Two factor theory of employee motivation

Two Factor Theory (also known as Motivator Hygiene theory) was developed by Frederick Herzberg, a psychologist who found that job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction acted independently of each other. Two Factor Theory states that there are certain factors in the workplace that cause job satisfaction, while a separate set of factors cause dissatisfaction. (Herzberg, Mausner & Snyderman 1959)

The theory was based around interviews with 203 American accountants & engineers, chosen because of their professions' growing importance in the business world. The subjects were asked to relate times when they felt exceptionally good or bad about their present job or any previous job, and to provide reasons, and a description of the sequence of events giving rise to that positive or negative feeling.

Two Factor Theory distinguishes between:
 * Motivators; (e.g. challenging work, recognition, responsibility) which give positive satisfaction, and


 * Hygiene factors; (e.g. status, job security, salary and fringe benefits) which do not give positive satisfaction, although dissatisfaction results from their absence.

Essentially, hygiene factors are needed to ensure an employee is not dissatisfied. Motivation factors are needed in order to motivate an employee to higher performance, Herzberg also further classified our actions and how and why we do them, for example, if you perform a work related action because you have to then that is classed as movement, but if you perform a work related action because you want to then that is classed as motivation.

Validity
In 1968 Herzberg stated that his two factor theory study had already been replicated 16 times in a wide variety of populations including some in Communist countries, and corroborated with studies using different procedures which agreed with his original findings regarding intrinsic employee motivation making it one of the most widely replicated studies on job attitudes.

While the Motivator-Hygiene concept is still well regarded, satisfaction and dissatisfaction are generally no longer considered to exist on separate scales. The separation of satisfaction and dissatisfaction has been shown to be an artifact of the Critical Incident Technique (CIT) used by Herzberg to record events (King 1970).

Motivation Factors Include (in order of importance):
 * Achievement
 * Recognition
 * Work itself
 * Responsibility
 * Advancement
 * Growth

Hygiene Factors include (in order of importance):
 * Company policy and administration
 * Supervision
 * Relationship with supervisor
 * Work conditions
 * Salary
 * Relationship with peers
 * Relationship with subordinates
 * Personal life
 * Status
 * Security

The combination of hygiene and motivation factors can result in four conditions.


 * High Hygiene / High Motivation: The ideal situation where employees are highly motivated and have few complaints


 * High Hygiene / Low Motivation: Employees have few complaints but are not highly motivated. "The job is a paycheck" situation


 * Low Hygiene / High Motivation: Employees are motivated but have a lot of complaints. A situation where the job is exciting and challenging but salaries and work conditions are inadequate.


 * Low Hygiene / Low Motivation: The worst situation. Unmotivated employees with lots of complaints.

Herzberg suggested three ways that Management should rearrange work so that motivator factors can take effect:


 * Job enlargement - Giving employee a wider range of tasks.


 * Job enrichment - Giving the employee greater responsibility and scope to make decisions.


 * Job rotation - Rotating the work in which employees carry out.

Job enrichment remains the key to designing work that motivates employees.

For example, I require to be paid on time each month in order to pay my bills. If I am not paid on time, I become unhappy. But when I get paid on time, I hardly notice it.

However, when my boss gives me praise, I feel good. I don't expect this every day and don't especially miss not having praise all of the time.