Employee motivation in light of Vroom’s theory of expectation
Victor Vroom’s theory of
expectation developed in 1964 strives to predict and describe the task-related
effort prolonged by a person. Expectancy, instrumentality, and valance are the
three key terms in the theory (Baumhof, Decker, Röder, and Menrad, 2017). Force, valance, and expectancy are the
sub-divided categories by Vroom. Theories on expectancy as applied to employee
motivation are commonly attributed to Vroom. Even though its historic roots are
in the works of Lewin and Tolman who suggested that organisms improve
intellectual expectancies concerning the outcomes of behavior and subsequently
behave in a manner that is expected to result in favored outcome states
(Oliver, 1974). Abdul Rehman, Sehar, and Afzal, (2019) State individual factors
play a major role in goal achievements and behavior of the employee. The effort
the individual puts in along with performance and motivation is
interconnected. Vroom believes to better
motivate employees a positive correlation between effort and performance is
necessary.
Expectancy
An individual’s assessment of
the probability that work-related effort will result in a given level of
performance is defined as expectancy. The expectancy level would be one (1) if
the individual is certain that the performance can be achieved, expectancy
would equal zero (0) if the individual feels the performance cannot be met.
Expectancy is based on 3 factors that can either be encouraging or obstructing.
These are perceived difficulty of the goal, self-efficiency, and past experiences.
An individual’s belief in his or her ability to perform the task successfully
is defined as self-efficiency. Two factors would determine the perceived
difficulty of a goal to the degree to which an individual trusts the he /she
has control over the expected outcome can be seen as seeming control over
performance effect. The expectancy is high if the belief is highly pronounced.
Motivations are low when an individual believes that the ability to influence
the outcome is beyond his or her control (Baumhof, Decker, Röder, and Menrad,
2017). If an individual has a feeling that it is unrealistic to meet the
expected performance such goals lead to low expectations hence resulting in low
motivation (Parikh and Gupta, 2010).
Valence
According to Lee, (2007),
Valence was defined by Vroom as an effective direction towards a specific
outcome. An outcome becomes positive when an individual prefers accomplishing
it to not accomplishing it. When an individual is uncertain about accomplishing
a task the outcome has a valence of Zero (0) and it is negative when an
individual decides not accomplish the task but rather to accomplish it. The
amount of effort one exerts to reach one’s goal is described as a force. The
level of attractiveness or unattractiveness will be expressed through valance
and it can be graded +1, a result that is highly attractive to the individual,
and -1, a goal that is highly unattractive. Zero (0) valance would indicate
that the individual does not seem interested in the goal (Gyurko, 2011).
Instrumentality
The perceived relationship
between performance and reward is referred to as instrumentality or how exactly
on the job performance leads to rewards.
Instrumentality can also be defined as the individual’s perception that
the outcomes of the 1st level are linked to the 2nd level outcomes (Pool and
Pool, 2007). According to (Lee, 2007) an individual’s perception of the
probability of performance that will lead to an exact outcome is defined as
instrumentality. The individual’s beliefs and expectations are related to this
“if the individual behaves in a certain way, the individual will get certain
things”
Below is a simple model
depicting Vroom’s expectancy theory.
Source: (Baumhof, R., Decker, T., Röder, H. and Menrad, K., 2017)
Applying the theory to the
organization I work for in the insurance industry
The organizations I work for
highly regard employee achievements and believe that they should be rewarded.
From time to time many such reward programs are launched in line with organizational
objectives. While many have been successful some have not so. We would be able
to identify why certain programs were successful while others were not applying
Vroom’s theory of expectation to one of those initiatives.
Until the beginning of 2022, an
incentive program was in place for sales executives as well as managers based
on achieving a set of KPIs. To acquire the reward the following criteria needed
to be met,
• 100% achievement of the given monthly target
• 100% achievement of the monthly targets breakdown on
subclasses such as motor, non-motor as well as health insurance targets.
• Collection period of payments was capped at 60 days
hence all sales done in the particular month need to be collected within 60
days this was seen as an almost impossible task.
Bullet point three was seen as a
very difficult KPI to achieve hence the sales team did not make an effort to
pursue the incentive on offer rather they let it go. According to Vroom’s
theory, the valance of achieving the task becomes zero (0) with the uncertainty
of achieving it.
