Employee motivation is the "psychological forces that determine the direction of a person's behavior in an organization, a person's level of effort and a person's level of persistence".

 Four approaches to job design are:

1. Job Simplification: The goal of this job design approach is to standardize and specialize tasks.Unfortunately this approach does not always lead to increased motivation as the jobs can become mundane.
2. Job Enlargement: The goal of this job design approach is to combine tasks to give the employee a greater variety of work.
3. Job Rotation: The goal of this job design approach is to move workers to different tasks periodically.
4. Job Enrichment: The key to job design employee motivation, this approach aims to enhance the actual job by building up the employee through motivational factors.

They show that any job can be described in terms of five key job characteristics:-

1. Skill Variety - the degree to which the job requires the use of different skills and talents
2. Task Identity - the degree to which the job has contributed to a clearly identifiable larger project
3. Task Significance - the degree to which the job has an impact on the lives or work of other people
4. Autonomy - the degree to which the employee has independence, freedom and discretion in carrying out the job
5. Task Feedback - the degree to which the employee is provided with clear, specific, detailed, actionable information about the effectiveness of his or her job performance

Employee participation :-

Communication and cooperation are a major part in the success of any business. Incorporating and improving the two concepts can be done by involving employees in the decision making processes of an organization. This collaboration between manager and employee affects employee motivation. Managers have to be open and nonjudgmental to encourage employees to participate. Allowing employees to participate makes them feel like their ideas and opinions are important and valued which will increase their motivation to improve the organization. For instance, an employee who takes part in making certain decisions might begin to feel a sense of belonging to those decisions. In turn, it may increase the probability of support and implementation from the employee.

Four techniques to increase employee participation and motivation in an organization are:

1. Increase employee participation by implementing quality control circles. Quality control circles involve a group of five to ten problem solving employees that come together to solve work-related problems such as reducing costs, solving quality problems, and improving production methods. Other benefits from quality control circles include an improved employee-management relationship, increased individual commitment, and more opportunities for employee expression and self-development.

2. Increase motivation through employee participation by using open book management.  open book management is when a company shares important financial data with employees.Sharing the information empowers employees by putting trust into them. Employees become personally and meaningfully involved with the organization beyond just doing their assigned tasks, which increases their motivation and production.  Open book management is a four step process.The first step involves employers sharing financial data with their employees. Employees need to know how the company, as a whole, is doing financially. Next, employers must teach their employees how to read and interpret the financial data Employees can look at all the data a company gives them. However, to understand the data, they must know how to interpret the numbers.

3. Employees have to be empowered to make necessary changes and decisions for the success of the organization. Employers should treat their employees like partners. The last step involves employers paying their employees a fair share of profits through bonuses and incentives. Bonus numbers must be attached to numbers that employees see regularly and can have an impact on in the financial data. With these steps in mind, the friction between employees and between employee/management can be drastically reduced.

4.  must exist for any employee participation program to be successful:

a) Have a profit-sharing or gain-sharing plan where both the employer and employee benefit

b) Implement a long-term employment relationship to instill job security

c) Make a concerted effort to build and maintain group cohesiveness

d) Provide protection of the individual employee’s rights

........................................................................Manish Kr. Sharma

                                                                   Manager(H.R Cum Liaison)

                                                                 Sadbhav Engineering Limited