serene
Dec 21, 2008 | #1
Pasting an essay that my friend wrote for Academia research and did not get paid for it. Just bringing it online:
248757
Ralph Waldo Emerson
ABSTRACT
This study has taken employee motivation in general and motivation of insurance agents in particular, as its topic. Primary and secondary research has been conducted on the general and particular topic both, data collected and analysed. The available data from both primary and secondary sources have been evaluated in the analysis and based on these results, discussion has been offered. Conclusion based on the research has been provided with recommendations for further research. Research limitations in the field of employee motivation research and research in the working life of insurance agents have been mentioned. It is a self-conclusive study with scope for further research in future.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
YOU HAVE TO DO THIS. NOT ME. YOU HAVE TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE HELP OF YOUR SUPERVISOR OR WHOEVER.
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Today's business world runs on absolute and continuous competition and the business leaders have to keep themselves abreast with all the modern business rules and regulations with research support. It is impossible to state that research in the corporate and business world is inadequate, because it cannot be true, as multi-facetted research goes on all the time, on all the branches of business world. Business researchers come out with various models and research conclusions providing the business managers with ever-fresh ideas and tips to go about their businesses and keep all the branches as accurate as possible. Still, one could say that employment motivation has been kept as one of the necessities, but not given much thought until recently. In the last two decades after the flourishing of globalisation, employee motivation once again came out of the shelf so that research could be conducted with models and fresh rules. The multi-cultural outlook of today's business world made it very necessary for the business leaders to know more about the employee motivation as the colours, hues, shapes and needs of the workers are not similar any more. Along with studying employee motivation, its rules, necessities and the research already done in general, this study also concentrates on the employee motivation of insurance agents of property and casualty insurance. It has given more thought to this particular area, because it is somewhat a neglected area of study. Also insurance agents are a kind of in-between employees who are not workers in the traditional sense. It is naturally interesting to focus more on their working conditions, aspirations and motivation factors. As most businesses need property and casualty insurances on the old and newly acquired assets and on most of the operations that need high investment, this study feels that there exists sufficient scope and compulsion for an in-depth study.
THE PROBLEM
Employee motivation has become a research area today with immense possibilities and urgent information. Earlier, employee motivation was connected to the salary of the employee and no thought was ever given to his mental make-up or difficulties or to his personal life. Things have changed in recent years and for the business world, that is constantly on its toes to prove itself and compete effectively, this is a region where research and its implementation are important. Now the corporate houses have understood that it is not possible to run a business successfully without the cooperation of the employees. They also know that the employees do not get inspired by salary alone and there are other aspects of motivation. The question is how to induce such a motivation without losing a lot of financial resources in the process!!
RESEARCH QUESTION
The research question concentrates on the employee motivation in any business house, with particular reference to the insurance agents. The study hypothesises that without proper and constant employee motivation, it is not possible to run a healthy and profitable organisation, however great the business circumstances and working conditions could be. Employee motivation is one of the key factors of business success. Employee dissatisfaction shows only when the employees go on a strike or approach a union to air their grievances. Once their demands are fulfilled, they once again get into the rut of doing a half-hearted, uninspired work for their organisation, while the managers congratulate themselves that the workers are peacefully working. This study argues that fulfilling the demands and keeping a peaceful atmosphere in a corporate house are very different from motivating the employees. Motivating and inspiring them to work on their own with creative ideas and commitment is the crux of running a highly successful business organisation. This study aims to show that half the success could be achieved by motivating and inspiring the employees.
SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY
There is no limit for the expansion of the business world today, and there is no reason to think that this business world will shrink in future. It is showing every sign of growing in an unlimited space and hence, the business world gains importance everywhere. Today's business houses are not limited to one region or country. With the globalisation, they have spread themselves across the borders and most of the important businesses have become multi-national. This also means that the business houses have to employ and deal with multi-cultural work force, unlike in olden days, when the work force was from the same region, or at the most, from the same country belonging to the same culture. Those days do not exist any more and businesses working in different countries have become used to workers of those countries. Employee motivation is already a difficult goal to achieve and motivating employees across the world is even more difficult. There are many researches conducted on this topic; but the scope of it is so vast that some more research would not be out of place. At the same time, it is important to get more and more fresh ideas on the topic.
DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
For the research, I have employed both primary and secondary methodology. There is absolutely no doubt that primary research is far superior compared to the secondary. But it has its own limitations being rather illusive. People connected are either unavailable for comments, or unwilling to do so. Most employees are worried about making statements, seeing them as commitments and also have the fear that they might leak out in some harmful way. Managers are more forthcoming; but here exists the lack of time and comfortable conversational equation. Some managers are unhappy with discussing company matters, which they deem confidential, with research students and some of them are too busy to accommodate students. Despite calling and emailing, most managers are difficult to find after arriving at the given time, because they face unforeseen time constraints. Nevertheless, I have been able to find a few accommodative managers who not only answered my structured questionnaire, but also gave me some time to ask questions and willingly answered most of them. Contacting insurance agents has been comparatively easier, mainly because most of the agents' time is their own and since their work is outside the four walls of business houses and insurance companies, meeting them has not been tough, for which this research is grateful.
Still, finding employees is not a very pleasant task, as they are too busy during working time and disappear immediately after work. It is difficult for a student researcher to find the employees who are also willing to give information and answer probing questions. I am happy that I could find a quite a few of them.
Coming to secondary data collection, I have used books on the subject, old and new (event management has a historical root of its own), journals, reports, conference outcomes, seminar reports, electronic media, internet, old reports and newly researched material etc. Although primary research is of great value, I must admit that the vast amount of research available in the secondary data is highly impressive. It is the secondary data that gives a very clear picture of the research topic, because it holds all the researches conducted in this area from time to time. It is impossible to do any research without referring the research books on the subject however effective the primary research could be.
A descriptive survey method has been employed to study the employees and the insurance agents. Sample size included 50 employees and the target sample included 25 agents. Participation of employees is 75% and 96% was that of the agents. The manager survey included the sample size of 10 and the available participation percentage was 92%. The questionnaires were hand-delivered and were filled out by the participants and were returned to me. The survey questionnaire and the data collected are given under RESEARCH.
ORGANISATION OF THE STUDY
Concentration of this study is mainly on an insurance company that has retained the agents and how important and effective is the motivation of these agents, for the company and for the agents. Agents play one of the most important roles in the insurance company and this study tries to analyse the employee motivation in general and among the insurance agents in particular. The research has tried to find out the motivation an agent might derive from increased participation in management decisions than working solely as an agent on an automatic commission basis. It has also tried to understand how the working life of an insurance agent in the property and casualty insurance field, could be motivated to perform better
The insurance company (you can give the name of a company, if you want) is a place where many agents work on commission basis. Some companies keep them entirely on the commission hook, while some other companies pay a salary in addition to the commission percentage. It is definitely a lucrative work and depends on the agent's own time and convenience. As his earnings are connected with the work he has put in and the skill he has used, naturally the agent is willing to do work more and earn more. But this aspect is limited to the agent's work as a policy earner. When the agent is working on the property and casualty field, he is naturally paid a salary, and not a commission percentage. Property and casualty field of work could be depressing, time-consuming and tough. To continue a focussed work in this field, naturally the agent needs unlimited motivation and right circumstances and working atmosphere. This research has taken this aspect as significant in connection with the general area of employee motivation.
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
In this chapter old and new researches in the motivation region are compared and assessed.
LITERATURE REVIEW
In one of the best definitions Crouse says that motivation means movement and it is another version of movement. Motivation encourages people to move forward, move out of a stagnated place, and move out of the corner they have painted themselves into and in a nutshell, motivation means movement itself. The underlying focus of the definitions of motivation is the feeling of movement, which is eternal and an outward behaviour that could be observed and measured, and usually they are inner drives (Crouse, 2005, p.14). The argument here is that this movement is an eternal force, waiting to be inspired to move beyond its static condition. This definition envelops the meaning in psychological, economic, social, entrepreneurial terms of movement and reaching out beyond all the boundaries.
Understanding employee motivation itself is an art and needs great psychological insight. According to an earlier research, employee satisfaction and motivation could be achieved by satisfying five levels of needs like physiological, social, safety, eco and self-actualizing (Maslow, 1943). This is one view that had been relevant for a long time before the recent research came into being. Another research, that followed the above, says that motivation depends on only two factors called motivators and hygienes (Herzberg, Mausner, & Snyderman, 1987). This is considered to be a rather limited theory, because now we know, thanks to many researches before and after Herzberg, that there are unlimited factors connected to employee motivation. We also know that individual psychological mindset is very closely connected with the personal motivational factor and no employee could be totally motivated or inspired without some personal element coming into the play. Vroom had a different outlook on the subject. His theory pointed out a rather traditional view of the employee motivation which also could be called a blanket viewpoint. He argued that performance leads to rewards and employee effort and hard work leads to good performance, (Vroom, 1964). This cannot be called as a completely satisfying theory, mainly because it does not present the complete picture. It places the total responsibility on the employee himself, who has to focus on his own effort and hard work that would lead him to achieve great performance. This performance, in turn will lead to rewards, and rewards, to complete an eternal circle, will lead to motivation and once again, to effort and hard work. This argument is partially right; but not totally. Placing all the responsibility on the employee alone is not accepted in recent years. Nowadays, it is argued that more than the employee, it is the work of the organisation and the managers to motivate the employee towards better performance. Unless good workplace atmosphere is created and maintained with understanding and concern for the employee, it is very difficult for any employee to work singlehandedly towards total motivation.
Motivation is the force within the employee that inspires him to achieve personal and organisation goals and achievements. It also could be defined as the psychological process that gives purpose and direction to the behaviour (Kreitner, 1995). It is also called a predisposition to behave in the most purposeful manner to achieve the hitherto unachieved, specific goals (Buford, Bedeian, & Lindner, 1995). These definitions achieve a lot in expressing the employee motivation, although there is still something unsaid about them. Perhaps most of all, Kreitner comes very close when he invokes the psychological purpose and direction to the behaviour and attributes it to the employee motivation. In most definitions the psychological side of it has been left out and the recent research shows that no employee can be fully motivated unless the psychological priorities are not met in the best possible way.
Managers hold the key of motivation success to a very large extent. Without the involvement of the managers it is difficult to conduct this programme. It is the managers who are in constant touch with the employees and they can produce the result because they are in a position to understand the employee mentality and converse with employees from time to time. It should be one of the main managerial duties to be in touch with the employees, try to understand them, help them when needed, act as a go-between between the organisation and the individual employees. Unless they are given this work as part of their management achievements, any organisation will find it extremely difficult to deal with individual employees effectively. Smart managers now realise the importance of thinking and acting in terms of the greater good of the system of balancing various parts of the above to achieve maximal results; but they are just human and cannot always judge right (Bruce, 1999, 129).
