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Introduction: In Fall 2011 I took a Reading & Conference with Dr. Donald Stepich, the theme of which was “Evidence-Based Practice”. Meanwhile, part of my graduate assistant duties for Dr. Donald Winiecki that semester was to help him explore the roots of Human Performance Technology, which were poorly documented. One of the key models in use by HPT practitioners is Gilbert’s Behavior Engineering Model; despite Gilbert’s insistence that he worked scientifically, he did not cite research to support his claims. The BEM “makes sense” but as yet no one appears to have linked extant research or conducted new research which would validate it.

This paper was my first attempt to compare what Gilbert asserted to what current research indicates. Gilbert’s attitude towards psychological research was somewhat hostile, despite (or because?) the fact that he had earned a Ph.D in psychology. He wrote with disdain about the “cult” of behavior which focused so heavily on motivation, which he felt was a minor factor in workforce performance issues. Meanwhile, modern researchers in organizational behavior and human resource development continue to focus on worker motivation. I decided to look at the hot topic of “employee engagement”. Do organizational efforts to influence workers’ intrinsic motivation have any measurable effect on their work performance?

(short answer: Organizations can influence how workers perceive them, which may lead to better on-the-job performance. Gilbert and current research agree that organizations cannot directly change that perception. Gilbert dismissed such efforts as a waste of resources, while research indicates that the indirect payoff may be positive. The jury is still out on this topic.)

Is Individual Motivation Relevant to Performance?

Introduction

In discussing the components of his Behavior Engineering Model, Gilbert (2007) declared that the individual instrumentation (capacity) and individual motivation (motive) components were of lesser importance than other components when analyzing performance issues:

The two causes of poor performance most commonly espoused are motives (“they don’t care”) and capacity (“they’re too dumb”). But these are usually the last two places one should look for causes of incompetence, simply because they rarely are the substantial problem. (p. 89)

Gilbert (2007) noted that people normally care about their job performance without any prompting from external influences and that improving environmental motivation (incentives) “can usually obliterate all evidence of defective motives” (p. 89). Gilbert did not cite any research studies, organizational psychology theories, management science theories, or other evidence to back up his assertions.

Are intrinsic motives truly unimportant to job performance? Kovach (1995) surveyed employees on what job rewards they desired the most, and at the same time surveyed supervisors on what they perceived to be the job rewards that their employees desired the most. The top three choices by employees were interesting work, full appreciation of work done, and the feeling of being “in” on things; all three rewards are the employee’s perceptions of how well he or she is individually valued by the organization. The supervisors, however, believed that their employees felt most rewarded by good wages, job security, and potential for growth in the organization; all three factors are organizational behaviors that are generally not targeted at any specific individual. Around this time, the human resources field had taken hold of a concept called employee engagement, defined as the level of enthusiasm and interest that an employee feels about his or her job and employer. The idea was that if employee felt valued by the organization, he or she would reciprocate that value by developing an emotional attachment to the job that would in turn make the employee desire to give back to the organization through a high level of job performance.

Was Gilbert correct in believing that there is no significant link between employee motives and performance, or is there research evidence that indicates that such a link exists and that efforts towards employee engagement have a positive and measurable effect on workplace performance?

Gilbert and Motivation

Thomas Gilbert (2007) took a dim view of motivation, calling it a sub cult that was “perhaps the most pernicious of the enemy’s agents” (p. 9), and claiming that there was no evidence that any behavioral professional who focused on motivation ever proved any measurable results. He disdained motivation as being a waste of the energies of the performance engineer, which was only worth discussing in order to dismiss it:

There is more nonsense, superstition, and plain self-deception about the subject of motivation than about any other topic. And because motivation is a favorite nostrum offered as a curative for incompetence, the nature and causes of this nonsense require some examination.  (p. 308)

He stated that in an actual performance analysis, attempts to improve motives would have little success due to lack of leverage to change that component. In his opinion, monetary rewards were the only truly effective motivator, yet performance engineers “shrink from any suggestion of changing the way they pay people for their performance” (p. 309) lest they offend their clients. He conceded that workers might respond positively to non-monetary incentives such as “patting them on the back” (p. 309), but asserted that only money mattered.

