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How to motivate employees: Key factors, strategies, and examples

By Elle Holder

12 min read

Not everyone has a green thumb or even cares about plants and gardening. But I’d bet that everyone knows what happens to a plant that’s never watered — it doesn’t flourish. In fact, it will eventually die. 

So, if you’ve got any questions or doubts on how to motivate employees, remember the plants. Motivation is just like water — it will help your employees flourish by impacting their productivity, job satisfaction, and their overall performance.

Employees who are motivated are more likely to be engaged, committed, and even willing to go the extra mile for their managers and the organization as a whole. The contrast? Stop watering or motivating your employees and they’ll begin to wilt. Their morale decreases, the quality of their work will drop, and you’ll face higher turnover rates.

This article will introduce employee motivation in a bit more depth, discuss several factors that influence it, strategies on how to motivate your employees, case studies of real companies that have successfully motivated their employees, challenges you may face, and finally how to measure and evaluate employee motivation.

Let’s begin.

Table of contents

Understanding employee motivation Key factors influencing employee motivation Strategies for motivating employees Case studies of successful employee motivation Overcoming challenges in employee motivation Measure and evaluate employee motivation Conclusion

Understanding employee motivation

Employee motivation has been described as the internal drive and enthusiasm that employees bring to their work, and it encompasses several factors that drive them to optimal performance. At its core, it refers to the internal and external forces that influence an employee’s willingness, enthusiasm, and their level of persistence when it comes to pursuing organizational goals and objectives.

Definition of employee motivation

Employee motivation is a complex psychological process that drives an employee’s behavior towards achieving work-related goals. It includes both intrinsic (internal) and extrinsic (external) factors that encourage employee engagement, commitment, and satisfaction.

The role of motivation in employee performance

If you’re wondering how to motivate employees — or if you should even bother — consider this. Motivated employees are more likely to demonstrate higher levels of job satisfaction, engagement, and productivity. They’ll typically exhibit greater initiative, creativity, and problem-solving abilities, all things that will lead to improved performance outcomes and organizational effectiveness. On the flip side, motivated employees are less likely to be repeatedly absent and they’re less likely to quit.

Common misconceptions about employee motivation

Unfortunately, employee motivation is often understood or oversimplified. Instead of digging deep into the complexities of how to motivate employees, some employers believe that motivation depends solely on monetary rewards or incentives. And although extrinsic rewards can influence behavior in the short term, if you want sustainable motivation , it will require a deeper understanding of your employees’ intrinsic needs, values, and goals.

Another misconception is the assumption that all employees are motivated by the same thing. In reality, motivation is highly individual and is influenced by personal experiences, preferences, and perceptions. With that in mind, an effective motivation strategy should be tailored to address the diverse needs and motivations of individual employees within your organization.

Bring your people together

Key factors influencing employee motivation.

Employee motivation is influenced by several factors that shape an individual’s attitude, behavior, and ultimately their performance in the workplace. Understanding these factors will help create a motivating work environment that maximizes employee engagement and productivity. 

Here are six key factors that can significantly influence employee motivation:

Feeling that work matters : Employees are motivated when they understand the significance of their contributions to your organization’s goals and overall mission. When their work is meaningful and aligned with their own set of values, they feel a sense of purpose and fulfillment.

Recognition and rewards : Acknowledging an employee’s efforts and achievements through rewards, praise, or incentives will boost morale and reinforce positive behavior. Recognition can come in various forms, including verbal appreciation — sometimes a simple thank you is enough — monetary bonuses, or opportunities for advancement.

Opportunities for growth and development: Some employees will be motivated when they have opportunities to learn new skills, take on challenging projects, and or advance their careers within your organization. Investing in training, mentorship programs, and career advancement pathways can demonstrate a commitment to your employees’ professional development and foster a culture of continuous learning.

Work-life balance : Maintaining a healthy balance between work responsibilities and personal life is important for an employee’s well-being and motivation. If you can offer flexible work arrangements, such as remote work opportunities, flexible scheduling, or even generous time off policies, this helps to enable employees to manage their work commitments while giving them time to attend to personal priorities and obligations.

Effective communication and feedback : Clear, transparent communication and regular feedback are essential if you want to develop trust, collaboration, and engagement among your employees. Providing constructive feedback helps employees understand your expectations and identifies areas for improvement. Additionally, your employees will feel valued and supported in their roles.

Positive work environment : A positive work environment is characterized by trust, respect, and camaraderie, all of which enhances employee morale and motivation. Cultivating a culture of inclusivity, teamwork, and open communication leads to a sense of belonging and commitment among your employees, driving higher levels of engagement and performance .

Strategies for motivating employees

If you want a high-performing and engaged workforce, you need to motivate your employees. Fortunately, employers can implement various strategies to inspire and incentivize employees to perform at their best.

Let’s address five effective strategies on how to motivate employees:

Set clear expectations and goals : Clearly defining roles, responsibilities, and performance expectations will help your employees understand what’s expected of them and provides a roadmap to their success. Clear goals give an employee a sense of direction and purpose, motivating them to strive for achievement.

Provide regular feedback and coaching : Regular feedback and coaching sessions create an opportunity for managers to recognize an employee’s strengths, address areas for improvement, and provide guidance on how to excel in their roles. Constructive feedback will help employees track their progress, stay motivated, and continuously improve their performance.

Encourage employee autonomy and empowerment : Empowering employees to make decisions and take initiative leads to a sense of ownership and accountability. When you give employees autonomy over their work processes and projects it enables them to leverage their skills and creativity, leading to increased motivation and engagement.

Create a culture of appreciation and recognition : If you want to boost morale and motivation , you need to recognize and appreciate their efforts and contributions. Simple gestures such as verbal praise, handwritten notes, or employee recognition programs can go a long way in showing your employees that their work is valued and appreciated.

Offer opportunities for skill advancement and career advancement : Provide employees with opportunities for learning, skill development, and career advancement, as this demonstrates a commitment to their professional growth and success. Offer training programs, mentorship opportunities, and career development paths — this encourages them to invest in their development and stay motivated.

Create a connected workplace

Find out how high-performing teams keep everyone connected, motivated and doing their best work

Case studies of successful employee motivation

Wondering how other companies motivate their employees? Here are three examples:

Example 1: Google’s employee recognition program

Google is known for its innovative and comprehensive employee recognition programs . Most recently, one notable initiative is their peer-to-peer recognition program called Googler-to-Googler (g2g).

Employees are encouraged to nominate their colleagues for demonstrating outstanding work or for embodying Google’s values. Recognized employees receive rewards, such as monetary bonuses or personalized gifts, and their achievements are celebrated publicly within the organization. This program leads to a culture of appreciation and collaboration, motivating employees to strive for excellence and recognize each other’s contributions.

Example 2: Microsoft’s employee development initiatives

Microsoft invests heavily in employee development through a variety of initiatives, including extensive training programs, mentorship opportunities, and career development resources. The company offers access to online learning platforms, internal training sessions, and professional certification programs to help employees enhance their skills in advance their careers.

Additionally, Microsoft encourages employees to participate in cross-functional projects and rotational assignments to gain diverse experiences and expand their expertise. These development opportunities empower employees to take ownership of their career growth and build a culture of motivation and engagement.

Example 3: HubSpot’s flexible work arrangements

HubSpot, a leading provider of inbound marketing and sales software, prioritizes flexibility and work-life balance for its employees. They’ve built a hybrid company that allows for three flexible work options — at home, at the office, or flexible.

Employees have the freedom to manage their work schedules and locations based on their personal preferences and responsibilities. HubSpot also promotes a results-oriented culture, with a focus on outcomes rather than hours worked. This approach empowers employees to achieve work-life integration, leading to higher job satisfaction, lower stress levels, and increased productivity.

Overcoming challenges in employee motivation

A discussion on how to motivate employees wouldn’t be complete without also addressing its challenges. Employee motivation can face several challenges, ranging from individual issues to more systemic obstacles. However, if you want to maintain a motivated and engaged work force, these challenges must be overcome.

Here are four key challenges to employee motivation and strategies on how to address them: 

• Deal with demotivated employees:
• Identify the root causes of their motivation, such as a lack of recognition, unclear expectations, or limited opportunities for growth
• Provide individualized support and coaching to help employees rediscover their sense of purpose and reignite their passion for their work
• Create a supportive work environment where your employees feel valued, heard, and empowered to voice their concerns and seek solutions
• Address burnout and stress:
• Promote a work-life balance by encouraging your employees to take regular breaks, set boundaries, and prioritize self-care
• Implement stress management programs and resources, such as mindfulness sessions, wellness workshops, and provide access to mental health support services where needed
• Review workload distribution and make sure that tasks are allocated appropriately, as this will prevent burnout and overload
• Create a culture of open communication and psychological safety that allows employees to feel comfortable when they discuss what’s stressing them or look for help when needed
• Manage conflicts and foster teamwork:
• Be proactive when it comes to addressing conflicts in interpersonal issues by means of constructive dialogue, mediation, and conflict resolution techniques
• Facilitate teambuilding activities, workshops, and training sessions to help strengthen communication, collaboration, and trust among team members
• Clarify roles, responsibilities, and expectations to minimize misunderstandings and promote accountability within your team
• Encourage a culture of mutual respect, empathy, and appreciation for your team’s diverse perspectives as this will create a cohesive and inclusive team dynamic
• Sustain motivation in remote or virtual teams:
• Establish clear communication channels and guidelines to help facilitate collaboration and interaction among your remote team members
• Provide virtual team building activities, social events, and online forums to help promote engagement and camaraderie
• Make full use of technology and digital tools to help streamline remote work processes

Measure and evaluate employee motivation

If you want to understand the effectiveness of your motivation strategies and identify areas for improvement within your organization, then it is important to assess their motivation. 