Managers are the people who are in a position to create a highly encouraging and inspiring work place. Organisation can definitely provide a framework of it, in terms of an aesthetic atmosphere, soothing sights, convenient buildings etc. But it is left to the managers to create the soul of it, the psychological inspiration and mental comfort. Carlaw is of the opinion that creating a motivating physical atmosphere is very important at the work place. To do so, it is necessary to walk out of the workplace, return to it as a stranger coming to the place for the first time and focus on whatever could be seen, felt, heard, like colours, noise, lighting, temperature etc. whatever strikes the senses (Carlaw, 2003, 21). Hence, the workplace is one of the main pre-requisites of a motivational atmosphere. A work place that has certain solace in it, where the employees can turn to, at times of difficulties is an absolute necessity and this is mainly created by the supervisors and the managers. It is the work of supervisors and managers, during their day-to-day interaction with the employees help to create an organisational culture and it is very often their behaviour that causes either the employees to feel motivated and energised, or to decide to leave, (Glanz, 2002, p.13). Most recent research agrees with this point of view. Managers have to create motivating workplaces for their employees to perform better by feeling good, because managers should realise that the employees do not turn off their human side while walking into the work place and to make them perform, it is necessary to plug into their human side, understand their human nature and assist them to meet their goals, (Bruce, 2003, p.5).
It is difficult to agree with the old motivational factors any more. Earlier, it was the definite belief the monetary benefits alone were the motivational factors. If the employee is provided with promotion, benefits, housing, family benefits, help with the children's education, job security, increased salaries at regular intervals and family pension and security are the main factors of enthusing the employees in their work. Research of recent years show that non-profit organisations, who neither provide job security, nor a good pay packet, are running high on employee motivation. Study after study has demonstrated that non-profit employees are more engaged, more motivated and sometimes more satisfied than other employees in the profit making sectors although turning that motivation into productivity without causing a burnout, has always been a problem, (Herman, 2004, 650). This totally negates the earlier notion that the monetary benefits rule the motivation world. People derive extensive psychological comfort and achievement by working in non-profit organisations and they derive their motivation from helping people, watching the relief on the faces of the helped. This shows how important psychological comfort is for any employee and rest will follow.
Another theory clearly shows that the employees of any service based organisation has a very clear vision of what they want to do and that becomes their life-time goal and not earning the money. Most experts agree that a learning organization whose employees have a clear vision of the importance of service quality to the organization and these employees are already inspired and the work quality is superior compared to employees working in profit-making organisation, (Hays, 2001). This follows another argument that argues that the motivation level could be reduced if all of sudden money springs into the ascetic picture and spoils it all. Social scientists and economics are increasingly of the opinion that there is a theoretical possibility that motivation may be negatively affected if a relationship of non-monetary nature gets altered into a monetary one," (Frey and Jegen, 2001, p.590). All these studies negate money as the only, or the most important factor of motivation, as thought of earlier. Recent researches have continuously argued that money is not the only motivator and it is not the primary motivator for everyone. However, there is overwhelming evidence that money is an important motivator for most
people. It might not the most important one, but it has remained one of the most important, as can be seen through the surveys where people have to rank the motivators. Money has never been far from the top motivators, to which some of the decisions of employees are linked, (Rhynes et al, 2004, p.391). So, although money has come down from its exalted position as the only motivational factor, it has managed to be retained as one of them.
Motivating factors, as mentioned earlier, can be as many as the individuals themselves. Abraham Maslow (1954) described this in a hierarchy, starting with human psychology, safety and security, belongingness, self esteem and finally self-actualization. According to Maslow, employees have a basic human need and a right to strive for self-actualisation, just as much as the corporate directors and owners do and, by this fulfilment, the organisation becomes stronger, more competitive and profitable.
The psychology of motivation is tremendously complex and very little is unravelled about it and although the lack of knowledge has not dampened the research spirit, (Williamson, 1986, p.433). There is no one single answer and mostly the answers depend on the surrounding environment like social, economic, spiritual and individual. The crowding of the globalisation factors have not helped here either. They have increased the possibilities and opportunities; but also have increased the risk factors and spread them all over the world. The onward march of globalisation that has been rapid and overwhelming, has produced patchwork of cultures and values to shape the corporate environment, which in turn, has brought many opportunities and risks into the realm of motivation, (Frey, 2002, p.5). Under the globalised circumstances, many studies have tried to rank the pertinent factors. In one such researches, it summarises the critical factors that dominate the field of employee motivation as needs of the employee, work environment, responsibilities, supervision, fairness and equity, effort, employees' development and feedback, (Ramlall, 2004, pp. 58-59). Even though it is difficult to restrict the motivational factors only to the above list, it is necessary to agree with the writer that they are the prominent factors.
With the globalisation, varied cultures and backgrounds have come into the forefront. Many researches have been conducted keeping the cultural varieties in view. One such research holds cultural programming as one of the main features that shape the motivational factors. Although human beings are conditioned with cultural influences at different levels like family, social group, geographical region, professional environment, nothing is more prominent as the national culture and this becomes apparent to a foreigner more than an inland dweller and much could be attributed to the national culture when motivation is researched, (Hofstede, 1980, p.43).
Another important point that emerges out is the role of the manager and supervisor. Researches have stressed upon the managerial role and the importance of the manager knowing or being trained about this aspect of his work. If a manager has to influence the work behaviour and performance, the manager should be able to understand the concept of motivation and the inherent factors that invigorate the employee to come to work, perform well, motivate themselves and others and this means one of the manager's main function is to understand the theme of motivation and apply various researched theories onto it, (Leavitt, 1989, p.13). Most recent researches show that there should be individualistic perspectives in the field of work motivation and the factors should be recognised not in the group, but in the individual employees and should be applied to the individual employee, without a marked generality. It firmly is based on the idea that the personality-based views influence the personal characteristics as they affect goal choice and striving. (Wiley, 1995, p.264).
PURPOSE
There is no doubt that employee motivation has figured in many earlier researches and is not a new field. But the research on employee motivation in the insurance field as a study could be comparatively new. Insurance agents are neither full employees, nor complete outsiders and somehow manage to fill the gap in between and hence, as research objects, they have always been neglected mainly because of their shifting category. Understanding the motivating factors should lead to job security, job satisfaction, sympathetic understanding of personal problems by the organisation, unerring loyalty towards the organisation, creation and expansion of more interesting work other than the routine, dull job requirement etc. good working conditions could be created and discipline could be regulated with tact and diplomacy. Better wages, better hours, flexible hours, promotions, rewards, salary increase can happen. Appreciation of work and the feeling of making a difference can prevail amongst the employees. It can give a better understanding to the work of insurance agents.
FRAMEWORK OF THE STUDY
This study has been designed to extend the knowledge already available in this field and also to enlarge such language and the scope of motivation. It has also not hesitated to replicate the existing knowledge of research, wherever applicable. With the information presented above, it is easy to fathom that is a highly pertinent and relevant study of management area that has become a priority area today. Although substantial research could be found on the topic, it is necessary to keep the research going, to develop better themes and hone the already existing ones.
SUMMARY:
The literature review shows the difference between the old research in the area as against the new one. New research stresses the importance of individual factors and the psychological angle. It also considers that the managerial role is very important in employee motivation.
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
In this chapter, the primary research findings and data collection is shown. The collected data is analysed and assessed.
RESEARCH FINDINGS
The personal interview covered many aspects of employee motivation. Managers were comfortable to discuss the matter while agents and other employees clearly were not comfortable. It could be just the fear that the information might leak out to their disadvantage. Or it could be the psychological drawback that exists in all humans, a hesitancy to discuss one's own needs for the fear of being ridiculed, or being seen as greedy and grabbing. I had constructed brief questionnaires for the purpose and they are given here:
MANAGERS
1. What importance do you attach to employee motivation? Do you think it is very important in the working of your organisation that you should have highly motivated employees to carry forward the company policies?
2. In what way do you think that the motivated employees differ from ordinary employees who work up to a point and not beyond that?
3. In your opinion, what are the factors that lead to employee motivation?
4. How do you consider yourself, as a good administrator, or as a motivating force to people who work around you? If you consider yourself in the first category, do you have any desire to be considered under the second?
5. How important and useful to have motivated colleagues and employees around you? Do they in turn, inspire you in your work?
6. What measures your organisation is taking in this direction? Is this topic seriously considered and weighed in your meetings with other managers and the Management?
7. How effective do you think the company policy is in inspiring its employees?
8. Do you feel that anything more could be done by the organisation and by the employees themselves to keep the motivation alive?
EMPLOYEES
1. Do you consider you and your colleagues a motivated lot?
2. Do you think that your organisation can do a lot in this direction and achieve a lot by using the motivated employees?
3. What do you think the organisation should do to achieve total motivation?
4. Do you consider yourself a motivated employee?
5. Do you think that you, personally, can achieve self-motivation without the help of the management, and if so, to what extent?
6. How do you rate self-motivation as against being motivated by the organisation? Which is more useful? Or do you think they complement one another, or follow one another?
7. What difference a motivated employee can make to the organisation and to self? Do you think he might become a workaholic, or do you think he would improve his own life and the business prospects of his organisation?
8. What do you think is the major difference between a motivated and unmotivated employee?
INSURANCE AGENTS
1. How to you rate yourself, as an efficient, ordinary agent, or as an inspired, motivated and creative agent?
2. Do you think that your organisation can do more about employee motivation?
3. How do you define employee motivation? How much self-motivation is needed to get motivated, and to be receptive to the employee motivation programme of different kinds conducted by your organisation?
4. What do you think your production record would be with proper motivation support?
5. How much of your family do you involve in your working and how do you celebrate your successes?
6. In what way do you think that you can translate the motivation that you might receive into your day-to-day actions in the field of insurance work?
7. Do you think that the insurance agents are different from the ordinary employees? If so, what are the special ways of motivating them to work better and become assets to the organisation?
These questionnaires were hand-delivered and were filled up, sometimes quite elaborately and were returned to me. The data produced was very colourful, and in some cases, eye-openers. Despite the timidity some employees and agents exhibited in personal interviews, the questionnaires were written more candidly, mainly due to the last-minute decision not to include personal names, names of the organisations, and any other personal details on the questionnaire. It was a brilliant idea on my part, because the anonymity of it all, helped the employees to open up more and give many facts that would not have been included if the employees were recognisable. Understandably, managers did not have any hassle about being recognised.
The answers produced the results detailed below:
1. Motivation provides the necessary energy, drive and excitement of achievement, extremely vital for conducting business as insurance agent.
2. Working under the managers who are capable of indentifying the extra efforts that the agents put into their work helps in motivation creation.
3. Motivation need not always come from the managers or from the organisation. The research data collected showed otherwise. There were many employees who resented that they were alone, divorcees or single or widows/widowers. They had no one to share their successes.
4. People with family support are more comfortable, because they regularly discuss their success with their families or partners and get motivated by the happiness or thrill shown by them. Some agents and employees mentioned that after every commission or rewards, after every promotion or salary increase, they promised either a holiday or presents to the family or extra pocket money for the growing and teenage children. This made the family members and partners to look forward for such events and naturally it made them to get involved in their successes and failures. This could work as an external motivation much needed for an individual.
