Module 1 - Case INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN THE WORKPLACE Assignment Overview Have you ever worked at a company where you had a supervisor who did not seem to appreciate you for your differences from yo
Module 2 - Case
WORKPLACE MOTIVATION
Assignment Overview
As in some of the other assignments in this course, you will draw upon your personal experience for this Module 2 Case Assignment.
For the assignment, you will consider the topic of employee motivation. There are many ways to impact employee motivation, such as with job enrichment or rotation, work-life balance, flexible work hours, job sharing, telecommuting, employee recognition and empowerment, and financial incentives.
You will prepare a presentation that proposes options for employees to vote on adopting at your own workplace. You can use the list already provided, but if you do, please add more of your own ideas to the list. Talk with your own HR manager about what they feel is wanted by the employees where you work. (You will select 5 of these topics to put into this PowerPoint presentation.)
For an overview of some important current issues regarding workplace motivation, such as telecommuting and working remotely, read the following articles:
Aleksić-Glišović, M., Jerotijević, G., & Jerotijević, Z. (2019). Modern approaches to employee motivation. Ekonomika, 65(2), 121-133. doi:10.5937/ekonomika1902121A
Elvie, M. (2019). The influence of organizational culture, compensation and interpersonal communication in employee performance through work motivation as mediation. International Review of Management and Marketing, 9(5), 133-140.
Judge, T. A., & Zapata, C. P. (2014, July 21). The person–situation debate revisited: effect of situation strength and trait activation on the validity of the big five personality traits in predicting job performance. The Academy of Management Journal, 58(4). Available in the Trident Online Library.
Case Assignment
In the background materials, you read about some very traditional theories of motivation such as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory. Now you will connect those theories to your own experiences in the workplace.
Begin with some personal reflection. Consider a time at work when you felt highly motivated. Think about exactly what motivates you personally. Can you apply Maslow’s and Herzberg’s theories to yourself? For this assignment, you will discuss these ideas in a hypothetical situation in which you are offered the opportunity to develop a presentation that introduces employees to tools your company may adopt to increase employee motivation.
For this Module 2 two-part Case Assignment, you will prepare a PowerPoint presentation of the following topic as Part 1 of the assignment:
Your employer has asked for your assistance in the creation of a presentation to the employees regarding tools your company will adopt to increase employee motivation. You have come up with 5 tools that you feel will motivate the employees to complete their work in a satisfactory manner, leading to meeting organizational goals.
Part 1:
Your presentation should cover the following:
What are 5 tools managers and organizations use to motivate their employees? Include a short discussion of which of the two theories (Maslow or Herzberg, or both) addresses each tool on the appropriate slides’ notes page.
What can employees do to motivate themselves?
What motivates you to complete your own work?
Are you motivated according to the theory of Maslow or Herzberg?
Your presentation must contain at least 10 slides (cover slide, five slides for the five tools, two slides for self-motivation, Maslow and Herzberg, and reference list) but you can have more. Use in-text citations and a reference list, with at least two high-quality scholarly references for support. High-quality references are academically peer-reviewed journals or text books. The citations can be inserted onto the notes pages rather than on the actual slides.
Note 1: A URL (website address) is NOT a reference. A reference always contains four parts: author, publication date, article title, and the source of the article. Sometimes there is no author, but the APA manual tells you what you can put in place of the author’s name instead. The source for a high-quality peer-reviewed journal article is the journal.
Note 2: People today do not want to sit and watch a presentation with tons of words on the slides. They want to see no more than “5 words and a picture” and the picture must be of real people. This means that each slide should contain only one short bullet point (or else transition each point in one at a time). All those other words must go on the notes pages and they become your talking points. A simple way to come up with references is to take the assignment’s questions and shorten them to a few words. For instance, I would format the questions in this assignment into the following headings:
5 Tools
Self-Motivation
My Motivators
Maslow or Herzberg
Part 2:
Create a colorful poster that represents the information you presented about one of the five tools you discussed in the presentation. The recipients of the poster are the company employees. You can use MS Publisher, Word, PowerPoint, or another artistic software to create the poster. Save the poster as a PDF file and upload it into the Case 2 Dropbox along with your presentation.
Upload your assignment to the Case 2 Dropbox. Be sure to review your TurnItIn Originality report. If the score is over 15%, you may not be writing in your own words and you will need to contact your professor and arrange to revise and resubmit your assignment. Changes cannot be made to the submission, however, if it has already been graded by your professor.
Assignment Expectations
The Case papers in this course will be evaluated using the criteria as stated in the Case rubric. The following is a review of the rubric criteria:
Assignment Requirements: Does the paper directly address all aspects of the assignment? Have the assignment instructions been followed closely?
Critical Thinking: Does the paper demonstrate a college level of analysis, in which information derived from multiple sources has been critically evaluated and synthesized in the formulation of a logical set of conclusions? Does the paper demonstrate that the student has read, understood, and can apply the background materials for the module?
Writing and Assignment Organization: Is the essay logical, well organized and well written? Are the grammar, spelling, and vocabulary appropriate for college-level work? Are section headings included? Are paraphrasing and synthesis of concepts the primary means of responding, or is justification/support instead conveyed through excessive use of direct quotations?
Use of Sources and Mechanics: Does the paper demonstrate that the student has read, understood, and can apply the background materials for the module? If required, has the student demonstrated effective research, as evidenced by student’s use of relevant and quality sources? Does the student demonstrate understanding of a consistent (e.g., APA) style of referencing, by inclusion of proper citations (for paraphrased text and direct quotations) as appropriate? Are appropriate sources from the background material included? Have all sources cited in the paper been included on the References page?
