Motivation at Panasonic Essay

Motivation at Panasonic Introduction Panasonic is very huge and world famous corporation. Panasonic is much more than a well-known brand name. It stands for the depth and diversity of our research capabilities, manufacturing expertise and product selection. It stands for the advanced technology of products, from easy-to-use consumer goods to sophisticated medical, broadcast, business and industrial systems. Visit the Panasonic Web site (http://www. panasonic. com) and you’ll quickly see the broad range of consumer, business, industrial and broadcast products offered. Business customers, seeing this wide range of expertise, have asked us to provide entire system wide solutions for all their electronics needs. Our engineers are rising to the challenge. The demand for this â€Å"one-stop shopping† is becoming a major growth area for the company as technology becomes more sophisticated and omnipresent. No matter if it’s a giant hotel, a stadium or a major metropolitan transit system, Panasonic is meeting customers’ needs. The research Question What motivate customers? What motivate employees and supervisor? How could this theory help you motivate the various individuals who work for you? How could you encourage the need for achievement in others? What are some of the difficulties in attempting to motivate high –NACH individuals in organizations? What evidence exits for the use of various types of reinforcement, vicarious learning, and self-control? What makes people kill others? There are questions that are unclear in many minds. Through this research, it is hope that the readers likewise will have a clearer view and understanding of motivations. Methodology The university library has very limited materials available for research purposes, and internet resource is not enough. For this reason and for fact that the scope of this research is limited to motivation, the research only used resources available. Literature search How to define motivation To define what motivation is, let us begin by point out what motivation isn’t. Why? Because many people incorrectly view motivation as a persona trait, that is, they think that some have it and others don’t. In practice, this attitude would characterize the manager who labels a certain employees as unmotivated. Our knowledge of motivation, though, tells us that people can’t be labeled in this way. What we know is that motivation is the result of the interaction between the individual and situation. Certainly, individuals differ in motivational drive, but an individual’s motivation varies from situation to situation. As we analyze varies both between individuals and with individuals at different times We’ll define motivation as the willingness to exert high levels of effort to reach organizational goals, conditioned by the effort’s ability to satisfy some individual need. Although general motivation refers to effort toward any goal, here it will refer to organizational goals because our focus is on work-related behavior. The three key elements in our definition are effort organizational goals, and needs. Motivation is the willingness to exert high levels of effort toward organizational goals, conditioned by the effort’s ability to satisfy some individual need. The motivation process begins with an unsatisfied need, which creates tension and drives an individual to search for goals that, if attained, will satisfy the need and reduce the tension. Motivation is the forces that energizes behavior, give direction to behavior, and underlines the tendency to persist. It is an internal force. NO one can really measure it; even the person involved himself or herself. How we measure motivation is by simply watching the behavior, actions, and performances of the people in their search for fulfillment towards their goals. These actual performances are likely to be a function of their own abilities, motivations, and working conditions of their environments. Motives are dynamic and they are constantly changing as a result of the rise and fall of a motive’s importance as it is satisfied or not. Dr. Abraham Maslow The best known theory of motivation is probably psychologist Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory. He stated that within every human being there exists a hierarchy of five needs. Physiological needs . This most basic level of Dr. Maslow’s hierarchy includes the needs for food, water, sleep, oxygen, warmth, and freedom from pain. If these needs are unsatisfied, an individual’s actions will be dominated by attempts to fulfill them. If these needs are sufficiently met, the second set of needs will emerge. Safety needs. These needs relate to obtaining a secure environment in which an individual is free from threats. It includes security and protection from physical and emotional harm Social needs. The third set needs include the need for affection, belongingness, acceptance, and friendship. Esteem needs. Internal esteem factors such as self respect, autonomy, and achievement and external esteem factors such as status, recognition, and attention. Self-actualization needs. Growth, achieving one’s potential, and self-fulfillment; the drive to become what one is capable of becoming. As each need is substantially satisfied, the next need becomes dominant. From a motivation viewpoint, the theory says that, although no need is ever fully gratified, a substantially satisfied need no longer motivates. If you want to motivate someone, according to MASLOW, you need to understand where that person is in the hierarchy and focus on satisfying needs at or above that level. MASLOW’S need theory has received wide recognition, particularly among practicing managers. Its popularity can be attributed to the theory’s intuitive logic and ease of understanding. David McClelland David McClelland and others have proposed the three-needs theory, which maintains that there are three major relevant motivates or needs in work situations: Need for achievement(NACH) , Need for power(NPOW) , Need for affiliation(NAFF). Some people have a compelling drive to succeed, but they are striving for personal achievement rather than for the rewards of success per se (NACH). They have a desire to do something better or more efficiently than it has been done before. This drive is the need for achievement. From research concerning the achievement need, McClelland found that high achievers differentiate themselves from others by their desire to do things better. They seek solutions in which they can attain personal responsibility for back on their performance in