Motivational theory
According to Locke’s goal setting theory goal setting is a very effective way to motivate people and considered to be the most valid and useful theory in industrial and organizational behavior. When done correctly a goal will have five principles. Clarity, challenge, commitment, feedback and task complexity.
Working for a cleaning company can be challenging. There are 22 employees, which consist of 10 teams a manager and a quality inspector. On average, each team has at least three houses each day, but usually we have four sometimes five. Each house varies in size and they all range from the price of $60-$180. When a house is first cleaned the price is higher on the first two cleans because we do more detail cleaning in order to get the house clean enough so that it is manageable. We are often given goals to meet. Our goals involve increasing productivity in a timely manner. Given clear challenges increases our commitment to provided feedback on the complexity of the task. An example of a goal we were given is we were asked to reduce our cleaning time in a house by 30 min therefore allowing us to clean one more house daily.
We were initially advised to reduce our time in each home. We were not given any specific guidelines on what was expected. This goal was very vague and presented no challenge or need for commitment on our behalf. After receiving feedback on why the goal of reducing time in each house was not accomplished, we were presented with a new goal.
The goal was presented in a clear manner. We clearly knew we should only be in a house for one and a half hours versus two hours. The challenge was to accomplish this without sacrificing the quality of work. We were to receive a bonus, which contributed to our commitment to reach the goal. Upon completion, we received feedback on or