The Motivated Employee

Richard Hackman and Greg Oldham developed a model of more motivating jobs that have five characteristics:

1.              Skill Variety – the extent to which a job requires a variety of skills to carry out the tasks involved.

2.              Task Identity – the degree to which a job requires completing a “whole’ piece of work from beginning to end.

3.              Task Significance – The extent to which the job has an important impact on the lives of other people.

4.              Autonomy – the degree to which the job allows an individual to make decisions about the way the work will be carried out.

5.              Feedback – the extent to which a person receives clear information about performance effectiveness from the work itself.

 I feel that that these characteristics are factors in creating motivated employees but I would add one more. The employee has a need to feel appreciated for his work in some way whether it be through compensation or recognition. Perhaps it is part of Task Significance but not only should the job have an important impact on the lives of other people, the employee should feel that he personally has an impact on other people and that he is recognized for that impact.