PCL 4 Applied Motivators

 

PCL 4 Assignment

I am going to talk about a group that I regularly work with. My team has wonderful people. We all support each other well. This team is from the place that I work at. I work in the security department at a place where big events are held. My team consists of 5 to 6 people at a time. There’s usually one different team for the mornings and a different one for the evenings. Because of my college schedule, I do the evenings. I have only done a couple of morning shifts. Both the teams are pretty good.

We take care of the skywalk around the main building. There are also two neighboring buildings that we are responsible for. In total we have three buildings that we look after. The main building often has events for the evenings. This means that the evening team deals with a lot more people and various circumstances as compared to the day or the overnight team. The events are quite large, as the average number of people coming to events is anywhere from 2000 to 14000. We have a highly motivated team. But there are some specific actions which if taken would motivate our team even more. I will also relate these actions to the motivation theories and ideas.

Actions to increase Motivation:

1.        Better pay – Our work requires a lot of walking. An average non – event shift has at least 10,000 to 12,000. This number only goes up during the event days. Considering this hard work, our pay isn’t enough right now. This fact can demotivate people as they feel disheartened that they work so much but don’t get paid enough. This need directly relates to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory. According to the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs pyramid, payrates come under the second most basic need, which is security(economic). Hence, better pay would motivate people to do their job better.

2.       Benefits for part-timers – Since we have a lot of events, there is a huge team of event staff. I’m pretty sure we have more part-timers than full-timers at our workplace. Event staff only works for events. Which means that they don’t get any benefits at all. Benefits are only for full-timers. If part-timers can get some benefits, they will feel more motivated to work. Benefits also come under Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory.

3.       Quality Leadership – The nature of this job is such that every day is a different day. There is no same, regular day at our job. You never know what scenario you will encounter during your shift. Having a quality leader who runs the team smoothly is crucial. This is because we need a good lead for the kind of cases that we deal with. We need a leader who guides us through the different things that need to be done when we encounter something new. Employees feel motivated to work when they know that they have a good leader that they can rely on. This is directly related to the Managers are Motivators theory.

4.       Clear Guidelines and Rules – Some of our rules and guidelines are currently unclear. This is most probably because every person has their own way of doing things. This leaves people sometimes confused and they don’t know what to do in a certain situation. Having clear guidelines relates to Expectancy Theory as when employees have a clear idea of what to do, they feel confident and motivated to perform their tasks and duties well.

5.       Free/Low-Rate Staff Parking – Since my workplace is located downtown, the parking prices are way too high. A huge chunk of our pay goes towards just the parking expenses. This specific action is related to Equity theory, which means that employees feel that they are getting equal and fair output in return for their input towards their work. If employees come to work but have to pay 30 dollars for parking each day, they would probably lose the motivation to work with the same enthusiasm that they would if their parking was cheaper or even free.

6.       Better Communication – Communication at our workplace sometimes causes misunderstandings. This leads to lack of collaboration which results in a poor quality of work produced. Lack of communication creates a toxic and uncertain environment with people bottling up their emotions and then ultimately resulting in lack of motivation to work. Good communication leads to a goal achieved successfully. This is why better communication is related to Goal Setting Theory.