Here are three methods you can use to measure and evaluate employee motivation:

Key metrics for assessing employee motivation:

• Employee engagement scores : Measure the level of emotional commitment and enthusiasm your employees have toward their work and your organization. You can do this through regular surveys or pulse checks.
• Turnover rates : Monitor the rate at which your employees leave the organization, as high turnover rates may indicate underlying issues with employee motivation, job satisfaction , or organizational culture.
• Performance metrics : Track individual and team performance indicators, such as productivity, quality of work, and achievement of goals.
• Absenteeism in attendance records : Keep track of how often your employees are absent. Attendance patterns often engage employee motivation and job satisfaction levels.

Conduct employee surveys and feedback sessions:

• Employee satisfaction surveys : Conduct periodic surveys to gather feedback from your employees on various aspects of their work experience, including their job satisfaction, motivation levels and their perception of your organizational culture.
• One-on-one check-ins : Schedule regular check-in meetings between managers and employees to discuss individual goals, challenges, and any areas for improvement. You can use the sessions to provide feedback, offer support, and/or address any concerns that are related to motivation and engagement.
• Focus groups : Organize focus group discussions with cross-functional teams or departments to dig deeper into any specific issues that may be affecting employee motivation, and then brainstorm potential solutions.
• Anonymous feedback mechanisms : Set up anonymous feedback channels, such as suggestion boxes or online surveys. This will encourage candid feedback from any employees who may be hesitant to voice their concerns openly.

Analyze performance and engagement data:

• Performance reviews : Regularly review employee performance data to assess the impact of motivation on individual and team performance. Identify any trends, patterns, and areas for improvement based on the outcomes of your performance reviews.
• Engagement surveys : Analyze data from employee engagement surveys to identify trends, areas of strength, and any areas that require attention.
• Use technology : Implement HR analytics tools and software platforms to help gather, analyze, and visualize employee data that’s related to motivation, engagement, and performance. Then use these insights to inform your decision-making and as a driver in your continuous improvement initiatives.

Conclusion 

So what can you learn from our discussion on how to motivate employees? We’ve explored various aspects of employee motivation, including what it is, how it’s influenced, how to foster it, how to overcome challenges, and even several methods for measuring and evaluating it.

In a bit more detail, this included:

• Make sure your employees are motivated through rewards and recognition, opportunities for growth and development, work-life balance, and more.
• There are several strategies you can use to motivate your employees, including setting clear goals, providing regular feedback and coaching, encouraging autonomy and empowerment, and creating a culture of appreciation.
• Some challenges to expect include demotivated employees, burnout and stress, and conflict.
• Measure and evaluate motivation with key metrics such as employee engagement scores, turnover rates, performance metrics, and even absenteeism and attendance records.

Why should you invest in employee motivation? It’s essential for the success of your organization and for employee well-being, since motivated employees are more productive, engaged, and committed to achieving organizational goals. Ultimately, organizations that prioritize employee motivation are better positioned to thrive in today’s competitive business landscape.

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MOTIVATION AND EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE IN ORGANISATIONS A CASE STUDY: BISHOP STUART UNIVERSITY,

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Organizational motivation, employee job satisfaction and organizational performance: An empirical study of container shipping companies in Taiwan

Maritime Business Review

ISSN : 2397-3757

Article publication date: 18 April 2018

Issue publication date: 28 June 2018

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of motivation on job satisfaction and organizational performance in the context of container shipping companies in Taiwan. Four motivation dimensions were identified based on an exploratory factor analysis, including remuneration, job achievement, job security and job environment. In addition, five job satisfaction dimensions were identified, namely: job policy, job autonomy, job workload, job performance and job status. Organizational performance dimensions included financial and non-financial performance.

Design/methodology/approach

Factor analysis was used to summarize a large number of motivation, job satisfaction and organizational performance attributes to identify the crucial factors. Reliability tests based on Cronbach’s alpha and corrected item-total correlation coefficients was used to test the internal consistency of questionnaire responses. ANOVA tests were subsequently used to test for differences in respondents’ perception of these factors according to selected demographics. Finally, a multiple regression model analysis was conducted to examine the relationships between motivation, job satisfaction and organizational performance.

Results indicated that remuneration and job performance had a positive effect on financial performance dimensions such as return on assets, turnover growth rate and profitability while job environment and job autonomy had a positive effect on non-financial performance dimensions, such as customer service, employee productivity and service quality.

Originality/value

This study has drawn attention to the importance of the relationships between motivation, job satisfaction and organizational performance in the container shipping context. The findings have significant implications for researchers and shipping practitioners. Despite the existence of research on the inter-relationships between motivation, job satisfaction and organizational performance in other disciplines, no empirical study was discussed in previous shipping or transportation-related research.

• Job satisfaction
• Container shipping
• Organizational performance

Pang, K. and Lu, C.-S. (2018), "Organizational motivation, employee job satisfaction and organizational performance: An empirical study of container shipping companies in Taiwan", Maritime Business Review , Vol. 3 No. 1, pp. 36-52. https://doi.org/10.1108/MABR-03-2018-0007

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2018, Pacific Star Group Educational Foundation.

1. Introduction

The container shipping industry plays a vital role in the world’s economy. World container throughput reached 171 million TEUs in 2014 accounting for more than 85 per cent of total world trade output (UNCTAD, 2015). It helps to facilitate the seamless movement of containerized cargoes on regularly scheduled service routes connecting countries, markets, businesses and people on a global scale. As nations become more interdependent on each other for goods and services, the container shipping industry is a crucial link generating choices, improving economies and creating employment. However, container shipping companies compete aggressively to survive in a highly volatile environment through a low-cost pricing structure with good service quality with little distinction in the types of services it provides ( Lu et al. , 2009 ). As a result, companies constantly look for ways to differentiate itself from their competitors through operations management and strategy, organizational management and human resources management. Developing a well-structured motivation system is crucial for organizations to retain talent and to enable employees to produce the maximum benefits for the organizations ( Al-Alawi, 2005 ). An organization’s motivation system will directly affect employees’ efficiency, morale and job satisfaction ( Parsons and Broadbridge, 2006 ). In addition, a developed motivation system to improve employees’ job satisfaction has a positive impact on organizational performance ( Analoui, 1999 ).

In container shipping, shore-based personnel perform a variety of important functions, especially sales and marketing, which contributes to overall organizational performance. These tasks require employees to be motivated to achieve intended targets. To the author’s knowledge, few empirical studies have discussed the relationships between organizational motivation on job satisfaction and organizational performance in the shipping industry. Talley (2013) summarized the different topics that has been research in the maritime academic field. Much focused has been placed on shipping performance/management with a growing emphasis on environmental protection. Accordingly, the objectives of this research are to examine the effect of organizational motivation on job satisfaction and their effects on organizational performance in container shipping firms in Taiwan.

The following section provides a theoretical background on, organizational motivation, job satisfaction and organizational performance and suggests three hypotheses. It then describes the methodological approach to the research issues. The fourth section presents the results and findings of the survey. Conclusions are drawn from the analyses and strategic implications for container shipping companies are discussed in the final section.

2. Theoretical background and hypotheses

2.1 definition of organizational motivation.

The word motivation is derived from the Latin word “movere”, which means to “transfer” or “push”. Robbins and Coulter (2014) describe motivation as a process by which a person’s efforts are energized, directed and sustained toward attaining a goal. Sansone and Harackiewicz (2000) define motivation as an internal mechanism that guides behavior. This can be referred to the catalyzer for individual employees to enhance their working performance to achieve organizational performance ( Sekhar et al. , 2013 ). Steer (1994) also argues that the goal of motivation is to enable employees to improve productivity, increase efficiency and improve overall organizational performance. It is important for organizations to find the factors to motivate employees to perform to their maximum ability. Employees are assumed to value intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. Both form of rewards contribute significantly to the levels of employees’ motivation to work ( Herzberg et al. , 1959 ).

Different motivation theories (e.g. content theories and process theories) describe why and how human behavior is activated and directed ( Seiler et al. , 2012 ). These motivation theories have been discussed extensively in prior literature ( Latham and Ernst, 2006 ; Sekhar et al. , 2013 ). Organizations utilize various motivation and reward system to motivate employees. Organizational motivation can be divided into financial or non-financial and intrinsic and extrinsic systems. The majority of the research on motivation studies tends to use Herzberg’s model of intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Parsons and Broadbridge (2006) investigated the role of job characteristics and communication in relation to job motivation and satisfaction among UK charity shop managers. Their study found that managers exhibit low levels of satisfaction in relation to pay, job status and working conditions. Islam and Ismail (2008) identified high wages, job security, promotion and good working conditions as the top motivators among Malaysian employees. Kubo and Saka (2002) concluded that monetary incentives, human resource development and job autonomy act as motivators to knowledge workers in the Japanese financial industry. Al-Alawi (2005) explored the motivating factors of information technology employees in the Bahrain hotel industry. They found that supervisor’s appreciation, prizes, salary increase and bonus as important factors.

2.2 Definition of job satisfaction

Job satisfaction describes how contented an individual is with his or her job ( Parvin and Kabir, 2011 ). Job satisfaction is often assumed to be a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from evaluation or appraisal of one’s job or job experience ( Locke, 1975 ). Spector (1997) referred to job satisfaction in terms of how people feel about their jobs and different aspects of their jobs. Job satisfaction is closely related with many organizational phenomena such as motivation, performance, leadership, attitude, conflict, etc. ( Parvin and Kabir, 2011 ). Saari and Judge (2004) concluded through their research on numerous studies that intrinsic job characteristics are the most notable factor affecting job satisfaction. Job satisfaction is said to be complex phenomenon with multiple facets ( Parvin and Kabir, 2011 ). The factors include salary, working environment, autonomy, communication and organizational commitment ( Sansone and Harackiewicz, 2000 ; Vidal et al. , 2007 ; Lane et al. , 2010 ).