5. Another group of agents and employees mentioned that they regularly met their friends either in the bars sharing a drink or in the clubs watching football, cricket or golf. They share their work successes with these friends and all the friends are aware of the working life of the rest. There is a healthy competition here and also a great urge to impress the other members of the group. There could be a slight jealousy and one-upmanship; but it has not stretched beyond a certain level and definitely has not become a threat to their continuous and long-prevailing friendship. Most of them are lonely men; but the friends' group has provided ample psychological support and induced positive attitude. This fact could be another motivator for an employee or agent, which would make them work harder not only to impress other friends, but also to try to push for the ultimate limit and beyond.
6. The greatest motivating factor could be one's own strength that always stands by an individual. It is necessary to list the goals, desires, priorities and listing them will imprint them in the mind and employees can focus on them and work in the direction of achieving them. Nothing can replace the self-motivation, because it depends only on the self and is beyond the control of circumstances.
7. If the person can motivate himself, he can place himself against all the odds that might be plaguing him. also, he is in full control of himself and can motivate his own mind beyond all the negative motivators. People of this kind are the real achievers and are capable of out-perform their competitors. The inherent dream that is the goal of an individual could be the biggest motivation. If we have almost unattainable goals and keep working for them, it will take the individual beyond attainable goals and hence, the saying, aim higher! Dream bigger!
8. Keeping a few role models and achievers in mind as examples too helps immensely. While feeling down, it is always a lifting thought to wonder what the ideal hero would have done under similar circumstances! Or what he did when the tide is unfavourable and this helps to keep the motivation soaring. One of the employees said: when I was financially very low, was plagued by moneylenders from whom I had borrowed for caring my partner who eventually died. There were times when there was no money to buy proper food. Whenever it happened, I would tell myself, "Come on, Jimmy! Your idol Vincent Van Gogh had six proper means in six months. Can't you manage?" and this employee told me that this thought, invariably brightens up his day because he immediately thinks: 'if a genius like Vincent could do that, why not the ordinary me!!!?"
9. By thoughts and deeds, it is necessary to be physically and mentally to be near to the place where one gets motivated, said another agent, who needs motivation and ready to wait for it.
10. Some agents are of the opinion that dynamic environment and positive happenings can lead to motivated life. Motivational workshops, conferences, seminars etc. are of great help. The focussed speakers and persuasive talk will give a sea of benefits with happiness of being alive and positive thoughts.
11. A few employees complained that it looks impossible to revisit the passion and positive thinking that they had at an earlier point and now everything seems to be dead and they feel sad about it. Others are of the opinion that they are not dead and with difficulty, such things can be revived.
12. Going back in time, or visiting the places that made enormous difference or looking back in the work place can help in developing self-motivation.
13. Changing the perception will lead to change in action, which will eventually encourage the individual to regard rejection as not a failure, but as a stepping stone.
14. In a business, that too in insurance business and in the life of any agent, it is very common to face rejections and setbacks frequently. But if such rejections are used as stepp
REST OF IT.
15. Change of perception will help the employees and managers to look at things from a different angle and this will facilitate a different kind of action and outcome.
During the interview, the interviewees were asked many other connected and pertinent questions to know more about the connected issues like job satisfaction, friction at the workplace, differences of opinions between the employees, difficult times between the employees and the managers etc. The study tried to find out more about the personal ambitions of the employees; but this line of research was not particularly rewarded and I had to be happy with the available answers. Most employees and agents were not very pleased with some of the probing questions and tried to avoid them.
ANALYSIS
The research focussed mostly on-the-job satisfactions or the lack of it while conducting the primary interviews. This was applied even to managers and not only to the employees and agents. Mostly the managerial position seems to be a rather motivated one; but not always so. This being a tricky question, and the manager who is unsure if his answers could haunt him in any way, or reach the management, did not answer. A few answered; but these answers were not one of the most honest ones and understandably so. The primary data available after the interviews and assessing the questionnaire has thrown up many unexpected results. I have tried to analyse the data and compared it with the data available through the secondary data collected. Most of the assumptions on which the primary data has shown light, agree with other researcher assumptions. Some are new and do not agree with available research. They are codified here and analysed.
The data did not particularly show that the money factor is the only one that motivates employees. In this research the money factor does remain the most sought after one. Still it is not a general factor, and this flies in the face of our firm conviction that money can buy the best possible employees. It has also come to the notice that money, after the fulfilment of certain needs and desires do not matter much. Pinpointing one motivating factor over the other is very difficult, even though I have tried to rank them. What is one person's preference, does not remain as another's and instead, motivation preferences are as wide and varied as the number of participants. Mostly it depends upon the mindset and the circumstances of the person, not to mention the circumstances of the organisation itself.
So, according to this research, what are the avenues open to the managers that would prevent motivation erosion amongst their employees? There are quite a lot of them, and it depends upon the individualised creative tendency of the managers to decide upon the subtlety with which the pathways have to be implemented for the best possible results. There is urgency in working with each employee to ensure him that his particular motivational factors are taken into consideration and they are important to the organisation. He should feel that such a factor has been taken care of and it continues to be a matter of significance to the company and he and his comfort are not ignored in his workplace. To establish this, it is necessary to have one-on-one occasional meetings with each employee. It is also necessary to know how to delegate skills, power and responsibility. This is a managerial skill that has to be painstakingly developed. This will help the manager to have more time and energy to supervise and take a stronger role by motivating the employees to take more interest and responsibility in their respective places. It is not a bad idea to try drawing them out from their respective corners and give them work that is far beyond their usual area of responsibility. There will definitely be grumblings in the beginning from the scandalized employees; but very soon, they will find out that the extra responsibility and beyond-the-boundary creativity suits them. Employees are vary of additional work and even additional power; still, usually, they end up liking the additional challenges and appreciation, unless they are of the stick-in-the-mud kind and cannot be drawn out at all. Such employees are the dead wood of the company and cannot be motivated easily.
It is necessary to concentrate on employee behaviour, individual personalities and their daily performance. If the performances are ignored for sometime, it will be difficult for the managers to understand the work their employees do. Their working style will naturally be closely connected with their individual personalities and attitudes and it is difficult to keep pace with one without understanding the other. This also means that good performance should not go unrewarded and the reward should not come in the end of the year. This definitely is the traditional approach; but not appreciated or in vogue any more. Delayed rewards are as good as denied rewards and waiting for that elusive award, the employee loses the will to perform, knowing that some kind of reward will come much later, whether he continues to perform or not, because it is a reward for cumulative performances. Instead, rewarding each excellent performance in some way or other, however small the reward could be, is more effective and is always appreciated by the employee. Employee rewards should never resemble the academic year of a student followed by an examination and after much waiting, a reward of passing it. That gets tedious in an employment. Hence, the immediacy of the award is absolutely essential. Only then the employee is reassured that his particular performance is noticed and highly appreciated. It is reassuring and he will know which way to go in the future. It will erase off all the uncertainties about the decisions he has taken and the pathway he has employed for that particular performance.
The ranked order of employee motivation requirements could be roughly listed as below:
1. Excellent salary
2. Interesting and creative work
3. Work appreciation whenever good work is provided.
4. Superiors noticing the good work done.
5. Job security
6. Excellent working conditions
7. Promotions, rewards and salary increase in appreciation of work and not only depending upon the seniority.
8. Feeling of getting involved in the growth of the organisation.
9. Organisation loyalty towards employees without treating them as paid workers who have no connection with the organisation, other than working and taking their salaries home.
10. Kind help during family and personal predicaments and lending an ear to the problems, trying to understand them.
11. Discipline without harshness and vindictive persecution.
12. An attractive and secure retiremental plan.
According to the researchers interesting work is a self-actualizing factor while good wages is physiological factor. Appreciation is esteem factor and job security is a safety factor. These factors need not be in the same order and could differ from employee to employee. Or some of the employees might need just a few of the motivations out of the list. There are also possibilities that some motivations might not have been listed at all here. Additional possibility could be that sometimes the employees are too self-conscious to express their real motivating factor, either by the fear of self-indulgence or the fear of being ridiculed. Some motivators could be too personal to be expressed to others. It is clear that employees who are happy with their earning and do not hold money as an additional motivator, can be very creative in their work, if allowed to spread their wings. Another clear factor that emerged out of this research is that some disgruntled employees who are neither motivated, nor allowed any one else to get motivated, who are rather bitter with the management and their working conditions, are clearly the negative group. It could be clearly seen that these employees did not spend much time in self-improvement or improving their talents and skills and have spent more time in blaming the managers for their shortcomings. It is difficult to motivate such employees, who do not look for motivation. At the same time, it is easy to see that managers did not give these employees much opportunity to get motivated. So the fault lies in both the camps. Perhaps it is necessary to start from the beginning, without expecting much positive reaction from these employees, and slowly guide them into the motivable group. It is clear that if these employees are not steered away from such destructive path, they will remain a hurdle and discourage other employees from working and thus, undermining the organisational efforts to move forward.
The research has also shown another group of employees, who work doggedly bereft of motivation, despite their hearts not being there in the work. These employees can be motivated easily because they are not averse to it. They have tried to find it, but had been unable to do so, and they did not find any encouragement to look for it further. This group is the easiest of the lot to be motivated. This group would like to work better if their motivating requirements are fulfilled. They are neither disgruntled, nor disappointed. They simply want to move forward and hoping to find enough inspiration to do so. This is the most hopeful target group for the managers to start with.
Some employees were very rigid about the money factor, but not all. Better working conditions are required by most. Very rarely employees are completely happy with their working conditions and it always desires something to be desired. This research could be called a leveller and destroyer of many myths. Philosophers argue that it is a myth that a manager or an organisation can motivate employees. The truth is that the employee has to self-motivate himself and managers and the organisation only might be able to provide tools to do so. This is partially true. Without help from within, no employee can be motivated to do more radical a job.
As many other researches earlier, this research too has come to the conclusion that money is not always a good motivator. Money works only as pacifier of many human needs and not beyond that. This research also negates the idea that fear is the best motivator. Fear of being yelled at, getting insulted in the presence of other employees and peers, or losing the job is perhaps the worst destroyer of motivation. A manager who knows what motivates him and assumes that the same factor motivates his employees too, is making the biggest mistake of his career. Increased job satisfaction will result in better job performance too cannot be true, because a person with complete job satisfaction might not have much to achieve by putting in extra work and creativity. Managers who say that employee satisfaction is beyond their comprehension are once again making mistakes. Perhaps they think it is too much of an effort to do so. Or they are too lazy to put in extra efforts. Or they are not particularly concerned about the employees, and so, about the organisation. A responsible manager would never make that comment. He will search for the ways and means of finding out more and more about employee motivation.
It depends on the human nature, both on its simplistic and complex side that makes employee psychology difficult to understand at times. The employee psychology depends on the reason the employee works for the particular organisation.
