Herzberg and Employee Motivation
How to Apply Herzberg's Two Factor Theory of Motivation
Jun 16, 2008
Frederick Herzberg is one of the most well known writers on employee motivation. He is famous for his so-called two-factor theory, otherwise known as the motivation-hygiene theory. Herzberg did most of his work in the late 1950s and early 1960s but it is still relevant today. Motivating employees is an ongoing challenge and no one has come forward with any evidence to refute Herzberg, so his ideas are still worth looking at. The reason for the two factors was Herzberg’s recognition that there is one set of factors that leads to employee satisfaction at work and another that leads to dissatisfaction.
Hygiene Factors and Dissatisfaction at Work
This set of factors refers mainly to working conditions. They are contextual aspects of the working environment and not intrinsic to the work itself or determined by how employees work. These factors include lighting, noise levels, room temperature and safety. But they also include wages, where pay is not based on actual performance but is hourly or monthly. Employee benefits or conditions within the workplace, including organizational culture and leadership style, are considered hygiene factors. The key point about hygiene factors is that it is their absence, particularly when they are suddenly removed, that causes dissatisfaction at work. Providing them doesn’t motivate employees to work harder, except perhaps for a short period of time, after which they are taken for granted and people want new improvements. The reason that providing or improving hygiene factors fails to motivate employees is that they are not dependent on how hard employees work.
Motivation Factors and Satisfaction at Work
The distinguishing feature of motivation factors is that employees can only get them by the way they work, unlike hygiene factors are just there regardless of how hard anyone works. This set of factors includes recognition, bonuses, a sense of achievement and intrinsic enjoyment of the work itself. Being given extra responsibility and career advancement are also motivation factors in Herzberg’s theory. Presumably these factors motivate employees to work harder because they can see a direct connection between their efforts and an outcome that they feel is worth striving for.
Hygiene factors, say a bigger office, that are provided if an employee achieves a certain target or performance level, would then become motivation factors because getting them is a direct result of the employee’s efforts.
A Practical Example to Illustrate Herzberg’s Theory
One of the most commonly used examples in management textbooks to illustrate how Herzberg’s theory works is that of people who complain about working conditions on the job, such as poor lighting, dirt, cold temperatures and noise, yet go home and put up with similar conditions working on their own car in a dirty, dingy, drafty garage. This apparent inconsistency is explained by pointing out the fact that working on your own car is more motivational than a routine job where you don’t feel personally engaged.
One of Herzberg’s main ideas was that his two sets of factors are independent, that they are not just two ends of one scale. Thus, it is possible to be satisfied at work even though the working conditions are poor and it is possible to be relatively content with the latter even though you may not be very motivated to put in any extra effort.
How to Apply Herzberg to Motivating Employees
The most important point to note is that the two factors are not as totally separate as the above discussion leads one to believe. It is quite common for employees to complain about poor working conditions because they feel bored and unmotivated. It is natural and easy to point the finger at visible, external conditions rather than to say that you feel unappreciated or not stimulated in your job. The example of people working on their car at home shows that people are happy to do their own thing in poor working conditions because they are enjoying themselves whereas they wouldn’t put up with these conditions if they are bored at work.
The moral of this story is that it is sometimes a mistake to take people’s complaints at work too literally. Instead of fixing the working conditions that employees are complaining about, you might be further ahead to find new ways of recognizing their efforts. This is why a number of companies have employee-of-the-month schemes – a little recognition goes a long way. A simple technique is to hold regular meetings where each employee is asked to say what went well for them since the last meeting, what they did that they are especially pleased about. This simple practice gives employees an opportunity to tell their colleagues what they did and get some public recognition for a job well done.
The continuing relevance of Herzberg is the fact that there must be some direct connection between performance and reward, whether extrinsic as in recognition or intrinsic as in naturally enjoyable work, to motivate employees to work harder and to improve their job satisfaction. So, if you are thinking creatively about how to recognize employees, make sure that whatever you offer is directly dependent on the output you want to achieve.