2.3 Definition of organizational performance

For organizations, performance is one of the ways to measure the extent of its effectiveness. The need for the ability to set goals and objectives to achieve its performance and how to improve the overall organizational performance is undoubtedly the most important organizational goals and objectives. Definition and measurement of performance is a challenge for researchers because organizations have many, frequently conflicting, goals ( Chow et al. , 1994 ). Sarah and Tricia (2005) indicated that performance is often used to measure the overall status of the organization and its related policies. Organizational performance can be measured by both financial and non-financial performance ( Yang et al. , 2009 ). Venkatraman and Ramanujam (1986) considered three factors to corporate performance measurement, namely, financial performance (i.e. return on investment, earnings per share, etc.), operational performance (i.e. market share, product quality, etc.) and organizational effectiveness (i.e. employee’s morale, work atmosphere, etc.). Stella (1987) explored the relationship between human resource planning and organizational performance. From a human resources viewpoint, six financial factors were found to be the main determinants of organizational performance – turnover growth rate, profitability, earnings per share, return on assets, average annual profitability per employee and proportion of company assets per employee.

2.4 Organizational motivation and job satisfaction

Organizational motivation is positively related to job satisfaction.

2.5 Organizational motivation and organizational performance

Organizational motivation is positively related to organizational performance.

2.6 Job satisfaction and organizational performance

Job satisfaction is positively related to organizational performance.

3. Methodology

The sample of container shipping firms was selected from employees working for companies from the Directory of the National Association of Shipping Agencies and Companies in Taiwan . The sample included container shipping companies and container shipping agencies. A total of 96 questionnaires were sent to shipping firms and 40 usable questionnaires were returned. A follow-up mailing was sent three weeks after the initial mailing and 19 usable responses. The total number of usable questionnaires was 59 with a response rate of 61.5 per cent.

To test for non-response bias ( Armstrong and Overton, 1977 ), this study compared the first (40 respondents) and second data (19 respondents) set. T -tests were performed on the two groups’ responses across 48 measurement items and the results indicated that, at the 5 per cent significance level, there were three items showing significant differences. Results of the non-response bias test suggested that it was appropriate to combine both data sets.

With regards to the respondent profiles, more than 73 per cent of respondents were classified according to the title of being either general manager or above or manager/assistant manager, reinforcing the reliability of the survey findings. In all, 64 per cent of the respondents had worked in the liner shipping industry for more than 10 years, suggesting that they had abundant practical experience to answer the questions. Table I shows that 15 per cent of the respondents employed over 500 employees, whereas 30 per cent had less than 20 employees. In terms of ownership pattern, local firm was 68 per cent followed by foreign-owned firm which was 17 per cent. 74.5 per cent of the respondents reported their company’s turnover was less than NT$1bn, while 15.3 per cent respondents’ company turnover was more than NT$10bn.

3.2 Measures

The measurement items for this study were mainly adapted from extensive review of published literature on organizational motivation, job satisfaction and organizational performance. Organizational motivation dimensions consisted of 19 items, namely, bonus ( Urbanski, 1986 ), dividend ( Greenberg and Liebman, 1990 ), promotion opportunity ( Analoui, 1999 ), salary increment ( Al-Alawi, 2005 ), education and job training ( Smyth, 1986 ), job recognition ( Robbins and Coulter, 2014 ), staff travel allowance ( Hemsi et al. , 2003 ), allowance ( Urbanski, 1986 ), job autonomy ( Robbins and Coulter, 2014 ), personal development ( Parsons and Broadbridge, 2006 ), workplace ( Urbanski, 1986 ), annual leave ( Al-Alawi, 2005 ), prize ( Urbanski, 1986 ), job diversification ( Robbins and Coulter, 2014 ), job rotation ( Al-Alawi,2005 ), job responsibility ( Al-Alawi, 2005 ), job safety ( Hemsi et al. , 2003 ), employee insurance ( Robbins and Coulter, 2014 ) and stock allocation ( Al-Alawi, 2005 ). These items were measured using a five-point Likert scale with “1 = Least Important” to “5 = Most Important”.

Job satisfaction dimensions used the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) developed by Weiss et al. (1967) with 20 short questions. This questionnaire is well-developed and tested in other studies ( Hancer and George, 2003 ; Martins and Proenca, 2012 ; Abugre, 2014 ). For each job satisfaction item, respondents were asked to indicate the extent to indicate their implementation for each item using five-point scale, where “1 = strongly dissatisfied” and “5 = strongly satisfied”.

Organizational performance consisted of nine items, namely, service quality ( Hax and Majluf, 1984 ), customer satisfaction ( Youndt et al. , 1996 ), employee productivity ( Youndt et al. , 1996 ), competitive position ( Venkatraman and Ramanujam, 1986 ), return on assets ( Venkatraman and Ramanujam, 1986 ), market share ( Venkatraman and Ramanujam, 1986 ), operating expenses ( Stella, 1987 ), profitability ( Ghalayini et al. , 1997 ) and turnover growth rate ( Stella, 1987 ). Respondents were asked to rate their firm’s performance by indicating their choices of the items on a five-point Likert scale, where “1 = strongly dissatisfied” and “5 = strongly satisfied”.

The items were tested for their accuracy and content validity through interviews conducted with five academic experts and ten experienced shipping practitioners to obtain their valuable feedback for questionnaire improvement. In addition, the resulting items were validated with a pilot field study to further ascertain their content validity as well as construct reliability and validity.

3.3 Data analysis method

Factor analysis was employed to summarize a large number of organizational motivation, job satisfaction and organizational performance attributes to identify the crucial factors. Reliability tests based on Cronbach’s alpha and corrected item-total correlation coefficients was used to test the internal consistency of questionnaire responses. ANOVA tests were subsequently used to test for differences in respondents’ perception of these factors according to selected demographics. Finally, a multiple regression model analysis was conducted to examine the relationships between organizational motivation, job satisfaction and organizational performance.

4. Results and analysis

4.1 exploratory factor analysis (efa).

Exploratory factor analysis was used to identify the dimensions of organizational motivation, job satisfaction and organizational performance. The results of the exploratory factor analysis are provided in Tables II , III and IV . Principal component analysis with VARIMAX rotation was used to extract the factors with eigenvalues greater than 1.0. According to Hair et al. (2009) , when factor loadings are 0.50 or greater, they can be considered significant.

Factor 1 is “remuneration” factor composed of five items. “Prize” had the highest factor loading on this factor. The other four items include “stock allocation”, “dividend”, “staff travel allowance” and “bonus”. This factor was identified as “remuneration” factor which accounted for 37.78 per cent of the total variance.

Factor 2, termed “job achievement”, consisted of five item, namely, “salary increment”, “promotion opportunity”, “job autonomy”, “job recognition” and “job responsibility”. This factor was identified as “job achievement” and it accounted for 12.91 per cent of the total variance.

Factor 3, designated “job security”, composed of two items. “Job safety” and “employee insurance” accounted for 9.82 per cent of the total variance.

Factor 4, termed “job environment”, consisted of four items. “Job variety” had the highest factor loading on this factor. The other three items include “job rotation”, “workplace environment” and “personal development”. This factor was referred to as “job environment” and accounted for 7.46 per cent of the total variance.

Factor 1, named “reward policy”, comprised four items. “The way company policies are put into practice” had the highest factor loading on this factor. The other three items include “the praise I get for doing a good job”, “the competence of my supervisor in making decisions” and “the chances of advancement on this job”. This factor was designated “job achievement” and accounted for 39.27 per cent of the total variance.

Factor 2 consisted of five items. “The chance to do something that makes use of my own ability” had the highest factor loading on this factor. The other factors include “the freedom to use my own judgement”, “the way my co-workers get along with each other” and “the feeling of accomplishment I get from the job”. This factor was identified as “work itself” factor which accounted for 12.27 per cent of the total variance.

Factor 3 designated “job workload” consisted of three items. “Being able to keep busy all the time” had the highest factor loading on this factor. The other two items include “my pay and the amount of work I do” and “the way my boss handles his/her workers”. This factor was named “job workload” and accounted for 7.28 per cent of the total variance.

Factor 4, namely, “skill variety”, consisted of two items. “The chance to work alone on the job” and “the chance to do different things from time to time” accounted for 6.50 per cent of the total variance.

Factor 5 is “job status” composed of four items, namely, “the chance to do things for other people”, “the chance to be “somebody” in the community”, “the way my job provides for steady employment” and “the working conditions”. This factor termed as “job status” accounted for 6.17 per cent of the total variance.

Table IV shows the results of exploratory factor analysis of organizational performance dimensions indicated two factors accounted for approximately 64.26 per cent of the total variance and were thus considered to represent all the organizational performance. Factor 1, named “financial performance” dimension, comprised four items and accounted for 44.27 per cent of the total variance. Factor 2, termed “non-financial performance”, consisted of four items, which accounted for 19.99 per cent of the total variance.

4.2 Reliability test

Cronbach’s alpha statistics and corrected item-total-correlation coefficients were conducted to examine the consistency and reliability of the measurement items. The high level of item reliability indicated the items are strongly affected by each measure construct and implied set of items are unidimensional ( Hair et al. , 2009 ). Table V reveals the Cronbach’s alpha values and corrected item-total correlation coefficients of each measurement scale are all above the suggested threshold of 0.8 and 0.5, respectively ( Nunnally, 1978 ).

4.3 ANOVA result

Table VI shows the results of the ANOVA test of the differences in the level of satisfactory assigned to organizational motivation, job satisfaction and organizational performance according to firm size. A comparison of the factor mean scores showed that all three firm size segments had their highest centroid scores on “job security” with no significant difference between these three segments. Differences were found among four dimensions including “remuneration”, “job workload”, “skill variety” and “financial performance”. Overall, the level of satisfaction accorded to organizational motivation, job satisfaction and organizational performance by large firms (with more than 500 employees) was greater than that indicated by small size firms (with less than 50 employees) and medium size firms (between 51 and 500 employees).

