8600-310 Understanding How to Motivate to Improve Performance

Unit Overview

Leaders within the organisation must be able to ensure that they optimise the performance of their employees. This includes putting in place effective strategies that can be used to influence the performance by creating a sense of motivation in the employees to pursue the tasks and responsibilities within their areas of responsibility and operation.

8600-310 Understanding how to motivate to improve performance is a unit within the ILM Level 3 module that focuses on building the understanding of different elements in reward that improve the performance of the individuals and teams within the organisation. A leader must understand the basic theoretical frameworks of motivation that guide the interaction with the subjects within the organisations or teams in the institution and the impact that employee motivation has on the overall organisational performance.

They should also understand the critical techniques of motivation and tools that they can use to identify and set the desired standards of performance that triggers the motivation hence ensuring that it is consistently and transparently implemented within the organisation and team. The main purpose of this unit is to prepare the first-line managers to create a motivating environment hath supports the activities within the organisation by helping them to understand the motivation theories that can be implemented within the organisation as well as the effective strategies that they can be used to apply this theory in the organisation within their areas of responsibility or operation. This unit is taught in 9 hours of guided learning and contributes 2 credit values to the completion of the ILM Level 3 module.

Suitability of the Unit

Motivation has become a critical part of human resource management within the modern organisations. It involves being able to influence performance, attitudes and behaviours by offering both financial and non-financial incentives to the employees. Organisational leaders are required to effectively put in place the desired levels of motivation that help to achieve the goals and objectives of the team and the organisation in general.

8600-310 Understanding how to motivate to improve performance is, therefore, a unit that is aimed at improving the ability of the leaders within the organisation to influence the performance of the employees in achieving the desired levels of motivation. This unit is designed for first-line managers who handle team members and employees on a daily basis. The leaders at this level have to ensure they effectively implement the strategies of motivation that are taught within the unit to ensure that the motivation practices and strategies are effective in meeting the needs of the employees and ensuring that they are relevant in contributing to the organisational goals and objectives.

This unit is also significantly applicable to other stakeholders land leaders within the organisation. The top management and middle-level managers should be able to effectively use motivation theories to effectively support the first-line managers and employees in general through the process of improving the performance of the employees. These leaders are suited to the unit as they are able to identify the theories and models that contribute to setting the motivation practices and strategies within the organisation.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this unit, the learner should be able to:

• Understand the definition of the term motivation

• Identify factors that affect the level of motivation within the workplace

• Understand the effect of individual differences on the levels of motivation within the workplace and put up strategies to address the negative aspects of individual differences in motivation

• Explain the impact of low employee motivation on organisational performance

• Identify the various theories of motivation that can be used within the area of responsibility

• Identify the influence of the arguments within the theory of motivation on improving performance within the workplace

• Sow an understanding of the role of employee engagement in increasing motivation levels within the organisation.

Key Learning Areas

8600-310 Understanding how to motivate to improve performance is a unit that focuses on improving the understanding of the motivation principles and theories. The unit helps the learners to adapt to the modern organisational environment that is based on improving the motivation of the employees to influence the organisational performance and accomplishment of goals and objectives. The unit covers learning areas that include:

Understanding Workplace Motivation

This area of learning helps the learners to understand the meaning and implication of motivation within the workplace. It helps them to understand what is meant by effectively implementing practices that are motivating to the employees and the barriers that the leaders have to overcome in implementing this strategy. The area also helps to understand style and patterns of behaviour within the workplace that can be influenced by the process and practices involving motivation within the workplace.

Theories of Motivation

There are a range of theories that can be used to evaluate the need for motivation and the main areas to target in motivation. The learner in this area is introduced to the theories that inform the process of motivation. Theories such as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, McGregor’s theory X and theory Y and McClelland’s theory are common models that inform the identification of areas to target with motivation techniques and practices within the organisation.

This area of learning improves the understanding of this theory and the context within which they can be applied to improving the performance of the team by creating motivation and investment in organisational goals and activities. The area also helps to assess different techniques that motivate individuals and monitor their performances hence ensuring that they identify the need for improvement through motivation. Lastly, the learner is introduced to the principles of employee engagement. This involves being able to establish policies and practices that support employee engagement to create employee motivation.

Wrap Up

After completing this unit, evaluation is critical for the learners and assessors as well. The process of evaluation indicates to the learners the areas of strength and those of weaknesses based on the content learned within the unit. The assessment is conducted in written assessment and supervised practice to evaluate both the practical skills and theoretical mastery of content within the learning area. This is critical lain ensuring the learning goals and objectives are met, and the learning outcomes are achieved.