Page 54 - AIMA : Foundation Day Souvenir

Ariely’s research on organizational motivation rocked the management diaspora and paved the way for several management theories revolving around the ideas of intrinsic motivation at work. Ariely has argued that monetary benefits do not actually motivate employees in the long run; a sense of purpose, work autonomy, and optimum acknowledgments are the key forerunners for employees’ performance. The article put forth his intricate theories in a simple form, and if imbibed well, can help organisations understand the basic nuances underlying employee motivation.
Ariely’s genesis of organisational motivation
Dan Ariely’s prior inspiration to work in motivational theories dates back to his teenage years when he was horribly injured in an accident, wherein70percentofhisbodysuccumbedto third-degree burns. Consequently, the next few years of his life were spent in hospital beds with nurses trying their best to heal his wounds. Miraculously, Ariely survived the ordeal and attributes this period of pain and tribulations as his inspiration for his lifetime work on human behaviour and motivation. Finding meaning in tough times helped him sail through the agonising trauma of the psyche afflicted by the wounds of dismay. He has always emphasized the fact that human motivations are affected by several dynamic variables and one among them is whether we generate a sense of meaning in whatever we do or not. Research conducted by BetterUp labs in 2017 corroborates that employees’ motivation at work is directly proportional to them finding their work to be meaningful. (Reference- https://www.betterup. com/press/workers-value-meaningat-work- new-research-from-betterup-showsjust-how- much-theyre-willing-to-pay-for-it)
According to a poll conducted in 2019, involving more than 3,500 workers in the United States and the United Kingdom, meaningful work outranks income, bonuses, and other criteria in career relevance across all age groups. Meaningful work becomes increasingly essential to us as we age, concluded in a poll commissioned by a software company called Workhuman. Those who had a sense of significance and purpose
in their work were four times more likely to enjoy their work and live a productive life. (https://www.workhuman.com/press-releases/ meaningful-compensationemployee/)
Money is not always the best motivator, since it puts a monetary value on qualities like dedication, zeal, punctuality, politeness, and ambition which are not easily quantifiable. Good incentives, on the other hand, focus on acknowledgment and the development of relationships. People who are rewarded for quantifiable achievements are more likely to search for methods to accomplish the goal from various means which can be unscrupulous and dishonest; this is also one of the reasons that monetary rewards do not add much value to employee motivation after a certain point.
Ariely’s Four laws of Organisational Motivation
law 1: Meaningful work is the source of employee motivation
A. Generate a sense of meaning. Employees are more motivated when their work has meaning. Simply understanding that there is a sense of purpose in the work they do is enough to enhance employees’ productivity. The productivity boost is even greater when people find intrinsic enjoyment in their work, and they will continue to do that work even when monetary rewards have diminished.
B. Motivating an employee is hard, demotivating him/her is easy. People can be forced to do meaningless work or can have their existing work become meaningless when they are asked to dismantle it. When work is meaningless, the performance of people who enjoy the work is as low as that of people who do not. When projects are abandoned because they are no longer in a company’s best interests, its employees can lose motivation if they feel that their work on that project is viewed as meaningless by the management. The research by Ariely revealed that it is easier to destroy meaning for employees than it is to create it.
C. Accountable leaders. Many business leaders
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