That being said the organization
has introduced a much more lucrative incentive scheme from the inception of
2022 making changes to bullet point three as stated above to the following,
• While the 1st and 2nd bullet point KPI remained as it is
the KPI on collections were changed as follows, Collections need to exceed the
monthly target and for the additional collected premium an incentive will be
paid. This was seen as achievable by the sales team and motivation levels were
high the employees viewed this as a worthy reward for their performances.
Therefore when we apply this
scenario to Vroom’s theory on the instrumentality factor we see that it was met
with prior clear-cut communications on the reward scheme, trust was built right
away as the payouts were done the very next month, and most importantly the
employee had clear expectations of the financial reward that was in place.
Expectancy factor has also been
met by employees as they see the task ahead of them can be successfully
performed based on their skills, the goal ahead of them was not as difficult as
before as well as the control they have over performance can be controlled by
the employee.
Conclusion
Generally, motivation can be
considered as the selective and preferred aspect of specific behavior.
Motivation is accountable for the explanation of force towards a particular
behavior or action. The importance of motivation is emphasized in Vroom’s
expectancy theory. In today’s world
under challenging conditions, Vroom’s theory can be adapted to better achieve
organizational goals, that been said organizations at all-time must follow the
set of guidelines given in the theory to achieve maximum performance which can
be summarized as follows,
01. Ensure the promises given to the team are in line with the
company policy
02. Create challenging but achievable goals
03. Make sure the assigned task matches the individual’s skill
set
04. Set clear connections between performance and reward
05. Reward distribution should be fair and logical
Reference
Abdul Rehman, S., Sehar, S. and
Afzal, M., 2019. Performance Appraisal; Application of Victor Vroom Expectancy
Theory. Saudi Journal of Nursing and Health Care, 02(12), pp.431-434. [online]
Available at: http://DOI: 10.36348/sjnhc.2019.v02i12.008 [Accessed 11 August
2022].
Baumhof, R., Decker, T., Röder,
H. and Menrad, K., 2017. An expectancy theory approach: What motivates and
differentiates German house owners in the context of energy efficient
refurbishment measures?. Energy and Buildings, 152, pp.483-491. [online] Available at:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2017.07.035 [Accessed 11 August 2022].
Gyurko, C., 2011. A synthesis of
Vroom's model with other social theories: An application to nursing education.
Nurse Education Today, [online] 31(5), pp.506-510. [online] Available at:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2010.08.010 [Accessed 11 August 2022].
Lee, S., 2007. Vroom's
expectancy theory and the public library customer motivation model. Library
Review, 56(9), pp.788-796. [online]
Available at: https://doi.org/10.1108/00242530710831239 [Accessed 11 August
2022].
Oliver, R., 1974. Expectancy
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https://doi.org/10.1177/002224377401100302 [Accessed 11 August 2022].
Parikh, M. and Gupta, R., 2010.
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I agree with your above discussed models while also suggesting that Adams' theory also parallelly states that employees strive for equity between themselves and other workers. When the ratio of employee outcomes over inputs is equal to other employee outcomes over inputs, equity can be achieved (Adams, 1965). In addition, Skinner’s theory states employees' behaviours that lead to positive and negative outcomes will be repeated as positive and negative outcomes (Skinner, 1953). Also, these models show the impact of employee motivation on Human Resource Management function in an organisation(Adams, 1965).
ReplyDeleteThank you Ama for your comment, further I would like to emphasize on the following. Abdul Rehman, Sehar, and Afzal, (2019) State individual factors play a major role in goal achievements and behavior of the employee. The effort the individual puts in along with performance and motivation is interconnected. Vroom believes to better motivate employees a positive correlation between effort and performance is necessary. Generally, motivation can be considered as the selective and preferred aspect of specific behavior. Motivation is accountable for the explanation of force towards a particular behavior or action. The importance of motivation is emphasized in Vroom’s expectancy theory. In today’s world under challenging conditions, Vroom’s theory can be adapted to better achieve organizational goals.
DeleteMotivating employee performance through work is more successful than trying to motivate it through rewards (Muduli & Trivedi, 2020). An important part of improving employee motivation and performance is clear, attainable goals. Informing your employees of goals you have set for your small business improves focus and team cohesion (Lievens & Chapman, 2019).
ReplyDeleteAgreed on your views Muditha, (Aslam et al., 2015) is of the view that it’s important to implement an attractive compensation system that works as an incentive for the existing employees of the organization to commit to staying within the organization. In the same manner, Job enrichment and enlargement policies, and effective training policies are supportive to an organization to improve the interest and commitments of its employees.
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