The Impact of Employee Engagement - Essay Assignment Help

The Impact of Employee Engagement, Learning Environment and Employee Personal Development Plans on Employee Motivation

Employee motivation is a critical aspect of human resource management that leads to the improved performance of department and even the company. High level of employee engagement is intrinsically linked to the high level of employee motivation. It is generally accepted that motivation is linked with both learning and performance at workplace. The motivation can be in both extrinsic and intrinsic terms (Eisele, Grohnert, Beausaert, & Segers, 2013). The later is defined as the one under which there is a strong desire to perform and activity while gaining experience and satisfaction that is inherited in the activity itself. This essay will discuss how employee motivation is directly linked to employee performance and learning and how managers can improve employee motivation levels at workplace. 

According to Kuvaas et al. (2017), organizations are required to address both extrinsic and intrinsic motivations as separate overall organizational motives. The finding of the article imply that extrinsic motivation is most advantageous for the individuals as well as organizations. Extrinsic motivation is defined by Kuvaas et al. (2017) as the desire for performing an activity with target of attaining positive results and/or avoiding negative consequences like punishment. Kuvaas et al. (2017) also highlighted the importance of employees’ engagement by asserting that managers must listen to consider employees’ perspectives, their choices and feedback while making the final decisions. Another key finding of the article proclaimed that the organizations must proceed with caution while applying strict controls like making comparison between employee’s performances, close monitoring, making competitive base pay levels and setting contingent tangible incentives. The key findings of the study also highlighted the negative correlation between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation levels (Kuvaas, Buch, Weibel, Dysvik, & Nerstad, 2017). 

The arguments provided in the article by Kuvaas et al. (2017) included the measurement of extrinsic motivation. According to Gagne & Forest (2008), the extrinsic motivation cannot be measured without having empirical data. Moreover, it is generally argued that extrinsic motivation measurement is mostly based on experiments which are difficult to be extrapolated to real world compensation system. Another argument that can be considered is the relative contribution of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation levels that is made for achieving best employee outcomes. According to Gagne & Forest (2008), extrinsic motivation measures can result into unbalance preoccupations, work stress, impaired health and safety, high turnover and fixed mind-sets.