Herzberg’s Motivation Theory – Two Factor Theory

Herzberg’s Motivation Theory model, or Two Factor Theory, argues that there are two

factors that an organization can adjust to influence motivation in the workplace.

These factors are:

 Motivators: Which can encourage employees to work harder.

 Hygiene factors: These won’t encourage employees to work harder but they will

cause them to become unmotivated if they are not present.

Note

Herzberg’s Motivation Theory model goes by a number of different names, including

Two Factor Theory, Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory, and Duel Structure Theory. We

will use these terms interchangeably in this article.

Frederick Herzberg developed the model in 1959. He did this by interviewing over

200 professionals. The interviews delved into when the interviewees were at their most and

least happiest with their jobs.

Other motivation theories you may want to learn about include Equity Theory and

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

What is Two Factor Theory?

Herzberg’s Theory of Motivation tries to get to the root of motivation in the

workplace. You can leverage this theory to help you get the best performance from your

team.

The two factors identified by Herzberg are motivators and hygiene factors.

1. Motivating Factors

The presence of motivators causes employees to work harder. They are found within

the actual job itself.

2. Hygiene Factors

The absence of hygiene factors will cause employees to work less hard. Hygiene

factors are not present in the actual job itself but surround the job.

The impact of motivating and hygiene factors is summarized in the following

diagram. Note that you will often see motivators referred to as factors for satisfaction, and

hygiene factors referred to as factors for dissatisfaction.

Examples of motivating and hygiene factors are shown in the following diagram.
Motivating factors include:

 Achievement: A job must give an employee a sense of achievement. This will

provide a proud feeling of having done something difficult but worthwhile.

 Recognition: A job must provide an employee with praise and recognition of their

successes. This recognition should come from both their superiors and their peers.

 The work itself: The job itself must be interesting, varied, and provide enough of a

challenge to keep employees motivated.

 Responsibility: Employees should “own” their work. They should hold themselves

responsible for this completion and not feel as though they are being

micromanaged.

 Advancement: Promotion opportunities should exist for the employee.

 Growth: The job should give employees the opportunity to learn new skills. This can

happen either on the job or through more formal training.

Hygiene factors include:

 Company policies: These should be fair and clear to every employee. They must also

be equivalent to those of competitors.

 Supervision: Supervision must be fair and appropriate. The employee should be

given as much autonomy as is reasonable.

 Relationships: There should be no tolerance for bullying or cliques. A healthy,

amiable, and appropriate relationship should exist between peers, superiors, and

subordinates.

 Work conditions: Equipment and the working environment should be safe, fit for

purpose, and hygienic.

 Salary: The pay structure should be fair and reasonable. It should also be competitive

with other organizations in the same industry.

 Status: The organization should maintain the status of all employees within the

organization. Performing meaningful work can provide a sense of status.

 Security: It is important that employees feel that their job is secure and they are not

under the constant threat of being laid-off.

The Four Stats

In a general sense, there are four states an organization or team can find themselves

in when it comes to Two Factor Theory.

1. High Hygiene and High Motivation

This is the ideal situation and the one which every manager should strive for. Here, all

employees are motivated and have very few grievances.

2. High Hygiene and Low Motivation

In this situation, employees have few grievances but they are not highly motivated.

An example of this situation is where pay and working conditions are competitive but the

work isn’t very interesting. Employees are simply there to collect their salary.

3. Low Hygiene and High Motivation

In this situation, employees are highly motivated but they have a lot of grievances. A

typical example of this situation is where the work is exciting and really interesting but the

pay and conditions are behind competitors in the same industry.

4. Low Hygiene and Low Motivation

This is obviously a bad situation for an organization or team to find itself in. Here,

employees aren’t motivated and the hygiene factors are not up to scratch.

How to Use The Model

There is a two-step process to use the Two Factor Theory model to increase the

motivation of your team.

1. Eliminate job hygiene stressors.

2. Boost job satisfaction.

1. Eliminate Job Hygiene Stressors

The first step to enhancing the motivation of your team is to ensure that the hygiene

factors are not causing dissatisfaction.

Each person will examine hygiene factors through their own unique frame of

reference. Because of this, it’s important to work with each member of your team to

understand their specific perspective.

Some common steps to remove hygiene stressors are:

 Rectify petty and bureaucratic company policies.

  Ensure each team member feels supported without feeling micromanaged. You can

do this by using servant leadership or a democratic leadership style.

 Ensure the day to day working culture is supportive. No bullying. No cliques.

Everyone treated with equal respect.

 Ensure that salaries are competitive within the industry. Ensure there are no major

salary disparities between employees doing similar jobs.

 To increase job satisfaction and status, aim to construct jobs in such a way that each

team member finds their job meaningful.

