Work Motivation Types, Stress, Underemployment and Healthy Workplace Practices

Need for Achievement (nAch)

• nAch = Need for achievement
• Motives of individuals or groups to seek challenging goals.
• Correlation between nAch and success:
  • + nAch → + success
  • (-) nAch → + failure
• Learned at home and at school:
  • High nAch parents → high nAch in children
• Education, independence, self-confidence, self-esteem (people with high nAch features).
• Competitive society — media can perpetuate the value of achievement.

Affiliation Motivation

• A person in need of social relations and to be esteemed by the group.
• Tends to praise group performance when working.
• Enjoys working in groups.
• Does not like work without social relations.
• Influenced by group opinion about them.

Competence Motivation

• Prefers high-quality work done quickly.
• Aims to make things better and faster than others.
• May generate rivalries and jealousies.

Power Motivation

• Attempts to gain influence over others.
• Likes obtaining positions of authority.
• Prefers to control and organize others.

Frustration

• Emotional distress caused by the inability to achieve a specific objective that satisfies a particular need.
• There must be an obstacle that prevents achieving the goal.
• It manifests through an emotional disturbance that usually generates negative attitudes and behaviors.
• The consequences do not affect all people with the same intensity or permanence.

Underemployment: Capacities and Effects

Effects

• Apathy: carelessness and lack of energy to develop any task.
• Absenteeism: lack of welfare at work.

Corrective Actions

• Ability to be promoted within the company.

Inadequate Pay

Effects

• Lower self-esteem and reduced expectations.
• Apathy.
• Absenteeism.

Corrective Actions

• Improve wages.
• Review pay systems.

Stress

• State of high tension experienced by a person.
• Considered an occupational disease and one of the most important causes of casualties.
• Can result from poor work organization, work-related aggression (bullying and sexual harassment), and working conditions (temporary contracts, night shifts, light and temperature conditions, etc.).
• Symptoms: hypertension and physical and mental fatigue.

Working Environment

• Degree of satisfaction or frustration of workers established by the relationships between groups or individuals and opportunities to develop their careers within the workplace.

Good Working Environment

• All workers are comfortable.
• Workers are happy with their work and well integrated into the group.
• Increased productivity.

Actions to Achieve a Good Working Environment

• Foster good relationships between workers.
• Implement transparent systems based on ability and recognition.
• Remove barriers to communication.
• Enhance creativity.
• Establish a fair and adequate compensation system.