself a Handsome Salary by Understanding the Hygiene Factors…

Does higher salary motivate?

Think of your last salary increase. Did your thoughts follow a sequence?

You were delighted to receive a raise >

Your level of motivation went up >

Time passed by and you became used to the bigger paycheck >

Your mind started to ponder over a higher salary>

The initial high was wearing away rapidly>

You began to speculate before the next salary review

However,

You finally worked out the revised figures that you thought you deserve. However, your actual salary by comparison now appeared very lean and you felt undervalued. Your motivation level dipped and you became less gratified with your lot.

But how much is enough?

The sixty four thousand dollar question - does higher salary motivate?

Certainly yes!

But…

Salary is therefore one of the motivators

but only in the short term. Frederick Herzberg, an American researcher put forward the “Hygiene Motivation Theory”. Herzberg believed that two entirely separate dimensions contribute to an employee’s behavior at work.

Herzberg proposed that

factors influencing commitment to work could be separated into two categories:

1) Dissatisfiers (Hygiene factors)

involves the presence or absence of job dissatisfiers such as working conditions, pay, company policies and interpersonal relationships. When hygiene factors are poor, work is dissatisfying.

However,

good hygiene factors simply remove the dissatisfaction. They do not cause people to be highly satisfied and motivated in their work.

2) Satisfiers (Motivators)

They influence job satisfaction. Motivators of high-level needs include achievement, recognition, responsibility, an opportunity for growth.

Herzberg believed that when motivators are absent,

workers are neutral towards work, but when motivators are present, workers are highly motivated and satisfied.

What is the significance of this theory for you?

Supplying hygiene factors will remove employee dissatisfaction but will not motivate workers to perform better.

In other words, the Hygiene factors could lead to a state of ‘no dissatisfaction,’ but they would not act as motivators.

Whereas focusing on the motivators like

recognition, challenge and opportunities will lead to superior performance and effort. Your function is to eliminate the dissatisfiers, and supply hygiene factors to meet the basic needs. This should be followed by the use of motivators to meet bigger needs, and push employees towards greater accomplishment.

Now coming back to our fundamental question –

Does salary motivate?

Herzberg placed money on both sides - as a hygiene factor and as a motivator. However, the most surprising factor is that salary after some time becomes just a hygiene factor, and therefore, would not act as a motivator.

In this theory pay has been displaced from its position

as a primary motivator, but many managers still believe salary to be the most important motivator.

In a nut shell

Inadequate salary will de-motivate, but does an increase in salary motivate?

Yes, but only in the short term before it becomes a Hygiene factor.

What does this translate into?

The understanding of human behavior is becoming essential rather than a useful extra. It is more and more evident that the specific motivating factor for one person may be utterly uninteresting to the other.

Yet experience shows

that relatively few managers seems to appreciate the significance of the concept of motivation which is different for different individuals - that is one size does not fit all.

And before I sign off,

I would like to sow the seeds for another concept. It is a known fact about human behavior that a person will continue to repeat a behavior which he perceives results in a condition he wants, and he will abandon a behavior which he perceives will result in undesirable conditions.

This fact has obvious implications for the manager

in the kind of work behavior he wants from people. Once you understand the concept of motivation, this can be taken into the next level, which is “Reward and Punishment.” We will discuss it in a different forum.

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