Essay on Expectancy Theory of Motivation

Running head: EXPECTANCY THEORY OF MOTIVATION Expectancy Theory of Motivation Expectancy Theory of Motivation Companies need to understand the practice of motivation for them to achieve full output from its employees which will lead to full output from the company. The expectancy theory of motivation proposed by Victor Vroom will help companies to understand how to achieve this motivation level. The theory of motivation states that employee’s motivation is the outcome of how much of individual wants a reward. The theory revolves around three distinct perceptions.
The first component of the theory is the Effort-performance relationship. The provability perceived by the individual that exerting a given amount of effort will lead to performance (Robbins & Judge, 2007, p. 208). The second component of this theory is Performance-reward relationship. The degree to which the individual believes that performing at a particular level will lead to the attainment of a desire outcome (Robbins & Judge, 2007, p. 208). The third component of this theory is Rewards-personal goals relationship.
The degree to which organizational rewards satisfy an individual’s personal goals or needs and the attractiveness of those potential rewards for the individual (Robbins & Judge, 2007, p. 208). The Expectancy Theory of Motivation had to very important beliefs that help complete the above model. The first belief is that Effort-to-performance expectancy is the individual’s awareness that effort will lead to above performance. The person will determine if the performance expected of them can be reached by an amount of effort within their ability.

If this person feels they can’t achieve this performance level within their abilities then the outcome to meet the goals will be low. This will cause the person motivation effort to be low. If the person feels that the performance level that is required of them is in reach of their abilities then they are likely put the extra effort in and be motivated. The second belief links performance to outcome through instrumentality. This is where a person is motivated when that person feels the performance is explicit and equal instrument to fulfill their personal outcome. Therefore a erson will be motivated if the person believes that meeting the performance of organization will bring their desired outcome. The other problem arises if the person does not feel their desired outcome will not be achieved then they may not put in any or very little effort to meet the performance of the organization and will they will not be motivated in the first place. The company management must set goals that can be attainable for the person to be motivated and succeed and benefit the person outcome. This can be achieved through a promotion, bonuses, and praise.
The company from the given scenario has set the goal to produce goods of extra quality and the company is expecting employees’ level to be very high. Few of the employees have been able to handle these new processes. Then we have learned that the expectancy relationship has been fulfilled and is working. The problem with the given scenario must line somewhere within the instrumentality relationship. The given scenario shows there is no salary difference between the workers who are good performers and the workers who are the bad performers.
One other point is that the bad performers bring penalties in their salary. The level of bonus that is offered for meeting the goal of the company is not high enough with the required effort according to the employees. Last thing about the scenario the amount of pay given for overtime is higher than the bonus given for performance and still overtime is created by because of the slow performance. The employees understand it is better to work slow and see better instrumentality then through fast work. Looking at the given scenario there has to be some items have to be addressed.
One item that needs to be addressed is the slow work with some of the employees must have strict salary penalties. The next item to be addressed is that with better performance the bonus levels need to be compensated higher. This will make the employees that are capable running processes put in place by the company put in more effort to reach the performance desired as they will desire the new bonus. The employees that are not capable will put more of an effort and be motivated to reach the same desired higher bonus and not see a penalty in salary.
The last item to be addressed is management should reorganize the operations so that the bonus pay is higher than the overtime work performed this way employees will not see the benefit of working the overtime as the performance bonus will be more desirable. We have shown the key features of the expectancy theory that was proposed by Victor Vroom which illustrated a scenario which we implemented corrective intervention to boost the efforts of employees. Reference Robbins, S. P. , ; Judge, T. A. (2007). Motivation Concepts. In (Ed. ), Organizational Behavior (pp. 208-214). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.