Positive employee morale and keeping it boosted are significant here. If the organisation and its managers understand what exactly keep the employees motivated to make them contributing staff, half of the battle is won. Recognising the employees and treating them as though they matter for the organisation is very important. Humour in the workplace and positivity can bring inspiration in their wake. Employment surveys to gauge the employee moods are another important weapon in the hands of the managers and organisers. It is very easy to assess the employee mentality through these surveys. Motivated managers, inspirational quotations, being happy at work, not minding additional hours of work etc. all work towards the goal of keeping the employees inspired. A lot depends on the quality of life the employee lives through his work. Training and development and learning new concepts of motivation might work favourably for the managers. Employee training could help too, if the training is structured according to the theories and recommendations of motivational education. Key employee retention is very important for any organisation and without the help of motivation, it is difficult to do so. Without such employees developing an ardour and spirit culture for the work, it is difficult to increase productivity in any organisation.
Motivation has a lot to do with the individual expectation of people around them (Pygmalion Effect) and the individual's own expectation of himself (Galatea Effect). Expectations are very important in life and their effect and power can never be overestimated. While creating motivation among the employees, it is necessary for the managers to understand the results and strengths of these very human and natural expectations that are in the mind of every individual. It is very necessary to create a certain tradition and custom of motivation increasing in every organisation. It should not be an all of a sudden thing. Unless there is a history of motivation within the organisational culture, it will not have its roots. This will result in bad reputation, poor performance, getting lesser than ordinary staff and then suddenly deciding to inspire such lack-lustre staff. It is very important to have a carefully developed tradition of motivation and inspiration, so that the employees would not even notice the change and accept it as company culture. This would give a much-needed fillip to the organisation, which will be counted among the better class. A sudden network of motivation could be viewed suspiciously because employees would suspect that the management and managers are up to something sinister. Motivation increase should be done in the most subtle and natural way possible without making it too obvious a show-piece.
There is no doubt that to a large extent insurance agents work on their own, zealously guarding their clientele information, they also are a distinct group of employees, especially so, if they are connected with property and casualty. They already work on commission basis, and a very small amount of extra cash need not motivate them immensely. The celebration of a right holiday event can boost very positive morale among the insurance agents. Working on their own mostly without much group life with colleagues can sometimes isolate them. Instead, if they are allowed to mix with their colleagues under relaxed circumstances, it could be a source of inspiration to them. This kind of events and celebrations can create a team building focussed on team work that the agents usually lack. This can be the basis of a future success.
For an organisation it is important to know what motivates the motivators and that means the managers. If the managers are motivating the employees in general and agents in insurance organisations, the organisation should think of motivating the managers in their work a part of which is motivating the employees working under them. It is like a chain reaction in any group. Commercial success of any group depends upon the motivated employees working for that group and there is no denial of that. We consider that today's world, especially the business world is turbulent, plagued by unprecedented chaos. But looked from another standpoint, it is easy to perceive that the turbulence in the scene provides unlimited opportunities to please and inspire the employees, and such opportunities did not exist earlier. The employees have multiple needs, just like any other human group today and this should make meeting their needs easier. People work for many reasons like love, money, personal achievement, fulfilment, financial independency, sense of responsibility, keeping themselves busy and useful, not allowing themselves to fall into a rut and lose the will to live, looking after the children, providing for the family, saving money for a rainy day, fulfilling ambitions like further education or building a home etc. There is no limit on ambitions and they could be as varied as the number of humans. No two ambitions are the same, even though on the surface they might look so. This is the key to know how to appoint people, retain their loyalty, reward them on their success and motivate them to do better for themselves and for the company. This is partly the responsibility of strategic management of the organisation.
One thing every manager should work against is the workplace negativity. Once it is set in, it grows without limit, and sucks all into the black hole and it is extremely necessary not to allow it to find a foothold in any organisation. Mostly it is very difficult to contain it on a regular basis, as the workplaces deal with human material and feelings of jealousy, one-upmanship, depression, difficult dealings, and personal grudge etc. have to dominate the situations at one time or other. It is not possible to keep all the ordinary human actions and reactions down all the time. Still, it is necessary to do so to have a better and brighter atmosphere.
In the case of insurance agents it is even worse, because other employees have to deal within the framework of their workplaces, whereas, the insurance agents have to deal with the workplace in addition to dealing with other companies or property owners. Psychologically speaking, this cannot be greatly uplifting for the agents. They have to deal with many moods, egos and attitudes. While the ordinary employees find it very difficult sometimes to deal with the egos and personal attitudes of their handful of managers, it is ten folds more difficult for the agents who have to deal with these problems and many more problems of the prospective and existing clients. Hence, the insurance agents need more attention, with their workplace spreading far and wide and have to deal with bereaved families, orphaned children, fire effects, accident aftermaths, murders, dead bodies and natural disasters. It is a vast region of negativity and to keep themselves positive and upright, they need immense support and understanding from the organisation and managers. To continue working as a insurance agent for many years need a lot of passion for work and passion does not come without motivation. It is not rare to come across stress related illness and nervous breakdown and this is where workplace wellness comes into assistance. This workplace support keeps the agents focussed and productive. The feeling of being supported at the home-base, the ability and atmosphere that would enable them to laugh it all off will go a long way. They should also be able to feel that they are maintaining an excellent balance between their personal life and work and this feeling can prevail only when they are happy and positive at the workplace. In the present day world, workplaces matter more than the home and personal life, because mostly a working individual spends his best time at the workplace, seeking comfort and rest at home. Most of his waking hours are at the place of work and not at home. Slowly for working people, home is becoming the secondary priority unlike in the olden days.
SUMMARY
From the data collected it is easy to come to the conclusion that money is not the most important criteria. Work place and the role of managers is very important. Keeping in touch with the employees and knowing the problems in their personal life, is equally important. Motivation is an individually tailored inspiration.
CHAPTER 4
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
PROBLEM AND RESEARCH QUESTION
Employee happiness could be the very lifeblood of any organisation. It is necessary to keep them content by rewarding their work efforts. If the employees are not motivated, exemplary work cannot be taken from them. It is the duty of every business owner or manager to finds ways and means and various methods of keeping the employees inspired. The days of rendering automatic work in the hope of getting a salary do not exist any more. Even in those days, it is definite that the motivated employees who were treated well by their owners, worked better than the unmotivated employees.
There is no doubt that motivation is different things to different people at different times, because they do not stay the same. Challenges, requirements, needs and goals change and so does the motivation factor. Company motivation changes according to the change in the company goals and culture. It is an uncanny talent to match the company motivation with the employee motivation and somehow adjust it to the personal motivation factor of each employee and there lies the secret of company's success!!
It is necessary to present a motivating message to the employees which will address them as part of a working organisation and personally too. They are part of the work organisation; but they are also separate individuals, who have their own personal agendas. To motivate a person, it is necessary to touch the team spirit as well as the individual spirit. Messages delivered should be able to inspire them in two ways. Only then the employee will be more focussed.
This is not an easy task for the manager as he cannot hand-pick his team and then keep them motivated. Instead, he has to be happy with the lot he gets and try hard to improve their attitude and outlook. The first lesson managers have to learn is that there is no such thing called blanket motivation that envelops all. It has to be tackled on individual basis. Gender differences, class differences, status and societal disparities, place of living, type of dwelling, intellectual outlook, life goals, attitudes and ways of self-evaluation etc. combine together to form the motivational needs and they keep reinventing themselves all the time. If the manager has a huge staff, it is all the more difficult for him to keep them motivated. It is necessary for the manager to talk sweepingly in terms of team spirit using inclusive language while addressing the hoard; but it is also necessary to talk to the individual likes, dislikes, family life or the lack of it, work during off hours, hobbies, desires and ambitions while talking to each member of his staff. If he does not do that his speech will be lost and fall away. Power words and power phrases are necessary to catch the wavering attention of the employees. These phrases could be placed as notices in strategic places with a matching inspirational photograph or painting. It is necessary to make motivation a frivolous hobby and at the same time, plan it to sound like a sacred duty and it should provide an electrifying jolt to the reader, in this case, the employee.
No matter whatever is the size of the company, employee motivation applies to them all, big and small. No company can run without motivated employees. Actually there is a saying that all the companies, organisations and institutions run due to a handful few motivated employees while the remaining employees pretend to be working. Mostly this is a fact. Employee motivation programme should aim at motivating even those employees who work in the margin, without much benefit either to themselves or to the organisation. These are the employees who really matter. Already motivated employees are the ones who can motivate themselves without much outside help and will be anyway get benefitted by the programme. But the main thrust should be on the peripheral employees who do not do justice to themselves and to the company. In the insurance business, there are many such agents, who usually work to certain extent to keep themselves afloat, and not beyond. These agents can be motivated to do much more. They themselves will be surprised by the additional achievement that they could create, mainly because they have never ventured beyond the boundary. Lack of motivation can make the job performance suffer and reduce production, creativity and this can definitely not take the company very far. If the employees are suffering from motivation issues, and if the company does not tackle it on time, the company and the employees both end up paying the price of their negligence.
There are many issues due to the problem employees of any organisation. Employees who have been there for a long time, and are simply waiting to retire, working only for the sake of their salaries are usually the problem employees, whom every manager will find tough nuts to crack and inspire. These are the bane of any company, more so in the insurance industry, because such employees would not vacate the place for better employees; neither would they allow the company to move forward and remain the shackles of the company. Sometimes there are chances that these employees might have been very good workers in the initial days of their working life. They might have got into a mental rut because of no inspiration reaching them from any quarter. They might have struggled against their desire to work well, and the struggle to find their creativity and inspiration on a daily basis, and getting defeated in the struggle might have made them the redundant workers of today. In such cases, it is necessary for the organisation and its managers to take most of the blame, and employees should not be blamed. If the workplace through its managers had provided ample motivation to work, these employees perhaps would have been one of the best in the field. Hence, without taking any harder or drastic measures, it is necessary to give them another chance by motivating them in the best possible way and watching for the results. Even if they had an iota of hard work and sincerity in them in their younger days, motivating them would not take long. But there are possibilities of another group, which simply does not want to work more than strictly- working for the company, to justify their wages and such people work without motivation and imagination.
First of all building a foundation is very necessary to make the employees feel that they are part of the team. The new employees should receive welcome orientation in this foundation and the old employees should be able to feel part of it. It should be able to create a sense of 'we' feeling of belonging amongst the employees. And of course, this should be followed by a very positive environment in the workplace.
It is mentioned usually that the insurance agents should treat their clients by cooperating with them, providing them information, make them to feel respected and pampered and thus, lengthening their stay with the agent and the insurance company as long as possible. Insurance agent's main work is providing excellent customer service to his clients. As long as the agents keep their clients happy and looked after, the price or premium sensitivity of the client remains low and comfortable. Client retention being the most important work of the agent, he simply cannot ignore his clients and to do this work on a daily basis, he needs a lot of support and understanding from the mother organisation. With the present fast moving trend, fast communication without waiting for the post to reach, everything requires to be instantaneous and client - agent relationship is simply a mirror held against the agent - manager or organisation relationship.
Insurance companies are not the traditional companies any more. They could be of mono-line or multi-line, it is full of people expected to conduct various activities and functions according to the company's work culture. People who work in the background without any public exposure make significant contributions to the company along with the much exposed agents, who are the public faces of any insurance company by being in touch with the public and also by being the people who should be contacted. They are the public faces of the company and their responsibilities are overwhelming. Fire, damage and theft risks against the property are covered by the property insurance and usually most of the foreseen risks are covered by insurance corporations.