2. Boost Job Satisfaction

Once you have removed hygiene stressors, the next step is to boost the job

satisfaction of each team member. We can do this by improving the actual content of the

job itself. Again, a unique approach for each employee will be required.

Three techniques which can be used to achieve this are:

a. Job Enrichment

Job enrichment means enriching a team member’s job by giving them more

challenging or complex tasks to perform. These more complex tasks should make the job

more interesting.

b. Job Enlargement

Job enlargement means giving a team member a greater variety of tasks to perform.

This variety can also make a job more interesting.

Note that with job enlargement the variety of tasks is increased, but not the difficulty of

those tasks. If difficulty increased then that would be job enrichment.

c. Employee Empowerment

Employee empowerment means deligating increasing responsibility to each team

member. This can be done by slowly increasing the amount of responsibility you delegate

to an employee.

Limitations of the Theory

Some common criticisms of Herzberg’s Motivation Theory include:

 The theory only applies to white collar workers.

 It doesn’t take an individuals situation or perception into consideration. We have

attempted to address this above by applying the theory at an individual level.

 The theory focuses on improving employee satisfaction. That doesn’t necessarily

translate into increased productivity.

 There is no objective way to measure employee satisfaction within the theory.

 Two Factor Theory is subject to bias. For example, when an employee is satisfied they

will give themselves credit for that satisfaction. Conversely, when they are dissatisfied

they will blame external factors.

Summary

Herzberg’s Motivation Theory model, or Two Factor Theory, provides two factors that

affect motivation in the workplace.

These factors are hygiene factors and motivating factors. Hygiene factors will cause

an employee to work less if not present. Motivating factors will encourage an employee to

work harder if present.

To use the theory within your team, start by getting any hygiene issues resolved.

Once you have done this, you can boost motivation by putting in place as many motivating

factors as practical.
Theories of Motivation

Since the beginning of industrialization and the advent of factories, people have

been trying to figure out what motivates employees.

One of the very first theories was developed by Frederick Taylor, who wrote, “The

Principles of Scientific Management” in 1911.

More recent theories of motivation include ERG Theory (1972) by Alderfer and the

Equity Theory of Motivation (1963) by Adams.

Unfortunately, most of the theories of motivation differ in what they think the best

way to motivate employees is.

The reason the theories draw different conclusions is that motivation is somewhat of

a black box, where it’s difficult to see what’s going on inside our heads, and each of us is

unique enough to make it very difficult to draw anything other than very general

conclusions.

Theories of Motivation

In a general sense, you can think of motivation as working as follows:

 As you can see, each of us has needs. Your needs will be different from my needs.

But each of us is motivated by our needs to exhibit certain behaviors. The aim of our

behaviors is obviously to meet our needs.

Whether our needs are satisfied or not can then cause us to change our needs. In this

way, the cycle begins again with our new needs, potentially causing us to exhibit new

behavior.

Content Theories vs. Process Theories

As we’ve already discussed, there are many different theories of motivation in

existence, and each of them is different. However, they can be categorized into two groups,

known as Content Theories and Process Theories.

1. Content Theories (က ျေနပ် တင််းတိမ်မှု)

Content theories are also sometimes called needs theories. They look at motivation

from the perspective of our needs and aspirations (ပြင်းပြသ ောဆန္ဒ). The theories then

discuss motivation in terms of filling these needs.

 You can think of content theories of motivation as focusing on WHAT will motivate

us.

(မည ညအချကမျော်း ည စိတဓောတတတကကမှုကိို ပြစသစ ညကိို အဓိကထော်း)

The main content theories of motivation are – Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs,

Alderfer’s ERG Theory, McClelland’s Three Needs Theory, Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory, and

McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y.

2. Process Theories (ဖြစ်စဉ်)

Process theories look at how people are motivated. They are concerned with the

process by which motivation occurs, and how we can adjust our processes to alter

motivation levels. လှုှုံသဆော ည အဆင ိို သ ောကရိသအောင မညက ိို နည်းလမ်းမျော်းကိို ထိန်းညိမည)

You can think of process theories of motivation as focusing on HOW motivation

occurs. (စိတဓောတတတကကသအောင မည ိို သဆောင ွ ကမညကိို အဓိကထော်း)

The main process theories of motivation are – Skinner’s Reinforcement Theory,

Vroom’s Expectancy Theory, Adam’s Equity Theory, and Locke’s Goal Setting Theory.

The diagram below shows how the different motivation theories fit within the

scheme of things.
1. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Maslow described needs in terms of a hierarchy. The concept being that needs at the

bottom of the hierarchy must be satisfied before an individual can move to the next level

and seek to satisfy those needs.

Now, each individual’s needs are changing all the time, but at any time, an employer

can use the hierarchy to try and determine what is going to motivate an employee.

The five levels of the hierarchy are:

 Physiological needs: such as food and water.