Table VII presents differences between the three ownership segments. Similar to the findings in Table VI , “job security” consists of the highest centroid scores with no significant differences. Two dimensions were found to be significantly differ, that is, “job achievement” and “job environment”. In general, the level of satisfaction indicated by foreign firms was higher than expressed by local firms and foreign-local jointly operated firms.

4.4 Correlation analysis result

Table VIII presents the descriptive statistics and correlations of the study variables. The means of the four organizational motivation dimensions were obtained from the respondents based on their perceptions in terms of importance. Comparisons of the mean scores show that respondents have their highest mean scores on job security (mean = 4.13), followed by job achievement, job environment and remuneration. Respondents display their highest mean scored of job satisfaction on job status (mean = 3.87), whereas job performance receives (mean = 3.50) the lowest mean scored. High bivariate correlation coefficients between the dimensions of job satisfaction indicate high potential of multicollinearity among them, which is hardly surprising given that previous research has reported closer relationships among the dimensions of job satisfaction ( Shore and Martin, 1989 ; Wanous et al. , 1997 ).

4.5 Multiple regression and hypotheses test results

Table IX presents the results of the multiple regression analysis of the relationships between organizational motivation dimensions on job satisfaction factors. Results indicate that there is a positive relationship between organizational motivation dimensions and job satisfaction in the container shipping industry in Taiwan. In the models, organizational motivation factors were the independent variables with job satisfaction factors as dependent variables to ascertain the impact of organizational motivation on job satisfaction. The Durbin–Watson statistic fell in the range of 1.565-2.220 which indicates that autocorrelation problem did not exist in this study. Results indicated that “job environment” was significant at the 0.01 level, which provide evidence of a positive influence on reward policy, job workload and skill variety. Results also indicated that “remuneration” had a positive influence on skill variety.

Table X presents the results of the multiple regression analysis of the influence of organizational motivation and job satisfaction dimensions on financial and non-financial performance. Durbin–Watson results for both models indicate that no autocorrelation between variables. Results also indicated that “remuneration” as well as “job autonomy”, were significant at the 0.01 level, which is evidence of a positive influence on financial and non-financial performance, respectively.

H1 was partially supported by the multiple regression results indicating that significant relationship existed between organizational motivation dimension, “job environment” and job satisfaction dimensions. This is consistent with the findings of Igalens and Roussel (1999) when organizations pay more attention to implantation of an effective system, especially in the areas of job variety and clear career path, employees’ job satisfaction will be higher.

The findings also partially validated H2 and H3 . There was a significant positive effect between organizational motivation and financial performance and job satisfaction and non-financial performance. The results indicated that an effective motivation system using remuneration and job environment increases organization’s profitability and productivity. This is consistent with previous studies ( Waldrop, 1987 ; Al-Alawi, 2005 ). The results also revealed that job satisfaction dimensions have differing impacts on organization performance. Employees’ satisfaction of skill variety impacts financial performance, while work itself helps to improve employee’s productivity and provides better customer satisfaction and service quality. This is consistent with the finding of Shore and Martin (1989) , where it was found that when employees experienced a higher level of job satisfaction, their work attitudes improved and are able to complete more tasks, thus improving organizational performance.

5. Discussions and conclusion

Within the shipping industry, a dedicated and motivated workforce is needed to provide excellent services and maintain a competitive advantage. This study has aimed to investigate the effects of organizational motivation factors on job satisfaction and their effects on organizational performance using multiple regression analysis. The main findings, derived from a survey conducted into the container shipping industry in Taiwan, are summarized below.

Exploratory factor analysis was conducted to derive four critical factors of the organizational motivation dimension, namely, “remuneration”, “job achievement”, “job security” and “job environment”. Five job satisfaction dimensions was derived, namely, “reward policy”, “work itself”, “job workload”, “skill variety” and “job status”. Two organizational performance dimensions were identified, namely, “financial performance” and “non-financial performance”. The findings are consistent with those reported in previous studies ( Parsons and Broadbridge, 2006 ; Yang et al. , 2009 ; Robbins and Coulter, 2014 ).

Variation in perceived differences of organizational motivation, job satisfaction and performance in terms of years of tenure, firm size and ownership types were analyzed. Results showed that organizational motivation and job satisfaction ratings between different years of tenure differed significantly in “remuneration”, “job achievement”, “job autonomy” and “skill variety”. In terms of firm size, large shipping companies perceived job workload and financial performance as significantly higher than smaller firms. Larger firms are able to achieve greater economies of scale and efficiently utilize their resources to increase their return on assets and experience higher turnover growth rate. Findings showed that foreign-owned firms differ significantly from others in terms of job achievement and job environment, focusing more on employees’ recognition and personal development.

Multiple regression analysis was carried out to assess the influence of organizational motivation dimensions on job satisfaction as well as their relationship on organizational performance. Results indicated that “remuneration” and “job environment” had a positive effect on employees’ job satisfaction in terms of skill variety. This would imply that employees’ value monetary incentives as well as a positive workplace with job variety and rotation and personal development. Furthermore, “remuneration” and “job variety” had a positive effect on financial performance, while “job environment” and “job autonomy” had a positive effect on non-financial performance.

The findings imply that employees’ in container shipping companies perceive that providing incentives, such as more bonuses, dividends and stock allocation, as well as the chance to work alone could improve organizational performance in terms of turnover growth rate, return on assets, profitability and market share. This is might be application to employees working in sales department who normally work independently to achieve sales targets. Findings also suggest that the degree of freedom afforded to employees to use their own ability to make their own decisions and methods could improve customer satisfaction, service quality and employee productivity.

This study has drawn attention to the importance of the relationships between organizational motivation, job satisfaction and organizational performance in the container shipping context. The findings have significant implications for researchers and shipping practitioners. First, despite the existence of research on the inter-relationships between organizational motivation, job satisfaction and organizational performance in other disciplines, no empirical study was discussed in previous shipping or transportation-related research. Second, the understanding of relationships between the dimensions will encourage container shipping companies to develop a career development-oriented motivation system to increase job satisfaction and a sound financial-based motivation system to improve organizational performance. Finally, this study specifically focused on the container shipping industry. This study’s insights into shipping managers’ perceived organizational motivation and job satisfaction factors may also be of interest to other service industries including airlines, forwarders and logistics services providers by providing a useful approach to evaluate their organizational performance.

This research was limited to an evaluation of organizational motivation factors on job satisfaction and organizational performance in the shipping industry. Future research can focus on analyzing individual departments to understand the perceptions of organizational motivation and job satisfaction factors in different departments. In addition, the research was limited to a particular industry in the Taiwan area. The container shipping industry is an international business and future research could include other nations in the study. Finally, this research only used job satisfaction as a variable in analyzing organizational performance. In future, other constructs such as leadership patterns or organizational communication could be added to strengthen the integrity of the research.

Profile of respondents

Results of factor analysis of job satisfaction

Results of factor analysis of organizational performance

Results of reliability testing

ANOVA analysis of organizational motivation, job satisfaction and organizational performance between firm size

Significant at level p < 0.05;

Significant at level p < 0.01

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Ms. Ai-Ting Chung, an Employee at the Maersk Line Taiwan Ltd, for her assistance in data collection.

Corresponding author

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Work Motivation: The Roles of Individual Needs and Social Conditions

Thuy thi diem vo.

1 Department of Business Administration, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, No. 43, Section 4, Keelung Road, Da’an District, Taipei City 106335, Taiwan; wt.ude.tsutn.liam@31880701d (T.T.D.V.); wt.ude.tsutn.liam@nehcwc (C.-W.C.)

Kristine Velasquez Tuliao

2 Graduate Institute of Human Resource Management, National Central University, No. 300, Zhongda Road, Zhongli District, Taoyuan City 320317, Taiwan

Chung-Wen Chen

Associated data.

The data that support this study are publicly available.

Work motivation plays a vital role in the development of organizations, as it increases employee productivity and effectiveness. To expand insights into individuals’ work motivation, the authors investigated the influence of individuals’ competence, autonomy, and social relatedness on their work motivation. Additionally, the country-level moderating factors of those individual-level associations were examined. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) was used to analyze data from 32,614 individuals from 25 countries, obtained from the World Values Survey (WVS). Findings showed that autonomy and social relatedness positively impacted work motivation, while competence negatively influenced work motivation. Moreover, the individual-level associations were moderated by the country-level religious affiliation, political participation, humane orientation, and in-group collectivism. Contributions, practical implications, and directions for further research were then discussed.

1. Introduction

Work motivation is considered an essential catalyst for the success of organizations, as it promotes employees’ effective performance. To achieve an organization’s objectives, the employer depends on the performance of their employees [ 1 ]. However, insufficiently motivated employees perform poorly despite being skillful [ 1 , 2 ]. Employers, therefore, need their employees to work with complete motivation rather than just showing up at their workplaces [ 3 ]. Work motivation remains a vital factor in organizational psychology, as it helps explain the causes of individual conduct in organizations [ 4 ]. Consequently, studies on the factors that encourage work motivation can contribute to the theoretical underpinnings on the roots of individual and practical social conditions that optimize individuals’ performance and wellness [ 5 ].

Several decades of research have endeavored to explain the dynamics that initiate work-related behavior. The primary factor examining this aspect is motivation, as it explains why individuals do what they do [ 6 ]. The basic psychological needs have represented a vital rationalization of individual differences in work motivation. Psychological needs are considered natural psychological nutrients and humans’ inner resources. They have a close relationship with individual conduct and have a strong explicit meaning for work performance [ 7 , 8 ]. Different needs are essential drivers of individual functioning due to the satisfaction derived from dealing with them [ 9 ]. In addition to individual-level antecedents, the social context has also been regarded to have implications for work motivation. Social exchange and interaction among individuals accentuate the importance of work motivation as something to be studied with consideration of contextual factors [ 10 ].

