Motivating Employees under Adverse Condition The Challenge Reading Answers
IELTS Cambridge 6 Test 3 Reading Answers
Reading Answers
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage below
Motivating Employees under Adverse Condition
THE CHALLENGE
It is a great deal easier to motivate employees in a growing organization than a declining one. When organizations are expanding and adding personnel, promotional opportunities, pay raises, and the excitement of being associated with a dynamic organization create Slings of optimism. Management is able to ta use the growth to entice and encourage employees. When an organization is shrinking, the best and most mobile workers are prone to leave voluntarily. Unfortunately, they are the ones the organization can least afford to lose- those with me the highest skills and experience. The minor employees remain because their job options are limited.
Morale also surfers during the decline. People fear they may be the next to be made redundant. Productivity often suffers, as employees spend their time sharing rumors and providing one another with moral support rather than focusing on their jobs. For those whose jobs are secure, pay increases are rarely possible. Pay cuts, unheard of during times of growth, may even be imposed. The challenge to management is how to motivate employees under such retrenchment conditions. The ways of meeting this challenge can be broadly divided into six Key Points, which are outlined below.
KEY POINT ONE
There is an abundance of evidence to support the motivational benefits that result from carefully matching people to jobs. For example, if the job is running a small business or an autonomous unit within a larger business, high achievers should be sought. However, if the job to be filled is a managerial post in a large bureaucratic organization, a candidate who has a high need for power and a low need for affiliation should be selected. Accordingly, high achievers should not be put into jobs that are inconsistent with their needs. High achievers will do best when the job provides moderately challenging goals and where there are independence and feedback. However, it should be remembered that not everybody is motivated by jobs that are high in independence, variety, and responsibility.
KEY POINT TWO
The literature on goal-setting theory suggests that managers should ensure that all employees have specific goals and receive comments on how well they are doing in those goals. For those with high achievement needs, typically a minority in any organization, the existence of external goals is less important because high achievers are already internally motivated. The next factor to be determined is whether the goals should be assigned by a manager or collectively set in conjunction with the employees. The answer to that depends on perceptions of the culture, however, goals should be assigned. If participation and the culture are incongruous, employees are likely to perceive the participation process as manipulative and be negatively affected by it.
KEY POINT THREE
Regardless of whether goals are achievable or well within management’s perceptions of the employee’s ability, if employees see them as unachievable they will reduce their effort. Managers must be sure, therefore, that employees feel confident that their efforts can lead to performance goals. For managers, this means that employees must have the capability of doing the job and must regard the appraisal process as valid.
KEY POINT FOUR
Since employees have different needs, what acts as a reinforcement for one may not for another. Managers could use their knowledge of each employee to personalize the rewards over which they have control. Some of the more obvious rewards that managers allocate include pay, promotions, autonomy, job scope, and depth, and the opportunity to participate in goal-setting and decision-making.
KEY POINT FIVE
Managers need to make rewards contingent on performance. To reward factors other than performance will only reinforce those other factors. Key rewards such as pay increases and promotions or advancements should be allocated for the attainment of the employee’s specific goals. Consistent with maximizing the impact of rewards, managers should look for ways to increase their visibility. Eliminating the secrecy surrounding pay by openly communicating everyone’s remuneration, publicizing performance bonuses, and allocating annual salary increases in a lump sum rather than spreading them out over an entire year are examples of actions that will make rewards more visible and potentially more motivating.
KEY POINT SIX
The way rewards are distributed should be transparent so that employees perceive that rewards or outcomes are equitable and equal to the inputs given. On a simplistic level, experience, abilities, effort, and other obvious inputs should explain differences in pay, responsibility and other obvious outcomes. The problem, however, is complicated by the existence of dozens of inputs and outcomes and by the Fact that employee groups place different degrees of importance on them. For instance, a study comparing clerical and production workers identified nearly twenty inputs and outcomes. The clerical workers considered factors such as quality of work performed and job knowledge near the top of their list, but these were at the bottom of the production workers’ list. Similarly, production workers thought that the most important inputs were intelligence and personal involvement with task accomplishment, two factors that were quite low in the importance ratings of the clerks. There were also important, though less dramatic, differences on the outcome side. For example, production workers rated advancement very highly, whereas clerical workers rated advancement in the lower third of their list. Such findings suggest that one person’s equity is another’s inequity, so an ideal should probably weigh different inputs and outcomes according to the employee group.
Reading Passage 2 contains six Key Points.
Choose the correct heading for Key Points TWO to SIX from the list of headings below.
Write the correct number i-viii in boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet list of headings.
i Ensure the reward system is fair
ii Match rewords lo individuals
iii Ensure targets ore realistically
iv Link rewords to achievement
v Encourage managers to take more responsibility
vi Recognise changes in employees' performance over time viiEstabishtargets and give feedback
viii Ensure employees are suited to their jobs
14 Koy Point Two
15 Koy Point Three
16 Kay Point FoLir
17 Key Point Five
18 Key Point Six
Questions 19-24
Do the following statements agree with the views of the writer in Reading Passage 2 Inboxes 19-24 on your answer sheet write:
YES
NO
NOT GIVEN
if t11e statement agrees with the claims the writer
if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer
if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
19 A shrinking organization lends to lose its less-skilled employees rather than its more skilled
employees.
20 It is easier to n1anoge a small business than a large business.
21 High achievers are well suited to teamwork.
22 Some employees can feel manipulated when asked to participate in goal-setting.
23 The staff appraisal process should be designed by employees.
24 Employees' earnings should be disclosed to everyone within the organization.
Questions 25-27
Look at the following groups of workers (Question2S-27) and the list of descriptions below.
Match ec1chgroup with the correct description, A -E Write the correct letter, A-Ein boxes 25-27 on your answer sheet
25 high achievers
26 clerical workers
27 product on workers
List of descriptions
A They judge promotion to bo important
B They have less need for external goats
C They think that the quality of their work is important
D They resist goals which are imposed
E Thay have limited job options
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