Motivation is an inner state that causes individuals to act in certain ways that ensure the accomplishment of a goal. Doria Camaraza seems to have a thorough understanding of the motivation process. She focuses on influencing the behavior of her employees in order to enhance the success of the World Service Center at American Express. Camaraza encourages employees to be enthusiastic and committed to extraordinary customer service. Her focus on motivation is as valuable a tool in maintaining American Express’s image as is a premium credit card.

To motivate employees at American Express, Camaraza must keep five principles of human motivation clearly in mind: (1) Felt needs cause behavior aimed at reducing those needs. (2) The degree of desire to perform a particular behavior is determined by an individual’s perceived value of the result of performing the behavior and the perceived probability that the behavior will cause the result to materialize. (3) The perceived value of the reward for a particular behavior is determined by both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards that result in need satisfaction when the behavior is accomplished. (4) Individuals can effectively accomplish a task only if they understand what the task requires and have the ability to perform the task. (5) The perceived fairness of a reward influences the degree of satisfaction generated when the reward is received.

Doria Camaraza undoubtedly understands the basic motivation principle that felt needs cause behavior. Before managers can have maximum impact on employees’ motivation, they must meet the more complex challenge of being thoroughly familiar with the various individual human needs of their employees. According to Maslow, people generally possess physiological needs, security needs, social needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs arranged in a hierarchy of importance. Argyris suggests that as people mature, they have increasing needs for activity, independence, flexibility, deeper interests, analyses of longer-time perspectives, a position of equality with other mature individuals, and control over personal destinies. McClelland believes that the need for achievement—the desire to do something better or more efficiently than it has been done before—is a powerful human need. At American Express, compensation and benefits can enable employees to meet their physiological and security needs as well as their needs for independence. The focus on customer service, including the Tribute events, can target social and esteem needs and can even contribute to a sense of achievement. American Express’s diversity policies can satisfy esteem needs and address the desire for a position of equality.

Once a manager understands that felt needs cause behavior and is aware of people’s different types of needs, he or she is ready to apply this information to motivating employees. From Camaraza’s viewpoint, motivating employees means furnishing them with opportunities to satisfy their human needs by performing their jobs. This notion is especially important because successful motivation tends to increase employee productivity. If Camaraza does not furnish her employees with opportunities to satisfy their human needs while working, low morale will probably eventually develop. Signs of this low morale might be only a few employees initiating creative approaches to customer service, people avoiding the confrontation of tough situations, and employees resisting innovation.

What does the preceding information recommend that Camaraza actually do to motivate employees? One approach, which Camaraza already uses, is to take time to communicate with her workers. Manager–employee communication can help satisfy employee needs for recognition, belonging, and security. Another of Camaraza’s strategies might be based on McGregor’s Theory X–Theory Y concept. In following this concept, Camaraza should assume that work is as natural as play; that employees can be self-directed in accomplishing goals; that granting rewards encourages the achievement of objectives; that employees seek and accept responsibility; and that most employees are creative, ingenious, and imaginative. By adopting these assumptions, Camaraza can be more inclined to allow employees more freedom in the workplace and thereby open up many opportunities for employees to satisfy many of the needs defined by Maslow, Argyris, and McClelland.

Doria Camaraza could use two major job design strategies to motivate her employees at American Express. With job enrichment, Camaraza can incorporate into jobs motivating factors such as opportunities for achievement, recognition, and personal growth. Giving employees the latitude to go beyond standard procedures in resolving customer problems, and then publicly acknowledging their successes, is one way that Camaraza enriches jobs at the call center. However, for maximum success, employees need to have positive attitudes toward the hygiene factors at American Express, including company policy and administration, supervision, salary, and working conditions.

The second job design strategy that Camaraza can—and does—use to motivate her employees is flextime. With flextime, American Express employees have some freedom in scheduling the beginning and ending of their workdays. However, flextime may be limited by organizational factors such as the urgency of a particular project or the availability of employees at times when customers are calling.

Doria Camaraza can apply behavior modification to her situation at American Express by rewarding appropriate employee behavior and punishing inappropriate employee behavior. Punishment has to be used carefully, however. If used continually, the working relationship between Camaraza and her employees could be destroyed. For the behavior modification program to succeed, Camaraza has to furnish employees with feedback on which behaviors are appropriate and which are inappropriate, give workers different rewards depending on the quality of their performance, tell workers what they are doing wrong, punish workers only in private, and consistently give rewards and punishments when earned.

To use Likert’s system 4 management style to motivate employees over the long term, Camaraza has to demonstrate complete confidence in her workers and encourage them to feel completely free to discuss problems with her. In addition, communication among the managers and employees at the World Service Center has to flow freely in all directions within the organizational structure, with upward communication discussed candidly. Camaraza’s decision-making process under system 4 has to involve many employees. Camaraza can use the principle of supportive relationships as the basis for her system 4 management style.

No single strategy mentioned in this chapter for motivating organization members will necessarily be more valuable to managers such as Camaraza than any of the other mentioned strategies. In reality, Camaraza will probably find that a combination of all of these strategies is most useful in motivating her employees to maintain American Express’s reputation as a top provider of high-quality customer service.