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Our Chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we can be.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
ABSTRACT
This study has taken employee motivation in general and motivation of insurance agents in particular, as its topic. Primary and secondary research has been conducted on the general and particular topic both, data collected and analysed. The available data from both primary and secondary sources have been evaluated in the analysis and based on these results, discussion has been offered. Conclusion based on the research has been provided with recommendations for further research. Research limitations in the field of employee motivation research and research in the working life of insurance agents have been mentioned. It is a self-conclusive study with scope for further research in future.ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
YOU HAVE TO DO THIS. NOT ME. YOU HAVE TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE HELP OF YOUR SUPERVISOR OR WHOEVER.
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Today's business world runs on absolute and continuous competition and the business leaders have to keep themselves abreast with all the modern business rules and regulations with research support. It is impossible to state that research in the corporate and business world is inadequate, because it cannot be true, as multi-facetted research goes on all the time, on all the branches of business world. Business researchers come out with various models and research conclusions providing the business managers with ever-fresh ideas and tips to go about their businesses and keep all the branches as accurate as possible. Still, one could say that employment motivation has been kept as one of the necessities, but not given much thought until recently. In the last two decades after the flourishing of globalisation, employee motivation once again came out of the shelf so that research could be conducted with models and fresh rules. The multi-cultural outlook of today's business world made it very necessary for the business leaders to know more about the employee motivation as the colours, hues, shapes and needs of the workers are not similar any more. Along with studying employee motivation, its rules, necessities and the research already done in general, this study also concentrates on the employee motivation of insurance agents of property and casualty insurance. It has given more thought to this particular area, because it is somewhat a neglected area of study. Also insurance agents are a kind of in-between employees who are not workers in the traditional sense. It is naturally interesting to focus more on their working conditions, aspirations and motivation factors. As most businesses need property and casualty insurances on the old and newly acquired assets and on most of the operations that need high investment, this study feels that there exists sufficient scope and compulsion for an in-depth study.
THE PROBLEM
Employee motivation has become a research area today with immense possibilities and urgent information. Earlier, employee motivation was connected to the salary of the employee and no thought was ever given to his mental make-up or difficulties or to his personal life. Things have changed in recent years and for the business world, that is constantly on its toes to prove itself and compete effectively, this is a region where research and its implementation are important. Now the corporate houses have understood that it is not possible to run a business successfully without the cooperation of the employees. They also know that the employees do not get inspired by salary alone and there are other aspects of motivation. The question is how to induce such a motivation without losing a lot of financial resources in the process!!
RESEARCH QUESTION
The research question concentrates on the employee motivation in any business house, with particular reference to the insurance agents. The study hypothesises that without proper and constant employee motivation, it is not possible to run a healthy and profitable organisation, however great the business circumstances and working conditions could be. Employee motivation is one of the key factors of business success. Employee dissatisfaction shows only when the employees go on a strike or approach a union to air their grievances. Once their demands are fulfilled, they once again get into the rut of doing a half-hearted, uninspired work for their organisation, while the managers congratulate themselves that the workers are peacefully working. This study argues that fulfilling the demands and keeping a peaceful atmosphere in a corporate house are very different from motivating the employees. Motivating and inspiring them to work on their own with creative ideas and commitment is the crux of running a highly successful business organisation. This study aims to show that half the success could be achieved by motivating and inspiring the employees.
SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY
There is no limit for the expansion of the business world today, and there is no reason to think that this business world will shrink in future. It is showing every sign of growing in an unlimited space and hence, the business world gains importance everywhere. Today's business houses are not limited to one region or country. With the globalisation, they have spread themselves across the borders and most of the important businesses have become multi-national. This also means that the business houses have to employ and deal with multi-cultural work force, unlike in olden days, when the work force was from the same region, or at the most, from the same country belonging to the same culture. Those days do not exist any more and businesses working in different countries have become used to workers of those countries. Employee motivation is already a difficult goal to achieve and motivating employees across the world is even more difficult. There are many researches conducted on this topic; but the scope of it is so vast that some more research would not be out of place. At the same time, it is important to get more and more fresh ideas on the topic.
DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
For the research, I have employed both primary and secondary methodology. There is absolutely no doubt that primary research is far superior compared to the secondary. But it has its own limitations being rather illusive. People connected are either unavailable for comments, or unwilling to do so. Most employees are worried about making statements, seeing them as commitments and also have the fear that they might leak out in some harmful way. Managers are more forthcoming; but here exists the lack of time and comfortable conversational equation. Some managers are unhappy with discussing company matters, which they deem confidential, with research students and some of them are too busy to accommodate students. Despite calling and emailing, most managers are difficult to find after arriving at the given time, because they face unforeseen time constraints. Nevertheless, I have been able to find a few accommodative managers who not only answered my structured questionnaire, but also gave me some time to ask questions and willingly answered most of them. Contacting insurance agents has been comparatively easier, mainly because most of the agents' time is their own and since their work is outside the four walls of business houses and insurance companies, meeting them has not been tough, for which this research is grateful.
Still, finding employees is not a very pleasant task, as they are too busy during working time and disappear immediately after work. It is difficult for a student researcher to find the employees who are also willing to give information and answer probing questions. I am happy that I could find a quite a few of them.
Coming to secondary data collection, I have used books on the subject, old and new (event management has a historical root of its own), journals, reports, conference outcomes, seminar reports, electronic media, internet, old reports and newly researched material etc. Although primary research is of great value, I must admit that the vast amount of research available in the secondary data is highly impressive. It is the secondary data that gives a very clear picture of the research topic, because it holds all the researches conducted in this area from time to time. It is impossible to do any research without referring the research books on the subject however effective the primary research could be.
A descriptive survey method has been employed to study the employees and the insurance agents. Sample size included 50 employees and the target sample included 25 agents. Participation of employees is 75% and 96% was that of the agents. The manager survey included the sample size of 10 and the available participation percentage was 92%. The questionnaires were hand-delivered and were filled out by the participants and were returned to me. The survey questionnaire and the data collected are given under RESEARCH.
ORGANISATION OF THE STUDY
Concentration of this study is mainly on an insurance company that has retained the agents and how important and effective is the motivation of these agents, for the company and for the agents. Agents play one of the most important roles in the insurance company and this study tries to analyse the employee motivation in general and among the insurance agents in particular. The research has tried to find out the motivation an agent might derive from increased participation in management decisions than working solely as an agent on an automatic commission basis. It has also tried to understand how the working life of an insurance agent in the property and casualty insurance field, could be motivated to perform better
The insurance company (you can give the name of a company, if you want) is a place where many agents work on commission basis. Some companies keep them entirely on the commission hook, while some other companies pay a salary in addition to the commission percentage. It is definitely a lucrative work and depends on the agent's own time and convenience. As his earnings are connected with the work he has put in and the skill he has used, naturally the agent is willing to do work more and earn more. But this aspect is limited to the agent's work as a policy earner. When the agent is working on the property and casualty field, he is naturally paid a salary, and not a commission percentage. Property and casualty field of work could be depressing, time-consuming and tough. To continue a focussed work in this field, naturally the agent needs unlimited motivation and right circumstances and working atmosphere. This research has taken this aspect as significant in connection with the general area of employee motivation.
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
In this chapter old and new researches in the motivation region are compared and assessed.
LITERATURE REVIEW
In one of the best definitions Crouse says that motivation means movement and it is another version of movement. Motivation encourages people to move forward, move out of a stagnated place, and move out of the corner they have painted themselves into and in a nutshell, motivation means movement itself. The underlying focus of the definitions of motivation is the feeling of movement, which is eternal and an outward behaviour that could be observed and measured, and usually they are inner drives (Crouse, 2005, p.14). The argument here is that this movement is an eternal force, waiting to be inspired to move beyond its static condition. This definition envelops the meaning in psychological, economic, social, entrepreneurial terms of movement and reaching out beyond all the boundaries.
Understanding employee motivation itself is an art and needs great psychological insight. According to an earlier research, employee satisfaction and motivation could be achieved by satisfying five levels of needs like physiological, social, safety, eco and self-actualizing (Maslow, 1943). This is one view that had been relevant for a long time before the recent research came into being. Another research, that followed the above, says that motivation depends on only two factors called motivators and hygienes (Herzberg, Mausner, & Snyderman, 1987). This is considered to be a rather limited theory, because now we know, thanks to many researches before and after Herzberg, that there are unlimited factors connected to employee motivation. We also know that individual psychological mindset is very closely connected with the personal motivational factor and no employee could be totally motivated or inspired without some personal element coming into the play. Vroom had a different outlook on the subject. His theory pointed out a rather traditional view of the employee motivation which also could be called a blanket viewpoint. He argued that performance leads to rewards and employee effort and hard work leads to good performance, (Vroom, 1964). This cannot be called as a completely satisfying theory, mainly because it does not present the complete picture. It places the total responsibility on the employee himself, who has to focus on his own effort and hard work that would lead him to achieve great performance. This performance, in turn will lead to rewards, and rewards, to complete an eternal circle, will lead to motivation and once again, to effort and hard work. This argument is partially right; but not totally. Placing all the responsibility on the employee alone is not accepted in recent years. Nowadays, it is argued that more than the employee, it is the work of the organisation and the managers to motivate the employee towards better performance. Unless good workplace atmosphere is created and maintained with understanding and concern for the employee, it is very difficult for any employee to work singlehandedly towards total motivation.
Motivation is the force within the employee that inspires him to achieve personal and organisation goals and achievements. It also could be defined as the psychological process that gives purpose and direction to the behaviour (Kreitner, 1995). It is also called a predisposition to behave in the most purposeful manner to achieve the hitherto unachieved, specific goals (Buford, Bedeian, & Lindner, 1995). These definitions achieve a lot in expressing the employee motivation, although there is still something unsaid about them. Perhaps most of all, Kreitner comes very close when he invokes the psychological purpose and direction to the behaviour and attributes it to the employee motivation. In most definitions the psychological side of it has been left out and the recent research shows that no employee can be fully motivated unless the psychological priorities are not met in the best possible way.
Managers hold the key of motivation success to a very large extent. Without the involvement of the managers it is difficult to conduct this programme. It is the managers who are in constant touch with the employees and they can produce the result because they are in a position to understand the employee mentality and converse with employees from time to time. It should be one of the main managerial duties to be in touch with the employees, try to understand them, help them when needed, act as a go-between between the organisation and the individual employees. Unless they are given this work as part of their management achievements, any organisation will find it extremely difficult to deal with individual employees effectively. Smart managers now realise the importance of thinking and acting in terms of the greater good of the system of balancing various parts of the above to achieve maximal results; but they are just human and cannot always judge right (Bruce, 1999, 129).
