Recognizing and Applying Industrial Psychology

 Recognizing and Applying Industrial Psychology

Anthony Stirling thought the financial benefits of his accounting career were about par for the course. The sense of worthlessness that he experienced upon waking up each Monday was something he struggled to comprehend. His supervisor was an aloof character who hardly remembered his name, and while the office ran smoothly, nobody ever took the time to chat with him or anybody else.

Everyone knows that people like Anthony require affirmation from higher-ups in order to keep themselves motivated at work.
Theodore Hershey

The industrial psychologist Frederick Herzberg uncovered the importance of influences on motivation at work in his 1955 dissertation on human connections at work.

The outcomes defied all reasonable expectations. On one side of the page, he listed things that made people happy at work, and on the other, he listed things that made them unhappy.

Relevant Considerations for Personal Hygiene

• Rules implemented by the organization

• Policy and process of the organization

• working connection with manager

• Setting for work

• working relationship

• income

• standing

• protection

Driving forces

• success

• development on an individual level

• Opportunities for employment

• Contentment in one's job

• acknowledgment

Providing an unrealistically large number of items on the list of things that make individuals unhappy at work is not going to motivate them very much. As an example, if your chair is both comfortable and a symbol of your position in the company, you probably will not be very motivated if your employer offers you the same model but with a cup holder.

Reasons for contentment included things like opportunities for self-improvement and public acclaim. It appears that these could only serve as motivation if the list of dissatisfactions had been addressed. While Herzberg acknowledges that companies with a broad list of "dissatisfiers" may not necessarily lack motivation, he does want to make it clear that our efforts to motivate may be in vain if we do not deal with discontent first.

Herzberg drew a comparison between a normal worker and a patient in recovery. The "dissatisfiers" turned out to be Hygiene Factors, he reasoned. These cannot ensure complete health on their own, but they are necessary for the "patient" to recover satisfactorily. The things that truly motivate the "patient" to strive for recovery and full functioning are actually on the "satisfiers" list, which is actually a list of motivators.

This striking comparison illustrates how, regardless of how effective the Motivators are, the patient may still die if the Hygiene elements are inadequate.

Fred Herzberg's research leads us to believe that public praise has a significant role in inspiring employees to do their best. However, if the Hygiene Factors are not well-managed, then implementing recognition in isolation may not yield much benefits.

Even though these basic facts have been documented for almost half a century, some companies, like Anthony's employer, either neglected or never bothered to implement an efficient recognition system, despite the fact that other Industrial Psychologists, like Abraham Maslow and Douglas McGregor, have bolstered Herzberg's conclusions.

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