Over the next fews days I will write down a summary of some ideas regarding motivation. Let’s start with the Two Factor Theory by Frederick Herzberg.

Herzberg wrote 1959 a book called “The Motivation to Work” with research colleagues Bernard Mausner and Barbara Snyderman. The book is a study on 200 Pittsburgh engineers and accountants. It looked at the factors that cause job satisfaction as well as the factors that cause dissatisfaction. Interestingly the authors found out that satisfaction and dissatisfaction should not be treated as opposites. The opposite of satisfaction is simply no satisfaction, not dissatisfaction. (The Stones were right) Where managers would believe that motivation requires rewards, the book points out that workers get motivated and thus feel rewarded through the responsibility they can get from their job and the connection to their work itself. The main idea in the theory is the division between two factors: Motivation factors that lead to satisfaction and Hygiene factors that if not fullfilled lead to dissatisfaction.
What people want from their jobs are Motivation Factors:

Challenging work

Exciting place to work

Varied work

Promotion chances
Hygiene factors are the base for the motivation factors. These need to be present, but will not cause higher job satisfaction. Salary is thus not a motivator but forms the basis for motivation factors to start. Hygiene factors are:

Status

Security

Salary

Personal life

Company policy

This idea of a hierarchy of motivation factors is further developed by Maslow, discussed tomorrow.

What make peoples get up in the morning and (here in Japan) commute for one to two hours in packed trains? Trains with up to 400% over-capacity during the morning rush is the norm rather than the exception in most trains into Tokyo.

So what does motivate us to get to work? First of all what is motivation?

Wordnet gives the following description:

The psychological feature that arouses an organism to action toward a desired goal; the reason for the action; that which gives purpose and direction to behavior

but also

the condition of being motivated

And

the act of motivating; providing incentive.

Or

What I want,
Why I want it,
How I want it,

Pretty complex questions. As if we are asking ourselves this every day before we get crushed in the train. But we should ask ourselves these questions! Unfortunately most of us don’t.
WorkVitamins! At least you should go to work at a place that motivates! Who wants to be Dilbert?

Forgive me for the silly tittle, the Financial Times today reported about the positive aspects of games. With the battles between Sony and Microsoft’s XBox heating up, some interesting news about the more positive side effects of gaming. Not that I am interested in games whatsoever, but FT noted apart from the jobs and the economical benefits, the fact that gaming seems to improve staff productivity, and is used for training. Gaming: a WorkVitamin!
We have never used games for our projects, however or we have been installing darts, snooker tables, golf putties and recently table football (in the US called foosball). The staff loves it! We are suggesting inter-departmental competitions.

I googled the positive aspects of gaming and found a very interesting article on the features in games that contribute to motivation in games. Take table 2: Motivation and change the words player to worker and you have the basis for the design of a work environment with happy, motivated staff.

Read this at onrec.com

” The Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development reports that staff churn at UK companies is 15.7% and that the estimated direct cost of replacing an employee is 50% of their starting salary (once advertising, training, administration and management time is taken into account). With an average salary of £22,000, a business of 250 staff could lose £430,000 a year simply due to dissatisfaction with the office environment. In the financial or legal sectors, where recently qualified employees can average salaries nearer £50,000, the cost is closer to £1 million.”

That is nearly JPY 90,000,000 to 208,000,000, the cost of renovating an office for 250 staff.