Managers are the people who are in a position to create a highly encouraging and inspiring work place. Organisation can definitely provide a framework of it, in terms of an aesthetic atmosphere, soothing sights, convenient buildings etc. But it is left to the managers to create the soul of it, the psychological inspiration and mental comfort. Carlaw is of the opinion that creating a motivating physical atmosphere is very important at the work place. To do so, it is necessary to walk out of the workplace, return to it as a stranger coming to the place for the first time and focus on whatever could be seen, felt, heard, like colours, noise, lighting, temperature etc. whatever strikes the senses (Carlaw, 2003, 21). Hence, the workplace is one of the main pre-requisites of a motivational atmosphere. A work place that has certain solace in it, where the employees can turn to, at times of difficulties is an absolute necessity and this is mainly created by the supervisors and the managers. It is the work of supervisors and managers, during their day-to-day interaction with the employees help to create an organisational culture and it is very often their behaviour that causes either the employees to feel motivated and energised, or to decide to leave, (Glanz, 2002, p.13). Most recent research agrees with this point of view. Managers have to create motivating workplaces for their employees to perform better by feeling good, because managers should realise that the employees do not turn off their human side while walking into the work place and to make them perform, it is necessary to plug into their human side, understand their human nature and assist them to meet their goals, (Bruce, 2003, p.5).
It is difficult to agree with the old motivational factors any more. Earlier, it was the definite belief the monetary benefits alone were the motivational factors. If the employee is provided with promotion, benefits, housing, family benefits, help with the children's education, job security, increased salaries at regular intervals and family pension and security are the main factors of enthusing the employees in their work. Research of recent years show that non-profit organisations, who neither provide job security, nor a good pay packet, are running high on employee motivation. Study after study has demonstrated that non-profit employees are more engaged, more motivated and sometimes more satisfied than other employees in the profit making sectors although turning that motivation into productivity without causing a burnout, has always been a problem, (Herman, 2004, 650). This totally negates the earlier notion that the monetary benefits rule the motivation world. People derive extensive psychological comfort and achievement by working in non-profit organisations and they derive their motivation from helping people, watching the relief on the faces of the helped. This shows how important psychological comfort is for any employee and rest will follow.
Another theory clearly shows that the employees of any service based organisation has a very clear vision of what they want to do and that becomes their life-time goal and not earning the money. Most experts agree that a learning organization whose employees have a clear vision of the importance of service quality to the organization and these employees are already inspired and the work quality is superior compared to employees working in profit-making organisation, (Hays, 2001). This follows another argument that argues that the motivation level could be reduced if all of sudden money springs into the ascetic picture and spoils it all. Social scientists and economics are increasingly of the opinion that there is a theoretical possibility that motivation may be negatively affected if a relationship of non-monetary nature gets altered into a monetary one," (Frey and Jegen, 2001, p.590). All these studies negate money as the only, or the most important factor of motivation, as thought of earlier. Recent researches have continuously argued that money is not the only motivator and it is not the primary motivator for everyone. However, there is overwhelming evidence that money is an important motivator for most
people. It might not the most important one, but it has remained one of the most important, as can be seen through the surveys where people have to rank the motivators. Money has never been far from the top motivators, to which some of the decisions of employees are linked, (Rhynes et al, 2004, p.391). So, although money has come down from its exalted position as the only motivational factor, it has managed to be retained as one of them.
Motivating factors, as mentioned earlier, can be as many as the individuals themselves. Abraham Maslow (1954) described this in a hierarchy, starting with human psychology, safety and security, belongingness, self esteem and finally self-actualization. According to Maslow, employees have a basic human need and a right to strive for self-actualisation, just as much as the corporate directors and owners do and, by this fulfilment, the organisation becomes stronger, more competitive and profitable.
The psychology of motivation is tremendously complex and very little is unravelled about it and although the lack of knowledge has not dampened the research spirit, (Williamson, 1986, p.433). There is no one single answer and mostly the answers depend on the surrounding environment like social, economic, spiritual and individual. The crowding of the globalisation factors have not helped here either. They have increased the possibilities and opportunities; but also have increased the risk factors and spread them all over the world. The onward march of globalisation that has been rapid and overwhelming, has produced patchwork of cultures and values to shape the corporate environment, which in turn, has brought many opportunities and risks into the realm of motivation, (Frey, 2002, p.5). Under the globalised circumstances, many studies have tried to rank the pertinent factors. In one such researches, it summarises the critical factors that dominate the field of employee motivation as needs of the employee, work environment, responsibilities, supervision, fairness and equity, effort, employees' development and feedback, (Ramlall, 2004, pp. 58-59). Even though it is difficult to restrict the motivational factors only to the above list, it is necessary to agree with the writer that they are the prominent factors.
With the globalisation, varied cultures and backgrounds have come into the forefront. Many researches have been conducted keeping the cultural varieties in view. One such research holds cultural programming as one of the main features that shape the motivational factors. Although human beings are conditioned with cultural influences at different levels like family, social group, geographical region, professional environment, nothing is more prominent as the national culture and this becomes apparent to a foreigner more than an inland dweller and much could be attributed to the national culture when motivation is researched, (Hofstede, 1980, p.43).
Another important point that emerges out is the role of the manager and supervisor. Researches have stressed upon the managerial role and the importance of the manager knowing or being trained about this aspect of his work. If a manager has to influence the work behaviour and performance, the manager should be able to understand the concept of motivation and the inherent factors that invigorate the employee to come to work, perform well, motivate themselves and others and this means one of the manager's main function is to understand the theme of motivation and apply various researched theories onto it, (Leavitt, 1989, p.13). Most recent researches show that there should be individualistic perspectives in the field of work motivation and the factors should be recognised not in the group, but in the individual employees and should be applied to the individual employee, without a marked generality. It firmly is based on the idea that the personality-based views influence the personal characteristics as they affect goal choice and striving. (Wiley, 1995, p.264).
PURPOSE
There is no doubt that employee motivation has figured in many earlier researches and is not a new field. But the research on employee motivation in the insurance field as a study could be comparatively new. Insurance agents are neither full employees, nor complete outsiders and somehow manage to fill the gap in between and hence, as research objects, they have always been neglected mainly because of their shifting category. Understanding the motivating factors should lead to job security, job satisfaction, sympathetic understanding of personal problems by the organisation, unerring loyalty towards the organisation, creation and expansion of more interesting work other than the routine, dull job requirement etc. good working conditions could be created and discipline could be regulated with tact and diplomacy. Better wages, better hours, flexible hours, promotions, rewards, salary increase can happen. Appreciation of work and the feeling of making a difference can prevail amongst the employees. It can give a better understanding to the work of insurance agents.
FRAMEWORK OF THE STUDY
This study has been designed to extend the knowledge already available in this field and also to enlarge such language and the scope of motivation. It has also not hesitated to replicate the existing knowledge of research, wherever applicable. With the information presented above, it is easy to fathom that is a highly pertinent and relevant study of management area that has become a priority area today. Although substantial research could be found on the topic, it is necessary to keep the research going, to develop better themes and hone the already existing ones.
SUMMARY:
The literature review shows the difference between the old research in the area as against the new one. New research stresses the importance of individual factors and the psychological angle. It also considers that the managerial role is very important in employee motivation.
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
In this chapter, the primary research findings and data collection is shown. The collected data is analysed and assessed.
RESEARCH FINDINGS
The personal interview covered many aspects of employee motivation. Managers were comfortable to discuss the matter while agents and other employees clearly were not comfortable. It could be just the fear that the information might leak out to their disadvantage. Or it could be the psychological drawback that exists in all humans, a hesitancy to discuss one's own needs for the fear of being ridiculed, or being seen as greedy and grabbing. I had constructed brief questionnaires for the purpose and they are given here:
MANAGERS
1. What importance do you attach to employee motivation? Do you think it is very important in the working of your organisation that you should have highly motivated employees to carry forward the company policies?
2. In what way do you think that the motivated employees differ from ordinary employees who work up to a point and not beyond that?
3. In your opinion, what are the factors that lead to employee motivation?
4. How do you consider yourself, as a good administrator, or as a motivating force to people who work around you? If you consider yourself in the first category, do you have any desire to be considered under the second?
5. How important and useful to have motivated colleagues and employees around you? Do they in turn, inspire you in your work?
6. What measures your organisation is taking in this direction? Is this topic seriously considered and weighed in your meetings with other managers and the Management?
7. How effective do you think the company policy is in inspiring its employees?
8. Do you feel that anything more could be done by the organisation and by the employees themselves to keep the motivation alive?
EMPLOYEES
1. Do you consider you and your colleagues a motivated lot?
2. Do you think that your organisation can do a lot in this direction and achieve a lot by using the motivated employees?
3. What do you think the organisation should do to achieve total motivation?
4. Do you consider yourself a motivated employee?
5. Do you think that you, personally, can achieve self-motivation without the help of the management, and if so, to what extent?
6. How do you rate self-motivation as against being motivated by the organisation? Which is more useful? Or do you think they complement one another, or follow one another?
7. What difference a motivated employee can make to the organisation and to self? Do you think he might become a workaholic, or do you think he would improve his own life and the business prospects of his organisation?
8. What do you think is the major difference between a motivated and unmotivated employee?
INSURANCE AGENTS
1. How to you rate yourself, as an efficient, ordinary agent, or as an inspired, motivated and creative agent?
2. Do you think that your organisation can do more about employee motivation?
3. How do you define employee motivation? How much self-motivation is needed to get motivated, and to be receptive to the employee motivation programme of different kinds conducted by your organisation?
4. What do you think your production record would be with proper motivation support?
5. How much of your family do you involve in your working and how do you celebrate your successes?
6. In what way do you think that you can translate the motivation that you might receive into your day-to-day actions in the field of insurance work?
7. Do you think that the insurance agents are different from the ordinary employees? If so, what are the special ways of motivating them to work better and become assets to the organisation?
These questionnaires were hand-delivered and were filled up, sometimes quite elaborately and were returned to me. The data produced was very colourful, and in some cases, eye-openers. Despite the timidity some employees and agents exhibited in personal interviews, the questionnaires were written more candidly, mainly due to the last-minute decision not to include personal names, names of the organisations, and any other personal details on the questionnaire. It was a brilliant idea on my part, because the anonymity of it all, helped the employees to open up more and give many facts that would not have been included if the employees were recognisable. Understandably, managers did not have any hassle about being recognised.
The answers produced the results detailed below:
1. Motivation provides the necessary energy, drive and excitement of achievement, extremely vital for conducting business as insurance agent.
2. Working under the managers who are capable of indentifying the extra efforts that the agents put into their work helps in motivation creation.
3. Motivation need not always come from the managers or from the organisation. The research data collected showed otherwise. There were many employees who resented that they were alone, divorcees or single or widows/widowers. They had no one to share their successes.
4. People with family support are more comfortable, because they regularly discuss their success with their families or partners and get motivated by the happiness or thrill shown by them. Some agents and employees mentioned that after every commission or rewards, after every promotion or salary increase, they promised either a holiday or presents to the family or extra pocket money for the growing and teenage children. This made the family members and partners to look forward for such events and naturally it made them to get involved in their successes and failures. This could work as an external motivation much needed for an individual.