order to tell whether they are improving or not, and in which they can set moderately challenging goals . High achievers are not gamblers; they dislike succeeding by chance. They prefer the challenges of working at a problem and accepting the actions of others. An important point is that they avoid what they perceive to be very easy or very difficult tasks. The need for power is the desire to have impact and to influential. Individuals high in NPOW enjoy being â€Å"in charge†, strive for influence over others, and prefer to be in competitive and status-oriented situations. The third need isolated by McClelland is affiliation (NAFF), which is the desire to be liked and accepted by others. This need has received the least attention by researchers. Individuals with high NAFF strive for friendships, prefer cooperative situations rather than competitive ones, and desire relationships involving a high degree of mutual understanding. Mr. McClelland proposed that a culture’s growth is due to level of need for achievement inherent in its population. His research indicates that increases in the level of need for achievement precede increases in economic activity. He also proposed that achievement motivation can enhanced in adults who others lack high level. Adams’s theory Employees don’t work in a vacuum. They make comparisons. If someone offered you $60,000 a year on your first job upon graduation from college, you would probably grab the offer and report to work enthusiastic and certainly satisfied with your pay. How would you react if you found out a month or so into the job that coworker -another recent graduate, your age, with comparable grades from a comparable college -was getting $70,000a year? You probably would be upset! Even though, in absolute terms, $60,000 is a lot of for a new graduate to make, that suddenly would not be the issue. The issue would now center on relative rewards and what you believe is fair. There is considerable evidence that employees make comparison of their job inputs and outcomes relative to others and that inequities influence the degree of effort that employees exert. Developed by J. Stacey Adams , equity theory says that employees perceive what they get from a job situation (outcomes) in relation to what they put into it (inputs) and then compare their inputs -outcomes ration with the inputs-outcomes rations of relevant others. Worker will balance the input and out put in different way. Such as 1Change their own perception 2Change other’s inputs or outputs Change our own inputs or outputs 4Choose another comparator 5Quit job. Reward System Motivating employees can be through extrinsic rewards which come form sources that are outside and intrinsic rewards which are more accurately characterized as self administered, arising form within the person. More specifically, motivating different employees are done differently. Motivating professionals differ from mo tivating contingent workers, motivating volunteer differ from motivating temporary employees. The professional employees are usually university graduates. They receive intrinsic satisfaction from their work. They are differing from non professionals. They have long term commitment with their field of expertise. They are loyal to their profession and not to their employees. They need regular update of their knowledge. They are well paid and enjoying what they do. The contingent employee would be more interest in having an opportunity to get a permanent job than anything else. They work contingent, if the company now are lack of secretary, then they must do the job as secretary; if the company need operators, then they must do the job as operators, they are not the formal employees in the company. The hours volunteers give to make programs and special events successful, and the fundraising contact they have with your donor base, make them key spokespersons. Volunteers can be your organization’s strongest recruiters, whether for additional volunteers, or for financial contributions. The most credible source of information within your organization to someone without any personal knowledge of it, volunteers must be informed and up-to-date about your organization’s mission, projects and plans. They need support and feedback. The temporary employees enter into a new company, whether it is for a few hours or a few weeks, they are naturally unsure and uncomfortable with the new environment. They are adapting to new and different management styles and are challenged by assuming somebody else’s responsibilities. Temporary employees are not second hand employees. Many choose to be a temporary employee for flexibility, variety of work experience, and mobility or are looking for permanent work in a company of choice. They have their own professional goals and are there to make things easier for your company. They are motivated by respect of others. Motivation at Panasonic The researcher will talk about motivation at Panasonic from two aspects. 1. Motivating employees The employees at Panasonic are only of two kinds: the supervisor and the employees. The supervisors are likewise well chose, and promoted from its own company, they must at least be university graduate and have rich experience. As supervisors, they set good examples to all their subordinates. They are very professional and mainly are old man, so the motivators to them are not money any more; they want esteem, the accepted of others. The employees are almost young and have very little experience, they want training to make them become stronger and also money to give their parents, even support their family. They also need to be treat equity, and need the understanding of managers; they want to feel managers keep an eye on them 2. Motivating customers The Panasonic are also taking some actions to motivate customers. The customers of Panasonic are mainly two kinds: Government purchasing officials and the user community. Why the customers want buy Panasonic products, because the high quality, good service, and the world famous brand, the good grantees. More importantly, Panasonic stands for a commitment to quality, value and innovation. In North America, this commitment is backed up by employees working in research and development centers from California’s Silicon Valley to Video Valley in New Jersey, state-of-the-art manufacturing plants, one of the country’s largest customer call centers in Virginia and sales and service organizations that deal with the public and business-to-business relationships in nearly every state. In all of our dealings, the customer is always