 Safety needs: such as being free from war, natural disasters, and having job security.

 Social needs: such as having relationships and belonging to groups.

 Esteem needs: such as receiving praise, recognition, and status.

 Self-actualization needs: such as wanted to be the best we can be.

 When using Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, a business should offer different rewards

to encourage employees to keep moving up the hierarchy. This will keep employees

motivated.

2. Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory

Herzberg argued that there are two factors which are essential in the motivation of

employees. These are motivators and hygiene factors.

 Motivators: these encourage employees to work harder if present. Examples of

motivators include having an interesting job, advancement, and growth.

 Hygiene factors: These don’t encourage employees to work harder, but they will

cause them to become unmotivated if they are not present. Examples of hygiene

factors include working conditions and remuneration.

Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory believed that to motivate employees, employers

should:

 Eliminate job hygiene stressors: remove those things that are causing poor job

satisfaction, for example, poor working conditions.

 Boost job satisfaction: through job enrichment (making the job more interesting by

giving it more complex tasks) and job empowerment (making the post more

satisfying by giving it a greater variety of functions).

 Empower employees: by delegating increasing responsibility to each employee.

3. McClelland’s Three Needs Theory

McClelland’s Three Needs Theory argues that each of us has three needs to a greater or

lesser extent. The three needs are:

 Need for achievement: for example if you are motivated by setting a new record, or

by the opportunity to get promoted.

  Need for affiliation: for example if you are motivated by collaborating with others

or being accepted as part of a group.

 Need for power: for example if you are motivated by being in charge of others, or if

you are motivated by having high status.

Some people live at the extremes for each of these needs. For example, a team

member with no need for power might be subordinate and overly dependent, whereas a

team member with too much need for power might exaggerate their own abilities.

Managers can use the Three Needs Theory to set motivational targets tailored to

each member of their team.

4. McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y

McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y puts employees into two broad categories.

a. Theory X

Theory X assumes that team members are intrinsically lazy and unmotivated, and will

avoid doing work if any opportunity presents itself.

Because of this, management must work tirelessly and continually to build systems of

control and supervision over employees.

b. Theory Y

Theory Y assumes that team members are ambitious and self-motivated. A Theory Y

manager holds the view that if provided with the right conditions, team members will

perform well.

McGregor himself was in favor of adopting a Theory Y style of management in most

cases. Employers looking to use Theory Y might:

 Use job enlargement to increase job satisfaction.

 Use a collaborative style of management, so employees feel they are a crucial part of

decision making.
  Set targets that encourage employees to challenge themselves.

5. Alderfer’s ERG Theory

You can think of the ERG Theory of Motivation is being a simplified version of

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

In ERG Theory, there are three needs which are also arranged in a hierarchy.

 Existence needs: These needs concern your physical well being. These are needs,

such as food, water, and feeling safe.

 Relatedness needs: These needs concern your need to relate to other people. They

are needs, such as the need to have positive interactions with others.

 Growth needs: These needs refer to our personal development needs and desire to

perform meaningful work. For example, an exciting job with lots of small growth

opportunities every day to learn something new will tend to keep us motivated.

There are a couple of differences to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

Firstly, you can pursue multiple needs at the same time. Secondly, if a higher level

need is not satisfied, then you may regress and seek to meet lower level needs further.

6. Adam’s Equity Theory

Adam’s Equity Theory of Motivation proposes that high levels of employee

motivation in the workplace can only be achieved when each employee perceives their

treatment to be fair relative to others.

If you earn half what your colleague earns but do precisely the same work what will

you do? Adam’s suggest that you will adjust your inputs (the amount of work you do) to

compensate for the perceived unfairness of receiving half the pay (output).

In a nutshell, Adam’s says that as an employee, you’ll compare yourself to others and

try to make things fair as you perceive them. As an employee, you can’t change your
outputs (your pay and benefits), so you’ll adjust your inputs by either working harder or less

hard to make things fair.

According to Equity Theory, there are several ways an employee will assess their

situation:

 By considering their experience within their current organization.

 By examining their experience within their previous organization.

 By comparing themselves to others in their current organization.

 By comparing themselves to others outside of their current organization.

7. Vroom’s Expectancy Theory

Expectancy Theory states that a person will choose their behavior based on what

they expect the result of that behavior to be.

According to Expectancy theory, the behavior you choose will always be the one that

maximizes your pleasure and minimizes your pain.

For an employee to be motivated, the following three factors must be present:

 Expectancy: The belief that if you put the effort in it will be possible for you to hit

your targets.

 Instrumentality: The belief that you will receive a reward if you hit your targets.

 Valence: You must value and want the prize on offer.

You can determine the motivation level of any employee by multiplying expectancy,

instrumentality, and valence. The higher the result, the higher the motivation.

8. Taylor’s Motivation Theory – Scientific Management

Taylor’s Scientific Management was one of the first motivation theories.