5. Another group of agents and employees mentioned that they regularly met their friends either in the bars sharing a drink or in the clubs watching football, cricket or golf. They share their work successes with these friends and all the friends are aware of the working life of the rest. There is a healthy competition here and also a great urge to impress the other members of the group. There could be a slight jealousy and one-upmanship; but it has not stretched beyond a certain level and definitely has not become a threat to their continuous and long-prevailing friendship. Most of them are lonely men; but the friends' group has provided ample psychological support and induced positive attitude. This fact could be another motivator for an employee or agent, which would make them work harder not only to impress other friends, but also to try to push for the ultimate limit and beyond.
6. The greatest motivating factor could be one's own strength that always stands by an individual. It is necessary to list the goals, desires, priorities and listing them will imprint them in the mind and employees can focus on them and work in the direction of achieving them. Nothing can replace the self-motivation, because it depends only on the self and is beyond the control of circumstances.
7. If the person can motivate himself, he can place himself against all the odds that might be plaguing him. also, he is in full control of himself and can motivate his own mind beyond all the negative motivators. People of this kind are the real achievers and are capable of out-perform their competitors. The inherent dream that is the goal of an individual could be the biggest motivation. If we have almost unattainable goals and keep working for them, it will take the individual beyond attainable goals and hence, the saying, aim higher! Dream bigger!
8. Keeping a few role models and achievers in mind as examples too helps immensely. While feeling down, it is always a lifting thought to wonder what the ideal hero would have done under similar circumstances! Or what he did when the tide is unfavourable and this helps to keep the motivation soaring. One of the employees said: when I was financially very low, was plagued by moneylenders from whom I had borrowed for caring my partner who eventually died. There were times when there was no money to buy proper food. Whenever it happened, I would tell myself, "Come on, Jimmy! Your idol Vincent Van Gogh had six proper means in six months. Can't you manage?" and this employee told me that this thought, invariably brightens up his day because he immediately thinks: 'if a genius like Vincent could do that, why not the ordinary me!!!?"
9. By thoughts and deeds, it is necessary to be physically and mentally to be near to the place where one gets motivated, said another agent, who needs motivation and ready to wait for it.
10. Some agents are of the opinion that dynamic environment and positive happenings can lead to motivated life. Motivational workshops, conferences, seminars etc. are of great help. The focussed speakers and persuasive talk will give a sea of benefits with happiness of being alive and positive thoughts.
11. A few employees complained that it looks impossible to revisit the passion and positive thinking that they had at an earlier point and now everything seems to be dead and they feel sad about it. Others are of the opinion that they are not dead and with difficulty, such things can be revived.
12. Going back in time, or visiting the places that made enormous difference or looking back in the work place can help in developing self-motivation.
13. Changing the perception will lead to change in action, which will eventually encourage the individual to regard rejection as not a failure, but as a stepping stone.
14. In a business, that too in insurance business and in the life of any agent, it is very common to face rejections and setbacks frequently. But if such rejections are used as stepp
REST OF IT.
15. Change of perception will help the employees and managers to look at things from a different angle and this will facilitate a different kind of action and outcome.
During the interview, the interviewees were asked many other connected and pertinent questions to know more about the connected issues like job satisfaction, friction at the workplace, differences of opinions between the employees, difficult times between the employees and the managers etc. The study tried to find out more about the personal ambitions of the employees; but this line of research was not particularly rewarded and I had to be happy with the available answers. Most employees and agents were not very pleased with some of the probing questions and tried to avoid them.
ANALYSIS
The research focussed mostly on-the-job satisfactions or the lack of it while conducting the primary interviews. This was applied even to managers and not only to the employees and agents. Mostly the managerial position seems to be a rather motivated one; but not always so. This being a tricky question, and the manager who is unsure if his answers could haunt him in any way, or reach the management, did not answer. A few answered; but these answers were not one of the most honest ones and understandably so. The primary data available after the interviews and assessing the questionnaire has thrown up many unexpected results. I have tried to analyse the data and compared it with the data available through the secondary data collected. Most of the assumptions on which the primary data has shown light, agree with other researcher assumptions. Some are new and do not agree with available research. They are codified here and analysed.
The data did not particularly show that the money factor is the only one that motivates employees. In this research the money factor does remain the most sought after one. Still it is not a general factor, and this flies in the face of our firm conviction that money can buy the best possible employees. It has also come to the notice that money, after the fulfilment of certain needs and desires do not matter much. Pinpointing one motivating factor over the other is very difficult, even though I have tried to rank them. What is one person's preference, does not remain as another's and instead, motivation preferences are as wide and varied as the number of participants. Mostly it depends upon the mindset and the circumstances of the person, not to mention the circumstances of the organisation itself.
So, according to this research, what are the avenues open to the managers that would prevent motivation erosion amongst their employees? There are quite a lot of them, and it depends upon the individualised creative tendency of the managers to decide upon the subtlety with which the pathways have to be implemented for the best possible results. There is urgency in working with each employee to ensure him that his particular motivational factors are taken into consideration and they are important to the organisation. He should feel that such a factor has been taken care of and it continues to be a matter of significance to the company and he and his comfort are not ignored in his workplace. To establish this, it is necessary to have one-on-one occasional meetings with each employee. It is also necessary to know how to delegate skills, power and responsibility. This is a managerial skill that has to be painstakingly developed. This will help the manager to have more time and energy to supervise and take a stronger role by motivating the employees to take more interest and responsibility in their respective places. It is not a bad idea to try drawing them out from their respective corners and give them work that is far beyond their usual area of responsibility. There will definitely be grumblings in the beginning from the scandalized employees; but very soon, they will find out that the extra responsibility and beyond-the-boundary creativity suits them. Employees are vary of additional work and even additional power; still, usually, they end up liking the additional challenges and appreciation, unless they are of the stick-in-the-mud kind and cannot be drawn out at all. Such employees are the dead wood of the company and cannot be motivated easily.
It is necessary to concentrate on employee behaviour, individual personalities and their daily performance. If the performances are ignored for sometime, it will be difficult for the managers to understand the work their employees do. Their working style will naturally be closely connected with their individual personalities and attitudes and it is difficult to keep pace with one without understanding the other. This also means that good performance should not go unrewarded and the reward should not come in the end of the year. This definitely is the traditional approach; but not appreciated or in vogue any more. Delayed rewards are as good as denied rewards and waiting for that elusive award, the employee loses the will to perform, knowing that some kind of reward will come much later, whether he continues to perform or not, because it is a reward for cumulative performances. Instead, rewarding each excellent performance in some way or other, however small the reward could be, is more effective and is always appreciated by the employee. Employee rewards should never resemble the academic year of a student followed by an examination and after much waiting, a reward of passing it. That gets tedious in an employment. Hence, the immediacy of the award is absolutely essential. Only then the employee is reassured that his particular performance is noticed and highly appreciated. It is reassuring and he will know which way to go in the future. It will erase off all the uncertainties about the decisions he has taken and the pathway he has employed for that particular performance.
The ranked order of employee motivation requirements could be roughly listed as below:
1. Excellent salary
2. Interesting and creative work
3. Work appreciation whenever good work is provided.
4. Superiors noticing the good work done.
5. Job security
6. Excellent working conditions
7. Promotions, rewards and salary increase in appreciation of work and not only depending upon the seniority.
8. Feeling of getting involved in the growth of the organisation.
9. Organisation loyalty towards employees without treating them as paid workers who have no connection with the organisation, other than working and taking their salaries home.
10. Kind help during family and personal predicaments and lending an ear to the problems, trying to understand them.
11. Discipline without harshness and vindictive persecution.
12. An attractive and secure retiremental plan.
According to the researchers interesting work is a self-actualizing factor while good wages is physiological factor. Appreciation is esteem factor and job security is a safety factor. These factors need not be in the same order and could differ from employee to employee. Or some of the employees might need just a few of the motivations out of the list. There are also possibilities that some motivations might not have been listed at all here. Additional possibility could be that sometimes the employees are too self-conscious to express their real motivating factor, either by the fear of self-indulgence or the fear of being ridiculed. Some motivators could be too personal to be expressed to others. It is clear that employees who are happy with their earning and do not hold money as an additional motivator, can be very creative in their work, if allowed to spread their wings. Another clear factor that emerged out of this research is that some disgruntled employees who are neither motivated, nor allowed any one else to get motivated, who are rather bitter with the management and their working conditions, are clearly the negative group. It could be clearly seen that these employees did not spend much time in self-improvement or improving their talents and skills and have spent more time in blaming the managers for their shortcomings. It is difficult to motivate such employees, who do not look for motivation. At the same time, it is easy to see that managers did not give these employees much opportunity to get motivated. So the fault lies in both the camps. Perhaps it is necessary to start from the beginning, without expecting much positive reaction from these employees, and slowly guide them into the motivable group. It is clear that if these employees are not steered away from such destructive path, they will remain a hurdle and discourage other employees from working and thus, undermining the organisational efforts to move forward.
The research has also shown another group of employees, who work doggedly bereft of motivation, despite their hearts not being there in the work. These employees can be motivated easily because they are not averse to it. They have tried to find it, but had been unable to do so, and they did not find any encouragement to look for it further. This group is the easiest of the lot to be motivated. This group would like to work better if their motivating requirements are fulfilled. They are neither disgruntled, nor disappointed. They simply want to move forward and hoping to find enough inspiration to do so. This is the most hopeful target group for the managers to start with.
Some employees were very rigid about the money factor, but not all. Better working conditions are required by most. Very rarely employees are completely happy with their working conditions and it always desires something to be desired. This research could be called a leveller and destroyer of many myths. Philosophers argue that it is a myth that a manager or an organisation can motivate employees. The truth is that the employee has to self-motivate himself and managers and the organisation only might be able to provide tools to do so. This is partially true. Without help from within, no employee can be motivated to do more radical a job.
As many other researches earlier, this research too has come to the conclusion that money is not always a good motivator. Money works only as pacifier of many human needs and not beyond that. This research also negates the idea that fear is the best motivator. Fear of being yelled at, getting insulted in the presence of other employees and peers, or losing the job is perhaps the worst destroyer of motivation. A manager who knows what motivates him and assumes that the same factor motivates his employees too, is making the biggest mistake of his career. Increased job satisfaction will result in better job performance too cannot be true, because a person with complete job satisfaction might not have much to achieve by putting in extra work and creativity. Managers who say that employee satisfaction is beyond their comprehension are once again making mistakes. Perhaps they think it is too much of an effort to do so. Or they are too lazy to put in extra efforts. Or they are not particularly concerned about the employees, and so, about the organisation. A responsible manager would never make that comment. He will search for the ways and means of finding out more and more about employee motivation.
It depends on the human nature, both on its simplistic and complex side that makes employee psychology difficult to understand at times. The employee psychology depends on the reason the employee works for the particular organisation.
Positive employee morale and keeping it boosted are significant here. If the organisation and its managers understand what exactly keep the employees motivated to make them contributing staff, half of the battle is won. Recognising the employees and treating them as though they matter for the organisation is very important. Humour in the workplace and positivity can bring inspiration in their wake. Employment surveys to gauge the employee moods are another important weapon in the hands of the managers and organisers. It is very easy to assess the employee mentality through these surveys. Motivated managers, inspirational quotations, being happy at work, not minding additional hours of work etc. all work towards the goal of keeping the employees inspired. A lot depends on the quality of life the employee lives through his work. Training and development and learning new concepts of motivation might work favourably for the managers. Employee training could help too, if the training is structured according to the theories and recommendations of motivational education. Key employee retention is very important for any organisation and without the help of motivation, it is difficult to do so. Without such employees developing an ardour and spirit culture for the work, it is difficult to increase productivity in any organisation.