first. This was our bedrock philosophy through the 20th century and it will carry us through the 21st century. Panasonic always make customers satisfied. Analysis and Interpretation Motivation helps people attain their goals and objectives easily. All people have motivation in doing anything, whether it is for a good cause, an ambition or a bad thing. Many times people don’t know their motivation in doing what they’re doing because they are simply following some unwritten rule of the society or that of they are simply following the wishes of others. At Panasonic, there are two aspects that motivate employees. How to motivate them? 1. The Panasonic itself as a large world famous corporation. Panasonic has very good organizational culture. At Panasonic, the working condition is pretty good, the salary is tie to the performance, the employees have equal chance to be promoted, and the outstanding persons at Panasonic will have chance to self-actualizations. â€Å"The reason I stay, is not they particularly enjoy the actual work that I do is because of the company. They all know, from experience and through exposure, that there are few companies out there that treat their employees as well as Panasonic. † One employee at Panasonic said. People and the Environment they work in are the reasons why they stay at their organization. Often people will dislike their work or the product, but they will remain at an organization because of the people they work with all week. Great companies create a home for their employees. No one wants to leave a nest where one is cared for and a part of a â€Å"family. † As one employee commented, â€Å"My current job satisfaction is the people! I love everyone I work with. This company has gone out of its way to create the perfect â€Å"culture† of people to work with. † 2. Motivation is about making an employee feel valuable. Provide a valuable salary to your employees for the value they deserve and for the void you would feel if they were to leave. You make efforts to make them feel valued as an employee in your organization and they will most likely feel valuable and appreciated. Run incentive and reward programs. Make the investment to organize and rally the troops around a goal and reward them for their efforts. They want to know they are being invested in as much as they are investing their time and talents in the company. In conclusion, motivation and retention appear really complex, but they are simple. Write the things down that make you feel valued at your company and try to do those same things for your co-workers and employees. You don’t have to be a mind-reader and you don’t have to have a degree in psychology or a heavy pocketbook to make your team members feel valued. It is all about trial-and-error and the fact that you are concentrating on making your work place like a home. At Panasonic, it also takes some actions at motivating customers such as provide the products that customer needs, From humble beginnings with one man producing one product on a table in his apartment, to current status as the world’s largest manufacturer of consumer electronics, Panasonic has strived to develop products and services that meet the needs of all of customers. Panasonic products have had access-friendly features for many years. They strongly believe that everyone should be able to enjoy the benefits of accessible products. To achieve this goal, they endeavor to assure that Panasonic products use all readily achievable means to make them ever more accessible to, and usable by people with disabilities. The popular DVD format is an excellent example of Panasonic’s engineering and marketing prowess. Panasonic developed many of the key technologies that make possible DVD, the format that is now transforming home entertainment and the computer industry. Their engineers took that technology from the laboratory and created high-quality, affordable components for the industry. At the same time, they used their expertise in storage media to make DVD discs a reality. For their DVD efforts, they were awarded a technical Emmy Award by the television industry. While they are proud of that award, it hasn’t stopped the technological advances. Panasonic was first to introduce recordable DVD for the PC and is moving forward with recordable DVD players for video enthusiasts. And this is only the beginning. Good service of guarantees procedures. In-warranty whole unit service is for in-warranty units that require service at the Panasonic repair center. 1. The specialist will make a determination of your warranty status* based on the date of purchase, serial number and problem description. Please refer to the green warranty card provided with your unit. 2. The specialist will provide you with a service authorization number, shipping company account and phone number, and address of the Panasonic repair center. If you need a box to ship the unit, we will send one to you. Make sure you backup your hard drive before sending your unit in for service. 4. Schedule a pick up of your unit with a shipping service company. Arrangements must be made within 30 days after you receive your service authorization number. 5. On the average, Panasonic’s repair center will troubleshoot and repair your unit within 48 hours of receipt. We will then return your computer via next day air service. All the above things make employees and customers highly motivated. Conclusion Motivation works differently for different people at different situations. According to Maslow hierarchy, our first need is survival, so we concentrate on basic physiological needs, such as food, water, and shelter, until we feel fairly sure that these needs are covered. Next, we concern ourselves with safety needs, which person to the desire to feel safe, secure, and free from threats to our existence. Once we feel reasonably safe and secure, we turn to attention to relationships with others in order to fulfill our belongingness needs, which involve the desire to affiliate with and be accepted by other. ow at Panasonic, employees mainly at this level, every few supervisors such as CEO, at the fourth level, even fifth level, the highest level of hierarchy, money is not their motivation any more. Because they already have a lot of money, they need excellent working conditions, others respect etc. But, the employees at lowest level of Panasonic, the main motivation to them is money, because they need support their family, they need satisfy their own needs of survival and safety. But when their needs are satisfied, then they will go to higher level of hierarchy.