Organizational Behaviour Paper

1.Last summer Drew and Sean worked at a Desjardins call centre. Their job was to call the bank’s customers and offer them a credit card with a low interest rate. At the beginning of the summer the manager of the call centre announced that the employee who made the most calls in the next 3 months would win a two-week, all expenses paid sailing trip. Neither Drew nor Sean experienced an increase in motivation after hearing the announcement. They had different reasons. Drew gets motion sickness on sailing trips. Sean believes that even if he put in the effort, the more experienced employees would make more calls than him. Choose the most appropriate motivation theory to explain why Drew and Sean were not motivated by the sailing trip. Explain the theory. Use the theory to explain why Drew was not motivated. Use the theory to explain why Sean was not motivated.

The fact that Drew and Sean were not motivated by the sailing trip is best explained by the process theory which states that individuals are motivated as a result of cognitive processes (interpretation and understanding) and that they normally make a decision about “effort, direct, persistence” based for example on whether or not it is fair or by evaluating the reward versus the effort needed. The process theory includes five subcategories identified as the cognitive-evaluation theory, goal-setting theory, self-efficacy theory, equity theory and expectancy theory.
Drew’s lack of motivation can be described by the expectancy theory which states that motivation is determined by the outcomes people expect to occur as a result of their actions on the job. Using this theory, a decision will be taken based on three aspects: Will the effort needed lead to desired performance? Will the desired performance lead to promised rewards? Is the outcome personally attractive or valuable? Here, we can clearly see that Drew was not motivated by the sailing trip because of his personal situation (getting motion sickness on sailing trips) that made the reward completely valueless to him versus the effort he would need to provide. His interpretation and understanding of the announcement didn’t lead to an increase in motivation.
On his part, Sean was also not motivated by the announcement because he evaluated his chance of making the most calls near zero considering the higher experience of many other employees. He therefore believed just like Drew that the effort wasn’t worth the reward, because for the same amount of effort, one of the more experienced workers will inevitably earn the reward. This is a perfect example of the equity theory which argues that employees compare their job inputs (effort, experience, …) and outcomes (salary levels, raises, rewards, …) to those of others.
2. Desjardins has hired you to design a management by objectives (MBO) plan to motivate the employees in the call centre. Identify and describe the necessary components of such a plan. Explain to management why some employees will not respond to the MBO plan.

A management by objectives plan consists of a program that includes specific goals, participative decision-making, explicit time period and performance feedback. More specifically, it emphasizes collaboratively predetermined, concrete, verifiable and measurable goals where the organization’s global objectives are rendered into clear objectives for each divisions, departments and individuals in the organization. In an MBO, objectives from different levels are all linked together and individual workers all have personal performance objectives as well. Moreover, in a MBO, an explicit time period is proven to help motivate the one at task and goes hand in hand with goal specificity. Feedback about goal progress is also a crucial point in the goal-setting theory and help to increase employees’ motivation. Despite its proven effectiveness, some employees might not respond to the MBO plan because they perform better when goals are simply assigned to them by managers and aren’t presented as a form of collective objectives. Besides, some employees might not agree with these objectives which will also lower their performance. Finally, the tasks attributed to some employees might be too simple or too complex, again altering their motivation and performance.