Motivation has a lot to do with the individual expectation of people around them (Pygmalion Effect) and the individual's own expectation of himself (Galatea Effect). Expectations are very important in life and their effect and power can never be overestimated. While creating motivation among the employees, it is necessary for the managers to understand the results and strengths of these very human and natural expectations that are in the mind of every individual. It is very necessary to create a certain tradition and custom of motivation increasing in every organisation. It should not be an all of a sudden thing. Unless there is a history of motivation within the organisational culture, it will not have its roots. This will result in bad reputation, poor performance, getting lesser than ordinary staff and then suddenly deciding to inspire such lack-lustre staff. It is very important to have a carefully developed tradition of motivation and inspiration, so that the employees would not even notice the change and accept it as company culture. This would give a much-needed fillip to the organisation, which will be counted among the better class. A sudden network of motivation could be viewed suspiciously because employees would suspect that the management and managers are up to something sinister. Motivation increase should be done in the most subtle and natural way possible without making it too obvious a show-piece.
There is no doubt that to a large extent insurance agents work on their own, zealously guarding their clientele information, they also are a distinct group of employees, especially so, if they are connected with property and casualty. They already work on commission basis, and a very small amount of extra cash need not motivate them immensely. The celebration of a right holiday event can boost very positive morale among the insurance agents. Working on their own mostly without much group life with colleagues can sometimes isolate them. Instead, if they are allowed to mix with their colleagues under relaxed circumstances, it could be a source of inspiration to them. This kind of events and celebrations can create a team building focussed on team work that the agents usually lack. This can be the basis of a future success.
For an organisation it is important to know what motivates the motivators and that means the managers. If the managers are motivating the employees in general and agents in insurance organisations, the organisation should think of motivating the managers in their work a part of which is motivating the employees working under them. It is like a chain reaction in any group. Commercial success of any group depends upon the motivated employees working for that group and there is no denial of that. We consider that today's world, especially the business world is turbulent, plagued by unprecedented chaos. But looked from another standpoint, it is easy to perceive that the turbulence in the scene provides unlimited opportunities to please and inspire the employees, and such opportunities did not exist earlier. The employees have multiple needs, just like any other human group today and this should make meeting their needs easier. People work for many reasons like love, money, personal achievement, fulfilment, financial independency, sense of responsibility, keeping themselves busy and useful, not allowing themselves to fall into a rut and lose the will to live, looking after the children, providing for the family, saving money for a rainy day, fulfilling ambitions like further education or building a home etc. There is no limit on ambitions and they could be as varied as the number of humans. No two ambitions are the same, even though on the surface they might look so. This is the key to know how to appoint people, retain their loyalty, reward them on their success and motivate them to do better for themselves and for the company. This is partly the responsibility of strategic management of the organisation.
One thing every manager should work against is the workplace negativity. Once it is set in, it grows without limit, and sucks all into the black hole and it is extremely necessary not to allow it to find a foothold in any organisation. Mostly it is very difficult to contain it on a regular basis, as the workplaces deal with human material and feelings of jealousy, one-upmanship, depression, difficult dealings, and personal grudge etc. have to dominate the situations at one time or other. It is not possible to keep all the ordinary human actions and reactions down all the time. Still, it is necessary to do so to have a better and brighter atmosphere.
In the case of insurance agents it is even worse, because other employees have to deal within the framework of their workplaces, whereas, the insurance agents have to deal with the workplace in addition to dealing with other companies or property owners. Psychologically speaking, this cannot be greatly uplifting for the agents. They have to deal with many moods, egos and attitudes. While the ordinary employees find it very difficult sometimes to deal with the egos and personal attitudes of their handful of managers, it is ten folds more difficult for the agents who have to deal with these problems and many more problems of the prospective and existing clients. Hence, the insurance agents need more attention, with their workplace spreading far and wide and have to deal with bereaved families, orphaned children, fire effects, accident aftermaths, murders, dead bodies and natural disasters. It is a vast region of negativity and to keep themselves positive and upright, they need immense support and understanding from the organisation and managers. To continue working as a insurance agent for many years need a lot of passion for work and passion does not come without motivation. It is not rare to come across stress related illness and nervous breakdown and this is where workplace wellness comes into assistance. This workplace support keeps the agents focussed and productive. The feeling of being supported at the home-base, the ability and atmosphere that would enable them to laugh it all off will go a long way. They should also be able to feel that they are maintaining an excellent balance between their personal life and work and this feeling can prevail only when they are happy and positive at the workplace. In the present day world, workplaces matter more than the home and personal life, because mostly a working individual spends his best time at the workplace, seeking comfort and rest at home. Most of his waking hours are at the place of work and not at home. Slowly for working people, home is becoming the secondary priority unlike in the olden days.
SUMMARY
From the data collected it is easy to come to the conclusion that money is not the most important criteria. Work place and the role of managers is very important. Keeping in touch with the employees and knowing the problems in their personal life, is equally important. Motivation is an individually tailored inspiration.
CHAPTER 4
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
PROBLEM AND RESEARCH QUESTION
Employee happiness could be the very lifeblood of any organisation. It is necessary to keep them content by rewarding their work efforts. If the employees are not motivated, exemplary work cannot be taken from them. It is the duty of every business owner or manager to finds ways and means and various methods of keeping the employees inspired. The days of rendering automatic work in the hope of getting a salary do not exist any more. Even in those days, it is definite that the motivated employees who were treated well by their owners, worked better than the unmotivated employees.
There is no doubt that motivation is different things to different people at different times, because they do not stay the same. Challenges, requirements, needs and goals change and so does the motivation factor. Company motivation changes according to the change in the company goals and culture. It is an uncanny talent to match the company motivation with the employee motivation and somehow adjust it to the personal motivation factor of each employee and there lies the secret of company's success!!
It is necessary to present a motivating message to the employees which will address them as part of a working organisation and personally too. They are part of the work organisation; but they are also separate individuals, who have their own personal agendas. To motivate a person, it is necessary to touch the team spirit as well as the individual spirit. Messages delivered should be able to inspire them in two ways. Only then the employee will be more focussed.
This is not an easy task for the manager as he cannot hand-pick his team and then keep them motivated. Instead, he has to be happy with the lot he gets and try hard to improve their attitude and outlook. The first lesson managers have to learn is that there is no such thing called blanket motivation that envelops all. It has to be tackled on individual basis. Gender differences, class differences, status and societal disparities, place of living, type of dwelling, intellectual outlook, life goals, attitudes and ways of self-evaluation etc. combine together to form the motivational needs and they keep reinventing themselves all the time. If the manager has a huge staff, it is all the more difficult for him to keep them motivated. It is necessary for the manager to talk sweepingly in terms of team spirit using inclusive language while addressing the hoard; but it is also necessary to talk to the individual likes, dislikes, family life or the lack of it, work during off hours, hobbies, desires and ambitions while talking to each member of his staff. If he does not do that his speech will be lost and fall away. Power words and power phrases are necessary to catch the wavering attention of the employees. These phrases could be placed as notices in strategic places with a matching inspirational photograph or painting. It is necessary to make motivation a frivolous hobby and at the same time, plan it to sound like a sacred duty and it should provide an electrifying jolt to the reader, in this case, the employee.
No matter whatever is the size of the company, employee motivation applies to them all, big and small. No company can run without motivated employees. Actually there is a saying that all the companies, organisations and institutions run due to a handful few motivated employees while the remaining employees pretend to be working. Mostly this is a fact. Employee motivation programme should aim at motivating even those employees who work in the margin, without much benefit either to themselves or to the organisation. These are the employees who really matter. Already motivated employees are the ones who can motivate themselves without much outside help and will be anyway get benefitted by the programme. But the main thrust should be on the peripheral employees who do not do justice to themselves and to the company. In the insurance business, there are many such agents, who usually work to certain extent to keep themselves afloat, and not beyond. These agents can be motivated to do much more. They themselves will be surprised by the additional achievement that they could create, mainly because they have never ventured beyond the boundary. Lack of motivation can make the job performance suffer and reduce production, creativity and this can definitely not take the company very far. If the employees are suffering from motivation issues, and if the company does not tackle it on time, the company and the employees both end up paying the price of their negligence.
There are many issues due to the problem employees of any organisation. Employees who have been there for a long time, and are simply waiting to retire, working only for the sake of their salaries are usually the problem employees, whom every manager will find tough nuts to crack and inspire. These are the bane of any company, more so in the insurance industry, because such employees would not vacate the place for better employees; neither would they allow the company to move forward and remain the shackles of the company. Sometimes there are chances that these employees might have been very good workers in the initial days of their working life. They might have got into a mental rut because of no inspiration reaching them from any quarter. They might have struggled against their desire to work well, and the struggle to find their creativity and inspiration on a daily basis, and getting defeated in the struggle might have made them the redundant workers of today. In such cases, it is necessary for the organisation and its managers to take most of the blame, and employees should not be blamed. If the workplace through its managers had provided ample motivation to work, these employees perhaps would have been one of the best in the field. Hence, without taking any harder or drastic measures, it is necessary to give them another chance by motivating them in the best possible way and watching for the results. Even if they had an iota of hard work and sincerity in them in their younger days, motivating them would not take long. But there are possibilities of another group, which simply does not want to work more than strictly- working for the company, to justify their wages and such people work without motivation and imagination.
First of all building a foundation is very necessary to make the employees feel that they are part of the team. The new employees should receive welcome orientation in this foundation and the old employees should be able to feel part of it. It should be able to create a sense of 'we' feeling of belonging amongst the employees. And of course, this should be followed by a very positive environment in the workplace.
It is mentioned usually that the insurance agents should treat their clients by cooperating with them, providing them information, make them to feel respected and pampered and thus, lengthening their stay with the agent and the insurance company as long as possible. Insurance agent's main work is providing excellent customer service to his clients. As long as the agents keep their clients happy and looked after, the price or premium sensitivity of the client remains low and comfortable. Client retention being the most important work of the agent, he simply cannot ignore his clients and to do this work on a daily basis, he needs a lot of support and understanding from the mother organisation. With the present fast moving trend, fast communication without waiting for the post to reach, everything requires to be instantaneous and client - agent relationship is simply a mirror held against the agent - manager or organisation relationship.
Insurance companies are not the traditional companies any more. They could be of mono-line or multi-line, it is full of people expected to conduct various activities and functions according to the company's work culture. People who work in the background without any public exposure make significant contributions to the company along with the much exposed agents, who are the public faces of any insurance company by being in touch with the public and also by being the people who should be contacted. They are the public faces of the company and their responsibilities are overwhelming. Fire, damage and theft risks against the property are covered by the property insurance and usually most of the foreseen risks are covered by insurance corporations.