How to Motivate a Difficult Employee Essay

Open, View, and/or
Download this Document

Total Length: 665 words ( 2 double-spaced pages)

Total Sources: 3

Page 1 of 2

Motivation

How would you use intrinsic or extrinsic motivation in the workplace to motivate your most difficult employee or coworker?

Intrinsic motivation refers to the internal rewards that a worker receives upon doing a job well done. Extrinsic motivation refers to the external rewards—such as when an employee receives a bonus for bringing a project in on time and under budget. There are benefits and limits to using one or the other type of motivation to motivate workers (Gerhart & Fang, 2015). Intrinsic motivation has been shown to be linked to “self?determination, control, and satisfaction” (Hennessy, Moran, Altringer & Amabile, 2015, p. 1), but it also can fail to adequately motivate workers who have an eye on valuing performance via raises, job security, and promotion—especially if they feel hampered or constrained by environmental or economic factors either at work or in their own lives.

I would try to use both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in the workplace to motivate my most difficult employee by first finding out what his needs were and then finding a way to motivate him by satisfying those needs. According to Maslow (1943), whose theory of human motivation was based on the needs hierarchy, people cannot acquire the quality of self-determination or self-actualization until they have had their more basic needs met first.

Stuck Writing Your "How to Motivate a Difficult Employee" Essay?

View All Our Example How to Motivate a Difficult Employee Essay

Have A Custom Example Essay Written

These basic needs range from food and shelter to love, friendship, and esteem. The latter tend to human needs that many people require, though certainly in today’s economy an extra bonus would go a long way to meet certain needs as well—so to motivate workers, I would employ both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations to get the job done.

Intrinsic motivation methods that I would use to help meet the emotional needs of my most difficult worker would be to give praise routinely whenever he achieved a minor success: no good deed should go unobserved. I would try to maintain a positive and supportive air whenever I could with him. I would also try to find out what sort of needs he had that were not being met. If they were economical, I would focus on extrinsic motivation, offering small bonuses for meeting output targets. If they were personal, such as having a lack of friendship, I would offer intrinsic motivational incentives—like a half day off so that we could go to a local restaurant and enjoy our success.
….....

Show More ⇣

     Open the full completed essay and source list


OR

     Order a one-of-a-kind custom essay on this topic


sample essay writing service

Cite This Resource:

Latest APA Format (6th edition)

Copy Reference
"How To Motivate A Difficult Employee" (2018, July 09) Retrieved June 4, 2026, from
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/motivate-difficult-employee-2172140

Latest MLA Format (8th edition)

Copy Reference
"How To Motivate A Difficult Employee" 09 July 2018. Web.4 June. 2026. <
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/motivate-difficult-employee-2172140>

Latest Chicago Format (16th edition)

Copy Reference
"How To Motivate A Difficult Employee", 09 July 2018, Accessed.4 June. 2026,
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/motivate-difficult-employee-2172140
   

Open, View, and/or
Download this Document
order custom essay example