Significant contributions have been made to the socio-psychological perspective of work motivation ( Table 1 ). However, current literature shows three deficiencies. First, over 150 papers utilize the key approaches of psychological needs to justify motivational processes in the workplace [ 11 ], which justifies the vital role of psychological needs in interpreting individual work motivation. The association between psychological needs and work motivation has often been implicitly assumed; however, the influence of psychological needs on work motivation has been inadequately tested [ 8 ]. The verification of the extent and the direction of influence will provide a better understanding of, and offer distinct implications for, the facilitation of work motivation. In examining the influence of psychological needs on work motivation, this paper mainly focuses on the intrinsic aspect of motivation. The study of Alzahrani et al. (2018) [ 12 ] argued that although intrinsic motivation is more efficient than extrinsic motivation, researchers have mostly neglected it.

Several investigated predictors of work motivation in general and intrinsic motivation in particular.

Second, there is no study examining the country-level moderating effects of social conditions and national cultures on individual relationships between psychological needs and work motivation. Pinder (2014) [ 20 ] argued that contextual practices could influence variables at the individual level. Culture is a crucial factor influencing motivation [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 ]. Researchers (e.g., [ 19 ]) have further suggested that both the proximal social situations (e.g., workgroup) and the distal social situations (e.g., cultural values) in which humans operate influence their need for satisfaction and their motivation type. Intrinsic motivation interacts with prosocial motivation in judging work performance [ 21 ]. By including the social conditions in the framework, prosocial motivation is considered. Prosocial motivation refers to the desire to help and promote the welfare of others [ 22 , 23 ]. The study of Shao et al. (2019) [ 24 ] proposed that prosocial motivation promotes employee engagement in particular organizational tasks. Researchers often consider prosocial motivation as a pattern of intrinsic motivation [ 23 ]. This implies that when intrinsic motivation is investigated, prosocial motivation should be examined together to obtain a comprehensive understanding.

Third, there are few studies using a considerable number of cross-national samples to investigate factors influencing work motivation. A cross-cultural analysis makes the findings more objective by minimizing individual bias towards any particular culture. Therefore, the examination of the study is crucial to expanding insights on the influence of social situations on the individual associations between psychological needs and work motivation.

2. Literature Review and Hypothesis Development

2.1. work motivation: a conceptual background.

Work motivation is considered “a set of energetic forces that originate both within as well as beyond an individual’s being, to initiate work-related behavior, and to determine its form direction intensity and duration” [ 20 ]. Nicolescu and Verboncu (2008) [ 25 ] argued that work motivation contributes directly and indirectly to employees’ performance. Additionally, research (e.g., [ 26 ]) has postulated that work motivation could be seen as a source of positive energy that leads to employees’ self-recognition and self-fulfillment. Therefore, work motivation is an antecedent of the self-actualization of individuals and the achievement of organizations.

Literature has identified several models of work motivation. One of the primary models is Maslow’s (1954) [ 27 ] need hierarchy theory, which proposes that humans fulfill a set of needs, including physiological, safety and security, belongingness, esteem, and self-actualization. Additionally, Herzberg’s (1966) [ 28 ] motivation-hygiene theory proposed that work motivation is mainly influenced by the job’s intrinsic challenge and provision of opportunities for recognition and reinforcement. More contemporary models also emerged. For instance, the study of Nicolescu and Verboncu (2008) [ 25 ] has categorized the types of motivation into four pairs, including positive-negative, intrinsic-extrinsic, cognitive-affective, and economic-moral spiritual. Additionally, Ryan and Deci [ 29 ] focused on intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation.

With the existence of numerous factors that relate to work motivation, this paper mainly focuses on intrinsic motivation. Previous research found that emotional intelligence and interpersonal relationship quality predict individuals’ intrinsic motivation [ 14 ]. Additionally, the study of Lin (2020) [ 13 ] argued that personal factors, including age, gender, educational level, living setting, health status, and family support, impact people’s intrinsic motivation. To understand more about intrinsic motivation, the authors examined individuals’ psychological needs. Fulfillment of the basic needs is related to wellness and effective performance [ 7 ]. Since intrinsic motivation results in high-quality creativity, recognizing the factors influencing intrinsic motivation is important [ 5 ].

Although a significant number of important contributions have been made regarding intrinsic motivation, self-determination theory is of particular significance for this study. Self-determination theory (SDT) postulates that all humans possess a variety of basic psychological needs. One of the primary crucial needs is the need for competence [ 30 , 31 ], which makes individuals feel confident and effective in their actions. Additionally, the need for autonomy [ 32 ] is one of the important psychological needs, which makes people satisfied with optimal wellness and good performance obtained as a result of their own decisions. Moreover, SDT proposed the crucial importance of interpersonal relationships and how social forces can influence thoughts, emotions, and behaviors [ 33 ]. This means that the psychological need for social relatedness [ 34 ] also plays a significant role in human’s psychological traits. Individuals need to be cared for by others and care for others to perceive belongingness. The need for relatedness can motivate people to behave more socially [ 35 ].

Prior research (e.g., [ 36 ]) has explored self-determination theory and related theories as approaches to work motivation and organizational behavior. The study of Van den Broeck et al. (2010) [ 37 ] emphasized grasping autonomy, competence, and relatedness at workplaces. This paper contributes to the exhaustive understanding of intrinsic work motivation influenced by further examining the impact of these three factors on work motivation as well as the moderating effects of social contexts.

2.2. Main Effect

2.2.1. individuals’ competence and work motivation.

Competence is “the collective learning in the organization, especially how to coordinate diverse production skills and integrate multiple streams of technologies” [ 38 ]. The study of Hernández-March et al. (2009) [ 39 ] argued that a stronger competence was commonly found in university graduates rather than those without higher education. Competence has been considered a significant factor of work motivation that enhances productivity and profits. Harter’s (1983) [ 40 ] model of motivation proposed that competence enhances motivation because competence promotes flexibility for individuals [ 41 ]. Likewise, Patall et al. (2014) [ 42 ] indirectly argued that competence positively affects work motivation. Individuals become more engaged in activities that demonstrate their competence [ 6 ]. When people perceive that they are competent enough to attain goals, they generally feel confident and concentrate their efforts on achieving their objectives as soon as possible for their self-fulfillment.

Individuals’ competence positively relates to their work motivation.

2.2.2. Individuals’ Autonomy and Work Motivation

Autonomy is viewed as “self-determination, self-rule, liberty of rights, freedom of will and being one’s own person” [ 43 ]. Reeve (2006) [ 44 ] argued that autonomy is a primary theoretical approach in the study of human motivation and emotion. Autonomy denotes that certain conduct is performed with a sense of willingness [ 30 ]. Several researchers (e.g., [ 45 ]) investigated the positive relationship between individuals’ autonomy and work motivation. When humans are involved in actions because of their interest, they fully perform those activities volitionally [ 36 ]. Dickinson (1995) [ 46 ] also proposed that autonomous individuals are more highly motivated, and autonomy breeds more effective outcomes. Moreover, when individuals have a right to make their own decisions, they tend to be more considerate and responsible for those decisions, as they need to take accountability for their actions. Bandura (1991) [ 47 ] has argued that humans’ ability to reflect, react, and direct their actions motivates them for future purposes. Therefore, autonomy motivates individuals to work harder and overcome difficulties to achieve their objectives.

Individuals’ autonomy positively relates to their work motivation.

2.2.3. Individuals’ Social Relatedness and Work Motivation

The psychological need for social relatedness occurs when an individual has a sense of being secure, related to, or understood by others in the social environment [ 48 ]. The relatedness need is fulfilled when humans experience the feeling of close relationships with others [ 49 ]. Researchers (e.g., [ 34 ]) have postulated that the need for relatedness reflects humans’ natural tendency to feel associated with others, such as being a member of any social groups, or to love and care as well as be loved and cared for. Prior studies have shown that social relatedness strongly impacts motivation [ 50 , 51 , 52 ]. Social relatedness offers people many opportunities to communicate with others, making them more motivated at the workplace, aligning them with the group’s shared objectives. Marks (1974) [ 53 ] suggested that social relatedness encourages individuals to focus on community welfare as a reference for their behavior, resulting in enhanced work motivation. Moreover, when individuals feel that they relate to and are cared for by others, their motivation can be maximized since their relatedness need is fulfilled [ 54 ]. Therefore, establishing close relationships with others plays a vital role in promoting human motivation [ 55 ]. When people perceive that they are cared for and loved by others, they tend to create positive outcomes for common benefits to deserve the kindness received, thereby motivating them to work harder.

Individuals’ social relatedness positively relates to their work motivation.

Aside from exploring the influence of psychological needs on work motivation, this paper also considers country-level factors. Previous research (e.g., [ 56 ]) has examined the influence of social institutions and national cultures on work motivation. However, the moderating effects of country-level factors have to be investigated, given the contextual impacts on individual needs, attitudes, and behavior. Although social conditions provide the most common interpretation for nation-level variance in individual work behaviors [ 57 ], few cross-national studies examine social conditions and individual work behaviors [ 56 ]. Hence, this paper investigates the moderating effects, including religious affiliation, political participation, humane orientation, and in-group collectivism, on the psychological needs-work motivation association.

A notable theory to explain the importance of contextual factors in work motivation that is customarily linked with SDT is the concept of prosocial motivation. Prosocial motivation suggests that individuals have the desire to expend efforts in safeguarding and promoting others’ well-being [ 58 , 59 ]. It is proposed that prosocial motivation strengthens endurance, performance, and productivity, as well as generates creativity that encourages individuals to develop valuable and novel ideas [ 21 , 60 ]. Prosocial motivation is found to interact with intrinsic motivation in influencing positive work outcomes [ 21 , 61 ]. However, there are few studies examining the effects of prosocial motivation on work motivation [ 62 ].