Instead, he believed that by examining and improving a job’s incentives, an employer would create a self-selecting process where only those who find those incentives acceptable will take that job. He dismissed inspirational leadership as just a temporary measure, and regarded any focus on individual motives as lazy management:

The greatest effect we can have on people’s motives comes through indirect means, by improving the environment: improving incentives, information, work tools, and the assignment of greater responsibility or the redesign of the job. The direct manipulation of people’s motives seldom has important leverage. In fact, people who are directly trying to improve the attitudes of employees and students are usually looking in the direction of the least leverage. (p. 169)

In his view, attempting to directly influence an employee’s intrinsic motivation was a waste of effort. Through improving the environmental components of a job, however, an employer would indirect influence the employee’s motives.

Employee Engagement

The definition of engaged employees was first put forth by Kahn (1990) as those who “employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performances” (p. 694). Employees are engaged if they feel a high level of involvement in their jobs, express enthusiasm when performing their jobs, and maintain interest in what their jobs entail. Saks (2006) divided the concept of engagement into job engagement and organization engagement; an individual may feel a strong sense of commitment to his or her specific job without feeling an equivalent commitment to the organization, or the reverse may be the case.

Macey and Schneider (2008) found that there was as yet no universal definition of employee engagement. They compiled their own definition by synthesizing the existing literature, calling it a psychological state that “connotes involvement, commitment, passion, enthusiasm, focused effort, and energy” (p. 2).

Rich, Lepine, and Crawford (2010) hypothesized that three factors operated together to influence employee engagement. The first is value congruence, which is the ability to find personal meaning in one’s work. Employees who can interpret the purpose of their job and/or their organization as meaningful, whether it is on an individual level (such as feeling fulfillment through tackling intellectual challenges) or on a societal level (such as working at a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving farmland or educating children about nutrition). The second is core self-evaluation, which is one’s sense of confidence in one’s skills and knowledge. The third is perceived organizational support, which is one’s sense that he or she can devote time and energy to the job and receive a reciprocal level of effort back from the organization.

The Effect of Engagement on Performance

Harter, Schmidt, and Hayes (2002) developed a hypothesis that the employee satisfaction and engagement levels within a business unit have a positive impact on the outcomes of that business unit, including productivity, profit, and customer satisfaction. To examine this, they surveyed employees in a broad range of organizations across multiple industries, and then triangulated the survey data with extant data from the employees’ supervisors and business units. Their results showed that there was indeed a positive correlation between business outcomes and both employee satisfaction and employee engagement. The level of employee engagement correlated most strongly with business outcomes for customer satisfaction, unit profitability, unit productivity, and employee safety. The authors suggested that organizations seeking to improve overall performance should explore the overall level of employee engagement in its best performing units; the organization can identify the organizational elements that influenced those levels and then use that information to take steps to increase engagement in other business units.

Parker, Baltes, Young, Huff, Altmann, LaCost, and Roberts (2003) concluded that there is a reliable relationship between psychological climate and individual outcomes such as motivation and job satisfaction. The relationship is stronger between psychological climate and work attitudes related to organizational behavior, such as job satisfaction, than with factors more internal to the employee, such as motivation. They further concluded that work attitudes influenced the relationship between psychological climate and motivation, and thus organizational behavior would indirectly influence employees’ motivations by directly influencing work attitudes. The authors believed that their findings were generalizable, and that they supported the idea that psychological climate had a strong impact on employee attitude that in turn may impact employee performance and thus organizational performance. The authors suggested that an organization concerned with improving employee well-being and retention levels should examine the psychological climate created by its behaviors.

Rich et al. (2010) hypothesized a direct relationship between job engagement and job performance. They tested this hypothesis by surveying a group of workers and validated that self-reported data with supervisory reports on performance, and found that this sample did show a positive correlation between engagement and performance.

The Effect of the Organization on Engagement Levels

The analysis of Parker et al. (2003) found several studies which found that employee perception of the workplace psychological environment was influenced by organizational characteristics, and this perception in turn influenced performance outcomes, exhibited behaviors, and likelihood of staying in or leaving the job or organization. For example, if a supervisor implements new attendance guidelines for all employees in his department, the employees may perceive this as a lack of trust demonstrated by the organization (represented by the supervisor), and will in turn lose some level of trust in the organization.

