14 Motivation
Target Skill
Motivation Skill: the ability to create organizational situations in which individuals performing organizational activities are simultaneously satisfying personal needs and helping the organization attain its goals
Objectives
To help build my motivation skill, when studying this chapter, I will attempt to acquire:
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A useful definition of motivation
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Insights about the process theories of motivation
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Practical ideas related to the content theories of motivation
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An understanding of the importance of motivating organization members
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Insights about specific strategies for motivating organization members
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Challenge Case American Express Taps the Full Potential of Its Employees
American Express has an impressively low rate of employee turnover—7 percent among full-time employees and not much higher for part-timers. But the company doesn’t just keep employees on the payroll; it also gets them fully engaged in serving customers. Managers go out of their way to show employees that their work matters, to get them excited about their work, and to provide them with the training and resources they need to perform at a beneficial level.
To motivate employees, American Express holds meetings to celebrate employee success and offers benefits that reduce absenteeism and support diversity.
Ross Franklin/AP Images
For an example of the way American Express treats its employees, consider American Express’s World Service Center, a 3,000-employee call center located in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Employees there handle calls from customers with lost cards, billing questions, and problems related to their accounts. Within the industry, such call centers commonly have high turnover. In addition, many such call centers have developed reputations for poor customer service. However, the World Service Center’s employees have helped American Express earn the top J. D. Power & Associates score for customer satisfaction among credit card companies five years in a row.
The senior vice president and general manager of the World Service Center is Doria Camaraza, and she will do whatever it takes to get employees excited about their work. She even gets her team of executives to dance in front of all the employees once a month at the beginning of what she calls Tribute meetings. The Tribute meetings highlight the accomplishments of employees who have delivered exceptional service or reached milestones with the company. One by one, the honored employees sit next to Camaraza in her “Oprah chairs,” where she interviews them in front of everyone in order to share how they have lived out American Express’s values. The Tribute event wraps up with games and prizes that let employees cheer for their teammates.
At American Express, caring for employees extends to concern for their physical as well as their emotional health. The World Service Center includes a workout center that is staffed with trainers and stocked with weights and also offers fitness classes. Emergency child care is available on-site. According to Camaraza, the resulting decline in absenteeism paid for the cost of the child-care center in 15 months.
In addition, American Express’s commitment to a diverse workforce is reflected in its recognition as the Anita Borg Top Company for Technical Women and a ranking in the DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity. Reasons given for earning this recognition include the company’s highly flexible work schedules, its commitment to recruiting and developing female employees, and its wide variety of employee networks that support employee needs, focusing on the religious practices of Christians, Jews, and Muslims.
According to Lisa Telfer, director of business planning at the World Service Center, Camaraza “literally works at making people feel welcomed and wonderful.”1
The Motivation Challenge
Doria Camaraza, senior vice president of American Express, focuses on implementing programs that motivate employees. According to the Challenge Case, Camaraza motivates employees through Tribute meetings, benefits that fit employees’ needs, and rewards and feedback. Camaraza knows, however, that if she is to be successful in motivating employees, she must focus on people issues and satisfying changing employee needs. The material in this chapter provides insights into why managers such as Camaraza should focus on motivating workers and how managers might do so. Major topics in this chapter are (1) the motivation process and (2) motivating organization members.
To be successful in working with subordinates, managers need to acquire a thorough understanding of the motivation process. To that end, the definition of motivation, various motivation models, and theories of people’s needs are the main discussion topics in this section of the chapter.