Utilizing the concept of prosocial motivation and examining it on a country-level, this paper suggests that prosocial factors promote basic psychological needs satisfaction that reinforces motivational processes at work. Therefore, prosocial behaviors and values may enhance the positive impact of individuals’ basic psychological needs, including competence, autonomy, and social relatedness, on work motivation.

2.3. Moderating Effects

2.3.1. religious affiliation.

Religions manifest values that are usually employed as grounds to investigate what is right and wrong [ 63 ]. Religious affiliation is considered prosocial because it satisfies the need for belongingness and upholds collective well-being through gatherings to worship, seek assistance, and offer comfort within religious communities. Hence, religious affiliation promotes the satisfaction of individuals’ psychological needs, which directs motivation at work and life in general. Research (e.g., [ 64 ]) has argued that religious affiliation is an essential motivational component given its impact on psychological processes. The study of Simon and Primavera (1972) [ 65 ] investigated the relationship between religious affiliation and work motivation. To humans characterized by competence, autonomy, and social relatedness, attachment to religious principles increases their motivation to accomplish organizational goals. Religious membership will increase the influence of psychological needs on work motivation. The tendency of individuals affiliated with any religion to be demotivated is lower compared to those who are not. Individuals with religious affiliations also tend to work harder as the virtue of hard work is aligned with religious principles. Accordingly, religious affiliation may enhance the positive association between individuals’ psychological needs and work motivation.

2.3.2. Political Participation

Political participation, indicated by people’s voting habits, plays a crucial role in ensuring citizens’ well-being and security [ 66 ]. Political participation encourages shared beliefs and collective goals among individuals [ 67 ]. The communication and interaction among people help them grasp the government’s developmental strategies, motivating them to work harder. Political participation is a collective pursuit that makes societal members feel more confident, socially related, and motivated at work to achieve communal targets. Increased political participation reinforces effective public policy to enhance its members’ welfare, congruent with the perspectives of prosocial motivation. The prosocial values and behaviors derived from political participation satisfy human needs and interact positively with intrinsic motivation. Therefore, political participation may strengthen the positive influence of individuals’ competence, autonomy, and social relatedness on work motivation. Conversely, poor political participation is perceived as a separation from the society that may lead to demotivation. In a society with poor political participation, an individualistic mentality is encouraged, thereby decreasing the desire to pursue cooperative endeavors.

2.3.3. Humane Orientation

GLOBE characterizes humane orientation as “the degree to which an organization or society encourages and rewards individuals for being fair, altruistic, generous, caring, and kind to others” [ 68 ]. Research (e.g., [ 69 , 70 ]) has argued that a high humane orientation encourages members to develop a strong sense of belonging, commit to fair treatment, and manifest benevolence. The desire to help others or enhance others’ well-being indicates prosocial values and behaviors [ 71 , 72 ]. Since humane orientation is correlated with philanthropy and promotes good relations, this cultural value may enhance work motivation. Fairness, which is derived from a humane-oriented society, is one of the most vital influences on work motivation [ 1 ]. Moreover, altruism, promoted by humane-oriented societies, encourages individuals to sacrifice individual interests for shared benefits. Altruism then encourages attachment to others’ welfare and increases resources needed for prosocial behaviors such as work [ 73 , 74 ]. Members of humane-oriented countries view work in a positive light—it is an opportunity for them to perform altruistic behaviors and engage in collective actions. Therefore, people are more likely to work harder for common interests in humane-oriented societies. In such conditions, individuals with competence, autonomy, and social relatedness will be more motivated to work. By contrast, a less humane-oriented society gives prominence to material wealth and personal enjoyment [ 75 ]. Although this may be perceived as a positive influence on the association between psychological needs and work motivation, such an individualistic mindset works against the prosocial factors that further motivate individuals.

2.3.4. In-Group Collectivism

House et al. (2004) [ 68 ] defined in-group collectivism as “the degree to which individuals express pride, loyalty, and cohesiveness in their organizations or families”. Collectivistic cultures indicate the need for individuals to rely on group membership for identification [ 76 ]. High collectivism enhances equity, solidarity, loyalty, and encouragement [ 77 , 78 ]. Humans living in a collectivist culture are interdependent and recognize their responsibilities towards each other [ 79 ]. In-group collectivism transfers the concepts of social engagement, interdependence with others, and care for the group over the self (e.g., [ 79 , 80 , 81 ], thereby motivating individuals to work harder for the common interests. Oyserman et al. (2002) [ 82 ] have further argued that individualistic values encourage an independent personality, whereas collectivistic values form an interdependent one. Therefore, in-group collectivism is a prosocial value that emphasizes the importance of reciprocal relationships and encourages people to work harder to benefit the group. By contrast, low collectivism promotes individual interests and personal well-being while neglecting the value of having strong relations with others [ 70 ]. Considering that in-group collectivism promotes individuals’ prosocial behaviors of individuals, people who are competent, autonomous, and socially related to collective societies are less likely to be demotivated at the workplace. Consequently, in-group collectivism may intensify the positive influence of individuals’ competence, autonomy, and social relatedness on their work motivation.

(a–d): The positive relationship between individuals’ competence and their work motivation is enhanced as religious affiliation (a), political participation (b), humane orientation (c), and in-group collectivism (d) increase.

(a–d): The positive relationship between individuals’ autonomy and their work motivation is enhanced as religious affiliation (a), political participation (b), humane orientation (c), and in-group collectivism (d) increase.

(a–d): The positive relationship between individuals’ social relatedness and their work motivation is enhanced as religious affiliation (a), political participation (b), humane orientation (c), and in-group collectivism (d) increase.

3.1. Sample

The data came from the seventh wave (2017–2021) of the World Values Survey (WVS) [ 83 ], which examines humans’ beliefs and values. This survey is performed every five years to explore changes in people’s values and perceptions. Face-to-face interviews, or phone interviews for remote areas, were conducted by local organizations. Almost 90 percent of the world’s population is represented in the WVS. At least 1000 individuals were selected as respondents to exhibit each nation’s population. Further information regarding the WVS can be reached at the WVS website ( http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org , accessed on 14 October 2021).

The samples of this study were based on the availability of national-level data for the moderators and individual-level data for the measures of independent and dependent variables. Respondents without answers on the individual measures and corresponding country-level data were excluded from the analysis. The final data included 32,614 respondents in 25 countries aged 18 and above. The 25 countries included Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, Colombia, Ecuador, Egypt, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Philippines, Russia, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, and the USA.

3.2. Dependent Variable

Consistent with previous researchers (e.g., [ 84 ]), the authors used four items to gauge individual work motivation, namely “Indicate how important work is in your life”, “People who do not work turn lazy”, “Work is a duty towards society”, and “Work should always come first, even if it means less spare”. The first item was measured on a scale from 1 to 4, in which lower scores indicate a higher level of work importance. The other three items were gauged on a scale from 1 to 5 (1 indicating strongly agree and 5 indicating strongly disagree). The scores for each item were reverse coded, and the mean scores were computed so that higher scores indicate greater work motivation.

3.3. Independent Variables

The independent variables of this study include individuals’ competence, autonomy, and social relatedness. First, people’s competence was measured by the item “What is the highest educational level that you attained” on a scale from 0 to 8, in which higher scores indicate a higher level of educational attainment. The authors used the item to gauge individual competence, as a capacity for learning is highlighted in the examination of competence [ 39 ]. Second, a scale from 1 to 10 was utilized to measure the item “How much freedom of choice and control”, which represented individual autonomy (1 indicating no choice at all and 10 indicating a great deal of choice). The authors used the item to gauge people’s autonomy as this item indicates the degree to which individual can make their own decisions. Finally, the individual’s social relatedness was gauged by twelve items, representing twelve types of organizations where individuals are active/inactive members or do not belong. The twelve items were measured on a scale from 0 to 2 (0 indicating do not belong, 1 indicating inactive member, and 2 indicating active member). The mean score of the twelve items represents the individual’s social relatedness. The membership in organizations represents social relatedness, as this indicates the reciprocal relationship between the individual and the organization through their mutual rights, responsibilities, and obligations towards each other [ 85 ].

3.4. Moderators

The four country-level moderators in this study were religious affiliation, political participation, humane orientation, and in-group collectivism. Similar to prior research (e.g., [ 86 ]), the authors used the percentage of the country’s population with religious affiliation obtained from Pew Research Center 2015 [ 87 ]. Secondly, the index of voter turnout collected from the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance [ 88 ] was utilized to gauge political participation. Voting habits are an indicator of an individual’s presence in their country’s life, and a nation with a high index of voter turnout illustrates its substantial degree of political participation [ 89 ]. Finally, two cultural values, including humane orientation and in-group collectivism, were obtained from the GLOBE study [ 68 ]. The authors used scores on cultural practices as the moderators for this study because they indicate the actual behaviors as “the way things are done in this culture” [ 68 ].

3.5. Control Variables

Several individual-level and country-level elements related to the dependent variable were considered control variables. The effects of gender, marital status, age, and income level were accounted for, as these four variables are basic personal factors that may impact individual’s motivation [ 90 ]. Gender (1 indicating male and 0 indicating female) and marital status (1 indicating married and 0 indicating other status) were dummy coded. Moreover, age was measured in years, while income level was gauged using a scale from 1 representing the lowest group to 10 representing the highest group. Along with the above individual-level controls, education and family strength were treated as country-level control variables. Education and family are primary institutions that shape individuals’ motivation [ 91 , 92 ]. Similar to prior researchers (e.g., [ 93 ]), education was computed as two-thirds of the adult literacy rate attained from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics 2020 [ 94 ] and one-third of the mean years of schooling obtained from the Human Development Report 2020 [ 95 ]. This score is commonly approved as representing access to education in a country [ 42 ]. Regarding family strength, the score was quantified by the ratio of divorces to marriages per 1000 members of the population consistent with previous researchers (e.g., [ 93 ]). The data was obtained from the United Nations Demographic Yearbook [ 96 ].

