This project has been completed for a medium-sized supermarket located on the southern side of Hamilton. They currently have 83 people employed to work there. The reason for researching the drivers of motivation is so employers can begin to understand the best ways to motivate their individual employees
The aim of the project was to analyse what drives motivation in the workplace and to provide recommendations for the supermarket.
Both a questionnaire and interview were used, the questionnaire with the purpose of gathering a large amount of quantitative data in a short period of time and the interview to build on the results received from the questionnaires and provide qualitative data. Only employees in the grocery and checkout departments were asked to participate.
Results from the questionnaire and interview showed that when it came to store culture, most staff felt that it could improve, that the store’s values were not being displayed, and that if store culture improved they would be better motivated. The store culture was also identified as an important motivator, especially for the staff over 26 years of age.
When data concerning training and development was analysed, it was found that both training and career development were important motivators, with most staff wishing to undertake training and/or career development opportunities if they arose. From the analyses of the results for the reward and recognition questions, the staff indicated they felt they were not valued as employees and would prefer to receive more feedback to help increase their motivation. Pay was the last motivator to be analysed. The respondents indicated that they felt an increase in their pay rate would improve their motivation. However, upon further analysis through the interview, it was found although initially they would be motivated whether this would permanently improve their motivation was questionable.
There were three recommendations for the organisation. These were, to implement a reward and recognition programme that addressed meeting the three motivational needs of the staff mentioned above, rewards and recognition, pay, and training and development. The second was to improve store culture, which would involve taking existing store values and establishing them into everyday life at the supermarket, so they become a shared set of values by them team. The third was to undertake further research to investigate how the motivational needs for the supermarket industry, a typical low skill, entry level job may differ to that of a higher skill job.