Motivating across cultures

Motivation: As we saw in class there are different factors that affect motivation at work. as Herzberg define some of these like hygiene factors, negative motivations as salary, work condition, security etc... i think that some companies are not having into their objectives one of the most important factors the happiness of human capital, they are so worry about revenues and profits that forget this aspect. The first aspect that make money for companies.

They understand but not apply. some managers still don´t believe that if the employee is happy at work and is motivated, he/she would do the  job giving his/her 100%. 

One of the theories we saw in this class was Maslow´s theory, where he define 5 important aspects in a pyramid that help to maintain workers motivation. These are divided in 3 main aspects: Existence,relationship and growth (from the base to the top of the pyramid). 

In existence, we find the 2 principal factors of the pyramid that are the physiological needs as the salary, a comfortable place to work, cleaning and restrooms, and security where the employee should have a good plan for health a professional plan in the company etc...

Relationship includes another 2 factors of the pyramid, bellonging and steem. The first make reference to the relationship among the group, the spaces the company creates to entertainment and make people interact, and the second to feedbacks, responsabilities, control and awards.

and finally growth which only includes self-actualization where the company encourage commitment, work with CEOs etc... Of course there existe many theories about motivation as it is one of the most important issues at work. Depending on cultures it also exist different factors that motivate people as we all have different interests.

Because we all need different motivations to make things done, applying theories is useful as guides but most important is to have tools to know what motivates people, the 4 steps recommended in class are good to start:

- Gather people - ask for general motivators - clarify meaning and - everyone priorities.

In my opinion one of the best ways to know what motivates people is knowing better their lives, try to be detail with how they act, what they like and try to apply those things in the company, asking people what they want and make them feel good in the workplace.

A good example of this is GOOGLE, yes that big company that for me is the only one that has succeeded in make people work more than 8 hours happily. Why? because if you don`t know employees in GOOGLE works even in lunch time! Yes, GOOGLE´s CEO says that the best moment for employees to be creative is in lunch time and thats why they have more than 10 different types of food daily with excellent chefs from different parts of the world making food for workers. That way if they eat hapily they are more creative. Additionally, they don´t need to worry about their pets or kids because everything is inside the buildings, stress? want to do exercise? OK go to GOOGLE´s gym with personal trainers, jacuzzi and others. so, yes definitely it is important to have employees happy to make money.