Macey and Schneider (2008) concurred, stating that the origins of the behaviors and attitudes which exhibit the level of employee engagement “are located in conditions under which people work, and the consequences are thought to be of value to organizational effectiveness” (p. 1).

Bakker and Demerouti (2007) developed the Job Demands-Resources model that predicts employee well being by examining the relative impact of job demands, which are activities that increase stress on the employee, and job resources, which decrease stress on the employee. Job resources are tangible and intangible factors, which help employees achieve their work goals, promote employee learning and growth, or function to reduce job demands. Job demands are tangible and intangible factors, which require sustained physical, cognitive, or emotional effort from the employee. The premise is that if job demands outweigh job resources, the employee will feel strain at the workplace, which may in turn lead to less enthusiasm, less energy in performing duties, and less commitment to the job. If job resources outweigh job demands, the employee will feel more physically and mentally comfortable in the workplace, which may in turn lead to more enthusiasm and increased commitment to the job.

The study conducted by Rich et al. (2010) also hypothesized a link between organizational support and engagement, and discovered a strong correlation between these factors. They had also hypothesized links between engagement and both value congruence and core self-evaluation; they found a positive correlation here as well, but neither was as strongly linked to engagement as organizational support.

Saks (2006) found research data that showed a positive relationship between engagement and organizational factors like available resources and good social relationships with others in the organization. He stated that the social exchange theory, in which obligation is sustained through mutual interdependence, accounted for the relevance of these factors. Individuals who perceive positive commitments from the organization, through resources and support, are motivated to reciprocate by giving a positive commitment back through dedication to work. The more the individuals perceive that they benefit from the organization, the more they feel they are willing to give back to the organization. If the organization shows a lack of commitment by not providing positive resources, the individuals respond by reducing or withdrawing their level of response. Saks identified the antecedents to engagement as job characteristics and organizational behaviors, and the consequences of engagement as job satisfaction and commitment to the organization. When he conducted his own study, his data showed a positive relationship between those antecedents and engagement levels, and between engagement levels and the consequences. When he eliminated engagement and examined the relationship between the antecedents and consequences of engagement, he determined that the level of engagement did mediate the effect of antecedents on consequences. This suggests that employee levels of engagement affect how organizational factors (antecedents) result in employee outcomes (consequences).

Conclusion

According to Gilbert (2007), attempts to direct influence an employee’s intrinsic motives are wasted effort because motives cannot be directly influenced and they are of little consequence to employee performance anyway.

The concept of employee engagement is based on the belief that an organization can exhibit behaviors that positively influence an individual’s intrinsic motives by altering his or her perceptions about the organization.

There is still no extensive research into the effects of employee engagement on measurable job performance. The research so far suggests that Gilbert was incorrect; organizations can positively influence employees’ intrinsic motives through efforts directed at increasing employee engagement, and this may lead to improved performance on the job.

However, both Gilbert and the extant studies agree that an organization cannot directly change an individual’s motives. It can only influence the individual’s perception of the job and organization through its behaviors, whether that be through tangible environmental changes or intangible pats on the back.

 

References

Bakker, A. B. & Demerouti, E. (2007). The Job Demands-Resources model: state of the art. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 22(3), 309-328.

Gilbert, T. F. (2007). Human competence: Engineering worthy performance (Tribute ed.). San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer.

Harter, J. K., Schmidt, F. L., & Hayes, T. L. (2002). Business-unit-level relationship between employee satisfaction, employee engagement, and business outcomes: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(2), 268-279.

Kahn, W. A. (1990). Psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work. Academy of Management Journal, 33(4), 692-724.

Kovach, K. A. (1995), Employee motivation: Addressing a crucial factor in your organization’s performance. Employment Relations Today, 22(2), 93–107.

Macey, W. H., & Schneider, B. (2008). The meaning of employee engagement. Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, 1(1), 3-30.

Parker, C. P., Baltes, B. B., Young, S. A., Huff, J. W., Altmann, R. A., LaCost, H. A., & Roberts, J. E. (2003). Relationships between psychological climate perceptions and work outcomes: a meta-analytic review. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 24(4), 389-416.

Rich, B., Lepine, J. A., & Crawford, E. R. (2010). Job engagement: Antecedents and effects on job performance. Academy of Management Journal, 53(3), 617-635.

Saks, A. M. (2006). Antecedents and consequences of employee engagement. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 21(7), 600-619.