Telecommuting and the Role of Employee Motivation

Introduction

Telecommuting has grown at a very high rate in the recent past. Companies like yahoo American Express and First Fata are the leading giant organizations that have upheld the telecommuting form of employee functioning. Its popularity is reinforced by the fact that it increases productivity, reduces turnover, and improve employees' morale among other benefits to the company. However, the latter is the most important of all the advantages. Since workers are working out of sight from each other and the management, it is very crucial that the company works its best to motivate them.

Keeping them will make them even more productive and boost the firm's performance in the market. Therefore, the Human Resource departments in firms that embrace telecommuting should dig deeper into what motivates their workforce, how to motivate them and maintain their motivation for better productivity. In that regard, there are some theories from researchers that tend to elaborate more on worker motivation. Some of these theories include the Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Theory and Hertzberg's Two-Factor Theory.

Get quality help now

Bella Hamilton

Verified writer

Proficient in: Motivation

5 (234)

“ Very organized ,I enjoyed and Loved every bit of our professional interaction ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

Any company intending to succeed in its operations with home-based employees need to borrow the knowledge of these theories.

What motivates you?

It always feels good when you work to achieve a particular goal. My best motivation factor is striving to make some set standard s as outlined by either by my employer or my targets. All employees have a personal fixed standard in their careers that they fight every working minute to fulfill. On the other hand, companies have their target like securing a market and increasing the yearly revenue.

Lazaroiu (2015) states that, when the organization comes up with a motivational strategy that rewards the people who meet an absolute exception, it may work out for both the firm and the worker. For instance, since I have my own goals that I plan to reach within my set time, I find it extremely good to work to beat the other employees and win some rewards whose requirements are related directly to my obligations. Weekly recognition and monthly face to face sessions are also influential to me. A one-time come together for the workers of the bureau is a perfect time to show to the management the additional work that you do to propel its burner higher. The recognition may even make it better for the workforce who wants to compete for the credit or praise.

How Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Hertzberg Two-Factor Theory relate to motivation, explain your motivation and that of other employees.

Theorists such as Abraham Maslow and Hertzberg came up with methods that try to evaluate in detail the employee satisfaction and motivation in a unique manner. In his Hierarchy of needs theory, Maslow highlights a five-stage model that includes: physical and biological needs that look out for worker basic needs, safety needs and protection elements for employee security, love and belongingness of the artisan, Esteem needs which include self-esteem and reputation and Self-actualization needs that help them realize their personal needs. On the other hand, Hertzberg's Two-Factor Theory specializes in Motivators and Hygiene factors. According to him, motivators are the crucial aspect that prompts the workers whereas the Hygiene factors are those extrinsic factors without which the workers may feel demotivated. The motivators include recognition, achievement and the level of responsibility. Hygiene factors include company policy and administration, salary and job security. Recognition and job security keep propelling my efforts and those of the other employees. Just like all the other employees, my safety, personal needs, esteem, and self-actualization affects my performance ant the company. According to Moradi & Shekarchizadeh (2015), when the Human Resource managers consider these features adequately and fulfill the theories, the performance of the staffs improves tremendously. On the contrary, neglecting of these dynamics may make the telecommuting workforce less inspired, thus, lead to underperformance by the teams. Below is a sample of a self-explanatory diagram representation of the Maslow's Hierarchy theory and its components that influence employees.

How can employees remain highly motivated when telecommuting? What can they do to motivate themselves? What can the company do to motivate telecommuting employees?

Nonetheless, sufficient production at the company is not all about motivating the workforce. Instead, it also entails upholding of the motivation all through. Hence, all measures necessary have to be fulfilled by both the workers and the managers. For them to remain highly motivated, employers should provide incentives and appraisals for well-performing workers. The best elaboration for that point is, all of them will work competitively to earn the recognition over their counterparts. Further, they should try to gamify the teamwork and ensure that there is a 24/7 digital communication line for the employees to reach each other with ease. On the other hand, employees have to work towards motivating themselves. Bussin & Christos (2017) states that managers can do this by setting career and timely goals that they work towards achieving. The employees may also improve their self-esteem by believing in their skills and themselves during the network-based work. The company may also do more than just rewards to motivate telecommuting employees. The managers must ensure that there are consistent updates through Skype, plan regular telephone calls, creating hand-written thank you notes, know the cultures of the employees and the holidays that they celebrate and probably excluding them from duty on those days. They may also include additional salary for health transport and housing cover and ensure that employee security is enhanced.

Will you become a telecommuter? Why or why not?

Yes, I will become a teleworker. The main reason I would prefer this home-based working system is because it has many employee side advantages. Some of them are: It increases the schedule flexibility for the employees to get time for personal tasks and family. It also improves work focus. That is because there are known to be fewer distractions and security issues at home. Hence, the concentration of jobs is better. There are fewer break-ins at home if any. Lastly, it saves time and money for the employees that commute. The time that workers spend on the road traveling from home to work and back is too much. Working from home may enable me to use the time for other tasks. Similarly, the transportation costs to and from work are unnecessary demands that I may save for other use in case I work from home.

Consequently, it is right to conclude that; teleworking is a very productive system of employee engagement. It is also right to state that, it all depends on the level of motivation that the workers get and how it firms maintain it within them. In that regard, employers should work with the Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Theory and Hertzberg Two-Factor Theory to ensure that there is maximum inspiration amongst them, to propel the company's performance to more significant levels.