3.6. Measurement and Analysis

To perform the descriptive statistics, cross-level correlations, scale reliability, confirmatory factor analysis, convergent validity, and discriminant validity, the authors utilized SPSS software.

The framework of this study considers independent variables, dependent variables, and moderators at different levels. Thus, the authors used a hierarchical linear model (HLM) [ 97 ] to test the hypotheses. HLM was defined as a “complex form of ordinary least squares (OLS) regression that is used to analyze variance in the outcome variables when the predictor variables are at varying hierarchical levels” [ 98 ]. This technique evaluates the impacts of higher-level outcomes on lower-level ones while preserving an appropriate degree of analysis [ 99 ]. HLM has been employed in several cross-level studies (e.g., [ 100 , 101 ]).

Table 2 presents a matrix of correlations and sample statistics from the individual-level to country-level variables. Table 3 and Table 4 report convergent and discriminant validity test results, respectively. Finally, Table 5 illustrates results for hypotheses testing using HLM. Three models are presented in the table: those of individual-level main effects and control variables (Model 1), those of country-level main effects (Model 2), and country-level moderating effects (Model 3).

Descriptive statistics, cross-level correlations and scale reliability a,b,c .

a   n = 32,614 level 1; n = 25, level 2. b * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01. c The reliability found in the parentheses is expressed as Cronbach’s alpha for scales with ≥four items.

Convergent validity.

Discriminant validity—Fornell and Larcker’s criterion.

* p < 0.05.

HLM results: (The DV is work motivation) a,b .

a , n = 32,614 level 1; n = 25, level 2. b , †, p < 0.10, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.

For the confirmatory factor analysis, previous research (e.g., [ 102 , 103 , 104 ]) suggested that analysis of each variable requires at least three items. Factor analysis using statistical software will provide imprecise results if there are fewer than three items per variable [ 105 ]. Therefore, the authors only performed Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) for social relatedness and work motivation.

To assess the measurement, convergent and discriminant validity were tested. Composite Reliability (CR) and Average Variance Extracted (AVE) were performed to illustrate convergent validity. The study of Hair et al. (2019) [ 106 ] suggested that CR is required to be above a threshold of 0.7. On the other hand, the AVE value should be higher than a threshold of 0.5 [ 107 ]. As shown in Table 3 , CR is acceptable while AVE is slightly lower than a threshold of 0.5. Despite the limitation of AVE, the acceptable result of the discriminant validity is achieved. The discriminant validity was tested using Fornell and Larcker (1981)’s criterion [ 107 ]. This proposes that the square root of the AVE of any latent variable should be higher than its correlation with any other construct. The result of the discriminant validity test indicates that all the two latent constructs have a square root of AVE higher than its correlation with the other construct, as presented in Table 4 .

The authors argued that individuals’ competence (H1), autonomy (H2), and social relatedness (H3) positively relate to their work motivation. However, the findings only supported H2 (β2 = 0.036, p < 0.001) and H3 (β3 = 0.042, p < 0.001). In contrast, the findings presented that H1 was also significant, but in the opposite direction compared with our original prediction. The result suggests that individuals’ competence negatively relates to their work motivation.

In Hypotheses 4a–d, we proposed that higher levels of religious affiliation (4a), political participation (4b), humane orientation (4c), and in-group collectivism (4d) strengthen the relationship described in H1. However, the results only demonstrated support for the two hypotheses, H4c (γ13 = 0.032, p < 0.001) and H4d (γ14 = 0.042, p < 0.001). In contrast, the findings presented that H4a was also significant, but opposite our initial prediction. This different result proposes that a higher level of religious affiliation weakens the association between individuals’ competence and work motivation.

In Hypotheses 5a–d, the authors argued that the higher levels of religious affiliation (5a), political participation (5b), humane orientation (5c), and in-group collectivism (5d) enhance the positive relationship between individuals’ autonomy and their work motivation. However, the results only supported the two hypotheses H5b (γ22 = 0.012, p < 0.05) and H5c (γ23 = 0.012, p < 0.1), while H5a and H5d were not significant.

In Hypotheses 6a–d, the authors argued that the higher levels of religious affiliation (6a), political participation (6b), humane orientation (6c), and in-group collectivism (6d) enhance the positive relationship between individuals’ social relatedness and their work motivation. However, the results only supported H6c (γ33 = 0.019, p < 0.01). In contrast, the findings indicated that H6d was also significant, but in the opposite direction compared to our initial hypothesis. The different result suggests that higher in-group collectivism weakens the positive association between individuals’ social relatedness and work motivation. Figure 1 , Figure 2 , Figure 3 , Figure 4 and Figure 5 represent the significant moderators of the associations examined.

The association between competence and work motivation at different levels of humane orientation.

The association between competence and work motivation at different levels of in-group collectivism.

The association between autonomy and work motivation at different levels of political participation.

The association between autonomy and work motivation at different levels of humane orientation.

The association between social relatedness and work motivation at different levels of humane orientation.

Regarding the statistical results of the control variables, gender, marital status, and age consistently indicated significant positive relationships with work motivation across three models. On the other hand, family strength indicated a significant negative association to work motivation only in Model 1.

5. Discussion

The study’s objective was to examine the influence of individuals’ competence, autonomy, and social relatedness on their work motivation, as well as the impact of country-level moderators, including religious affiliation, political participation, humane orientation, and in-group collectivism on their relationships. Seven primary findings are crucial in this research. First, people’s autonomy and social relatedness positively relate to their work motivation. This result is in line with the findings of prior researchers (e.g., [ 45 , 52 ]), postulating that humans’ autonomy and social relatedness breeds work motivation. The study of Theurer et al. (2018) [ 108 ] argued that, among motivational elements, autonomy had been found to greatly predict positive work motivation. When people feel they have enough control over their activities, they are more confident and motivated to work. Along with autonomy, humans’ social relatedness promotes communal benefits, thereby motivating people to work harder for their organization. Second, the association between individual competence and work motivation is moderated by cultural values, including humane orientation and in-group collectivism. The findings are consistent with the viewpoints of prior researchers (e.g., [ 69 , 70 , 77 , 78 ]), namely that a society with higher levels of humane orientation and in-group collectivism strengthens altruism, solidarity, loyalty, and the encouragement of individuals, which results in work motivation. Consequently, there will be an increase in the differences in individuals’ competence and work motivation if they live in a society with greater humane orientation and in-group collectivism. Third, political participation and humane orientation moderate the relationship between individual autonomy and work motivation. These results are in line with the investigations of prior researchers (e.g., [18,45), which found that social circumstances and cultural practices promote people’s motivation. Accordingly, the differences in individuals’ autonomy based on their work motivation will be enhanced if they belong to nations with higher political participation and humane orientation. Fourth, the association between social relatedness and work motivation is moderated by humane orientation. Accordingly, in a humane-oriented society, the differences in individuals’ social relatedness based on their work motivation will be strengthened.

The remaining findings were contrary to the original propositions. Pinder (2014) [ 20 ] argued that it is possible to find that contextual practices can influence variables at the individual level in the opposite prediction in motivation research. Fifth, individuals’ competence negatively influences their work motivation. This finding proposes that more competent individuals are less motivated at work. One possible interpretation of this opposite result is that, when the majority of the organization members recognize individuals’ competence, these individuals may perceive that it is not necessary to devote most of their time and energy to work anymore. These individuals may believe that no matter how unwillingly they perform, they are still competent enough because of their prior achievements. Additionally, competent individuals recognize that they have already sacrificed their enjoyment of life for their previous successes; therefore, they tend to offset this by investing their valuable time in other aspects. This is consistent with other researchers’ investigations (e.g., [ 109 ]), which found that low-skilled individuals are more often compelled to engage in regular work activities and are more easily motivated than others. By contrast, highly competent individuals tend to be motivated by challenging tasks and improving themselves through further education. Sixth, the relationship between competence and work motivation is negatively moderated by religious affiliation. This finding suggests that religious affiliation weakens the association between individuals’ competence and work motivation. One possible explanation for this finding is that strong religious beliefs are the foundation for virtuous living [ 110 ]. Individuals with religious affiliation usually employ religious principles to guide their behavior, regardless of their competence. In other words, both competent and incompetent individuals tend to be more motivated at the workplace if they are affiliated with any religion, thereby diminishing the influence of competence in work motivation. Seventh, the relationship between social relatedness and work motivation is negatively moderated by in-group collectivism. This result proposes that a higher degree of in-group collectivism weakens the association between individuals’ social relatedness and work motivation. One possible explanation for this is that, under an in-group collective society, people put more weight on mutual relationships and encourage acts that may build up the solidarity of groups. Since in-group collectivism is viewed as a social attachment in which people emphasize the group over the self (e.g., [ 79 , 80 , 81 ]), individuals are fairly conscious of their responsibility to the group regardless of their social relatedness. Both socially related and unrelated individuals belonging to in-group collective cultures tend to work harder for common goals. Accordingly, the influence of individuals’ social relatedness on their work motivation is reduced.

6. Limitations and Future Research

Despite its significant contributions, this study has its limitations. The use of secondary data represents the fact that the data collection process was beyond the authors’ control. However, the collection of cross-national data is time-consuming and costly. The authors used the available data but strove for the efficient use of multilevel data. The secondary data also limited the measurement of individual-level factors based on the available data. Moreover, it is quite complex to gauge an individual’s work motivation appropriately, since personal work motivation may not be one-dimensional. Nevertheless, the authors made efforts to employ the measurements utilized by prior research. Moreover, it is complicated to measure social factors such as political participation. There are challenges in investigating social contexts due to the absence of direct measurements [ 111 ]. This compels the authors to identify substitute measurements for this study. Finally, this study covered 25 samples from 25 countries with different characteristics. Despite the attempt of this study to include the most relevant social conditions in the framework, the influence of other national differences and cultural sensitivities were not considered.

