A Study on Employee Motivation in Health Care Industry in a Private Multi-Speciality Organization

Abstract

Abraham Lincoln, until past forty, was a failure in almost all activities he undertook. When asked about the change,he said, “My father taught me to work but did not teach me to love my work. I hit that accidentally, when I was forty.” People differ not only in their ability to do but also in their “love to do”. This “love or will to do” (called Motivation) depends upon the strength of their motives. Motivation is an internal driving force which results in persistent behavior directed towards a particular goal. Thus people who are motivated are driven by a desire to achieve the goal that they perceive as having value to them. Motives are the expressed needs and could be conscious or subconscious. They are always directed towards goals. These motives drive people to act. Needs are more basic than wants. For example, putting on clothes is a need, whereas putting on a Louis Philippe shirt is a want. A need may lead to different wants for different people. This differentiation comes from the influence of environment in which one lives. For achieving what a person wants, he will think about what alternative actions will be required to be taken by him. He will then evaluate these possible actions, and then select the one with the least cost (effort). Employees will be motivated to carry out the assigned task to the extent, if doing so satisfies their personal needs. Work is, thus, viewed only as an effort to satisfy needs and expectations. Motivation is not a personal trait, but a result of the interaction between the individual and the situation. It may be defined as the willingness to exert high level of efforts towards organizational goals, conditioned by the effort’s ability to satisfy some individual need. The efforts should not only be of high intensity, but must also be channelized in such a way that organizational goals are accomplished and the personal needs are satisfied.