Taylor’s theory can be broken down into two parts.

 A Theory about how employees behave.

  Principles to maximize efficiency based on this theory.

Taylor believed employees were only motivated by one thing, money.

Because workers are only motivated by money, then they don’t inherently enjoy

work. Because of this, employers should monitor workers closely to ensure they are not

slacking.

Based on his philosophy that employees are lazy, Taylor’s principles boiled down to

the following:

 Study employee’s jobs so they can be broken down into manageable parts.

 Describe each component in an efficient, repeatable way.

 Train each employee to perform the task in this new efficient way.

 Use piece rate pay to encourage employees to be productive.

9. Bandura’s Self-Efficacy Theory of Motivation

The Self-Efficacy Theory of Motivation is a task-specific way of thinking about

motivation.

The higher your self-efficacy, the greater your belief that you can perform a specific

task.

This is important to motivation because people with low self-efficacy are unlikely to

give their full effort to a task.

Four factors combine to determine a person’s self-efficacy for a task:

 Experience: If you have performed a similar job previously, then you are more likely

to be confident in your ability next time.

 Vicarious experience: You can develop self-efficacy by watching others complete a

task.

 Social persuasion: Encouragement from others will increase your self-efficacy.

Discouragement from others will have the opposite effect.

  Physiological feedback: When you perform a task, your body will provide

physiological feedback. How you interpret this feedback feeds into determining your

self-efficacy. Typically, the more at ease you are with a type of task, the higher your

self-efficacy.

10. Skinner’s Reinforcement Theory of Motivation

Skinner’s Reinforcement Theory of Motivation tries to explain what motivates good

and bad behavior in the workplace.

According to the theory, there are four factors which influence motivation with a

schedule. The four elements are levers, which can be used to change motivation levels. They

are:

 Positive reinforcement: is a reward you give an employee when they exhibit the

desired behavior.

 Negative reinforcement: is a reward you provide an employee by removing

something negative from their environment.

 Punishment: Is when you use the threat of negative consequences to stop

undesirable behavior.

 Extinction: Extinction refers to stopping someone’s learned behavior. You can

extinguish a behavior by withholding the positive reinforcement that led to that

behavior in the first place.

You may have noticed that we mentioned that these levers happen within a schedule.

This means that reinforcement of behavior needs to be more than a single event. It needs to

happen over and over again until the desired behavior is established.

As a manager, using Skinner’s Reinforcement Theory of Motivation can help you to

encourage good behavior and discourage undesirable behavior.

11. Mayo’s Motivation Theory

Mayo’s Theory of Motivation is based on the belief that two factors influence motivation

in the workplace:

 Job content: the tasks that make up your job.

 Social relations: how you get on and interact with your peers.

Mayo acknowledged that pay and environmental factors play a role in employee

motivation, but he believed that relational factors played an even more significant role.

Mayo believed that it was the group that influenced productivity. The importance of

the group cannot be overstated. It is the group that determines productivity, not pay, and

not processes.

Mayo determined how well a group would perform in terms of two factors:

 Norms: Refers to whether the members of the group encourage positive or negative

behavior.

 Group cohesiveness: The comradery of the group. Effectively, how well the group

gets along with each other.

Groups that have high cohesiveness and positive norms will be the most highly

motivated and therefore highest performing. Conversely, groups with negative norms and

weak group cohesiveness will be very unmotivated.

Mayo is important because he was the first to recognize that if you treat an

employee well, they might be more productive for you. These days that might seem like an

obvious statement, but in the time of Mayo, it wasn’t.

12. Locke’s Goal Setting Theory

Locke’s Goal Setting Theory of Motivation is based on the premise that if you set the

right goals, then you can increase both motivation and productivity.

So, what are the right goals?

 To be the right goals, goals must have five characteristics:

 Clarity: To be motivating a goal must be clear.

 Challenge: To be motivating a goal must be challenging but not too challenging.

 Commitment: To be motivating, you must be committed to achieving your goal.

 Feedback: You must receive regular feedback or a goal will not continue to motivate

you over the long term

 Task complexity: To motivate you, a goal must not be too complicated.

Locke believed that goal setting could be a powerful tool in motivating your team,

and yourself, to high performance. He also found that badly set goals, such as a target that

is entirely outside of your control, can be demotivating.

Theories of Motivation: Summary

Theories of motivation attempt to explain how to motivate employees in the

workplace.

Broadly speaking, theories of motivation fall into two categories: process theories

and needs theories.

Process theories look at how people are motivated. They are concerned with the process by

which motivation occurs, and how we can adjust our processes to alter motivation levels.

Content theories are also sometimes called needs theories of motivation. They look

at motivation from the perspective of our needs and aspirations. The theories then discuss

motivation in terms of filling these needs.