This paper directs further research considering that several frameworks and approaches should be employed to better examine motivation [ 112 ]. First, as some of the results were opposite to the original propositions based on the theoretical foundations employed, combining different concepts and approaches is necessary to enhance perspectives of psychological needs and social issues. For instance, the relationship between competence and work motivation can be further investigated by employing other theories to understand their association better. Similarly, the moderating effects of social contexts such as religious affiliation and in-group collectivism should be further examined to obtain a more in-depth comprehension of the roles of contextual circumstances and cultural values in individual-level relationships. Additionally, self-determination theory and the concept of prosocial motivation may be used to explore motivation towards specific behavior in organizations, such as organizational citizenship and proactive behaviors. Organizational context, such as rewards, training, and culture, can be considered as part of the framework to enhance the conception of work motivation.

7. Conclusions

This study has utilized a multilevel framework to examine the influence of psychological needs and social context on work motivation. Through this research, a deeper understanding of the roles of competence, autonomy, and social relatedness, as well as social situations and cultural values on work motivation, is achieved. The contrary findings call for integrating other concepts and approaches towards a more comprehensive knowledge of work motivation.

Along with the theoretical contribution, the study’s findings offer practical implications. The satisfaction of psychological needs promotes self-motivation, which creates positive outcomes. Hence, organizations can provide programs and activities to promote employees’ autonomy and social relatedness as this will enhance their work motivation. Employee empowerment can be advocated by encouraging them to make their own decisions at the workplace, providing constructive criticisms rather than instilling the fear of failure. Additionally, managers should encourage solidarity, support, and mutual care among employees. Putting more weight on employees’ fulfillment of needs will further increase employees’ motivation, thereby diminishing costs related to stress or turnover [ 50 ]. To establish a novel mechanism towards promoting work motivation in the entire nation, the government should pay attention to the political structure and conditions that encourage citizens’ participation. Additionally, a culture of humane orientation should be promoted in the workplace and society so that solidarity, kind assistance, and altruism among communities as well as among individuals can be strengthened. For instance, teamwork should be encouraged for employees to help each other overcome difficulties at the workplace or share responsibilities with their colleagues. This will motivate people to work harder for collective goals, contributing to the development of organizations.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, T.T.D.V. and K.V.T.; data collection, T.T.D.V.; methodology, T.T.D.V. and K.V.T.; formal analysis, T.T.D.V. and K.V.T.; resources, K.V.T. and C.-W.C.; writing-original draft, T.T.D.V. and K.V.T.; writing-review, editing & proofreading, T.T.D.V., K.V.T. and C.-W.C.; visualization, K.V.T.; supervision, K.V.T. and C.-W.C.; project administration, K.V.T. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

This paper does not receive funding from any individuals or organizations.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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Employee Motivation at the Workplace: Case Study of Slovenian Company 

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Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Linguistics and Culture (ICLC-4 2023)

The Role of Language and Communication Strategy for Employee Motivation: The Study Case of CV. Kreasi Pisang Indonesia in Makassar

When leading an organization, the leader will hope that every activity will be easily run. A language is a communication tool required by the company to provide direction or work instructions. There are three essential things to create an effective communication. Firstly, the content that is being discussed. Secondly, who is the speaker and the last is how the information is delivered. Based on this theory, the choice of language variety, sentence types, vocabulary and movements are considered to communicate the information. The purpose of this study is to analyze the language communication strategies in motivating employee performance. This study used a qualitative approach by collecting observational data, in-depth interviews with company leaders, and collecting documents to use as relevant literature. The result of this study concluded that organizations design an organizational culture to achieve organizational values and the vision that has been created. By using language that is easy to understand and implement, the campaign “strong health and happy team” was created, which means that to be a strong team you must have a healthy mind and body inorder to feel happy while working.

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A Process for Using LLMs in a National Security Research Organization

This article originally appeared in Forbes Technology Council .

Every company must forge a path to balance the disruptive risks and opportunities posed by large language models (LLMs). But for an organization like ours, working in national security, the stakes and complexity are considerably higher. CNA is an independent nonprofit that produces analysis for the military and for homeland security agencies. Our success over more than 80 years has depended upon government confidence in our research quality and in our ability to manage risk to our networks and privileged information. To balance the heightened risks posed by using LLMs with the need to get the latest tools in the hands of our researchers quickly, we engaged in a collaborative and flexible four-step process:

• Understand requirements and risks

Establish policy and guidance

Enter into a contract with employees, collect feedback and adjust, understand requirements and risk.

Our scientific and professional staff consistently demand the latest tools and technology, and they pressed us to incorporate LLMs into CNA’s infrastructure. Researchers wanted to use LLMs to summarize long reports, speed up programming, and quickly generate outlines. Professional staff wanted to rapidly produce draft position descriptions, policies, and company-wide communications. The trick was to address these demands while maintaining a secure, safe, and compliant infrastructure.

We tasked a team in our Global Information Security group at CNA to develop processes to assess risk. The public servers that LLMs run on concerned us most. As a partner in U.S. national security, CNA operates under many rules that govern our information technology infrastructure and security—especially what we can put into the public space. LLMs potentially create risks, especially to proprietary and sensitive data.

LLMs also introduce risks that could affect the analytical quality that sustains our reputation. One risk is that they can “hallucinate” or make things up. For example, LLMs claimed CNA had published a specific piece of work, returning a title and author, when an exhaustive search of our document repository showed that such a report doesn’t exist. Another is that LLMs are trained on internet data, which introduces bias and false information. A third research risk is that many LLMs do not provide complete citations for generated text, raising concerns about plagiarism.

We needed a collaborative approach bridging research and technology to address these risks. We formed a four-person executive team—the chief information officer, chief research officer, and two executive vice presidents. The team settled on four technical governing policies compliant with current government information technology regulations and security requirements:

• LLM governance policy, a new framework to harness the benefits of AI while managing risks
• Acceptable use policy, updated to describe acceptable and unacceptable employee behavior on CNA's network
• Bring your own device policy, updated to allow greater flexibility while ensuring safeguards to manage security risks
• Software/custom code development policy, updated to standardize secure software development for all CNA-developed code

In addition to these policies, we developed guidance that provides general direction to users and lays out validation and accountability requirements for LLM-generated content. Key principles include:

• LLMs are tools that can help with some aspects of the research process and corporate tasks.
• LLMs do not replace critical thinking by a human.
• LLM users may not enter into an LLM any classified or Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI), nor any proprietary, privileged, protected health information, personally identifiable information, or business sensitive information.
• LLM users are responsible for any LLM-generated content, which must be validated by a human. This includes checking for biases and factual or statistical errors.
• LLM use must be transparent, described in the methodology section of reports and briefings and acknowledged in footnotes—including the name of the analyst who verified the results.
• LLMs cannot be authors.

Together, our technical governing policies and research guidance mitigate both technical and research risks, reducing the likelihood of an information spill and helping users apply LLMs in a responsible manner.

Establishing sound technical policies and research guidance is necessary for success, but it isn’t enough. We needed employees to acknowledge their responsibility for reducing risk through a formal LLM access request process.

To access LLMs, employees first read the technical governing policies and guidance. They then complete and sign an LLM Request and User Agreement Form. On the form, an employee specifies all LLM tools they plan to use for CNA work, whether on a company computer or personal device. The employee’s manager signs and approves the form, and the CIO’s information security team reviews it for technical risks before sending the approved tools list to the information technology team to allow user access. The process creates a record of requests and insight into which tools are most requested.

To encourage cross-organizational collaboration, we provide authorized LLM users with a collaboration space inside a Microsoft Teams channel, where they learn from each other, sharing what works and what doesn’t. We also collect feedback on the LLM user experience through regular surveys and small group discussions. So far, 94 percent of users find LLMs to be useful, and 80 percent will continue to use them. Still, 75 percent identified drawbacks, including wrong code, incorrect content, opinionated language, and nonsense answers. Many felt limited by the inability to upload proprietary documents or PDFs. In focus groups, staff asked for guidance on prompt development—to get the most effective answers to the questions they ask of LLMs. And they told us they wanted LLMs that could operate inside CNA’s firewalls. We are incorporating this feedback into program improvements underway now.

Developed in just under six weeks, our approach to access has enabled employees to stay curious, explore further, and witness firsthand the incredible power of language models within deliberate bounds. Since the regulations that organizations like ours work under cannot keep pace with the disruptive changes created by LLMs, leaders must learn to prudently manage risk. Cross-discipline collaboration at the leadership level has allowed us to find this critical balance between opportunity and risk in harnessing LLMs to further our mission.

Rizwan Jan is Vice President and Chief Information Officer and Kim Deal is Chief Research Officer at CNA.

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Your Team Members Aren’t Participating in Meetings. Here’s What to Do.

• Luis Velasquez

Ask yourself: What do people need to feel that their contributions are valued?

Traditional advice for leaders who want to increase meeting participation call for clarifying expectations, setting clear agendas, and asking open-ended questions. While these strategies have their merits, they might not always work because they’re usually based on the leader’s assumptions about what the team needs, rather than facts about what they actually need. Managers who want their teams to be more engaged in meetings need to foster a safe, inclusive team culture, which requires a deep understanding of their team’s unique dynamics. The author presents several strategies for encouraging employees to engage during meetings.

Sue, a former client of mine, was starting a new VP role at a fintech organization. She found out quickly that the team she inherited had a lower level of participation, collaboration, questioning, and general engagement than the one she had left behind. This was particularly evident in team meetings.

• Luis Velasquez , MBA, Ph.D. is an executive coach who works with senior leaders and their teams to become more cohesive, effective, and resilient.  He is the founder and managing partner of  Velas Coaching LLC , a leadership facilitator at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, a former University professor, and research scientist. Connect with him on  LinkedIn.

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