Motivating employees

In order to increase the revenues in the Chinese market, Kompan needs to have well trained and motivated employees. This can be done in two different ways: by transferring employees that are willing to go from Europe to China and by integrating them in the culture, or by hiring salespeople from China.

In the first case, when Kompan is relocating employees the motivational framework that is going to be used is Vroom’s expectancy theory. The expectancies that could determine the desire for this relocation could be of two different natures.

First of all, there could be some employees that perceive an easier way of getting to a desired position in the less established county, which would determine them to relocate. Since the prime focus of these employees is to gain appreciation, recognition and responsibilities and to grow together with the company, the factor that is going to make the difference in motivated or demotivated employees is the proper evaluation of the work and efforts put into the job and the fair rewarding of it.

Provided that this is sustained every time a promotion is awarded, the behavior of the employee will be inclined into delivering a high quality job and putting the necessary effort in order to get the desired reward.

On the other hand, there might be persons in the company that are attracted to the culture of the country in which the new jobs are going to open up and they would take the opportunity of experiencing it, with the security of working for a company that they already have some history in.

These employees already have some knowledge and know what to expect when they move to China and can help the other ones integrating faster into the society.

Moreover, the future business potential of the country and the rapid development might be another reason for people to be willing to move. Except for the opportunities that are open inside Kompan, there are plenty other outside the company, and people might be encouraged to take chances and look to develop themselves besides their daily work.

Moving forward to the employees that should be hired from China, the motivation theory used is going to be different due to the big difference in culture. The main aspect that needs to be taken into consideration is the fact that in the Chinese culture, standing out in any way is regarded to be negative and the group plays a much more important position than the individual itself.

As a result the motivational theory that can be used is Hackman and Oldham’s job characteristics theory.

Giving the employees challenging skills might be a meaningful way of engaging them in the job, especially for those that are focused on development and growth. This could be done with the help of the delegated salespeople that already have a history at Kompan and which can challenge the new person in performing at standards as high as the experienced employee.

Since the employee is challenged in performing various tasks that have different degrees of difficulty for him, it will become obvious that the tasks that the Chinese employees are performing are as important as the tasks that the European ones do. In this case task identity and task significance plays the major role in

motivating employees. If the new employees that come from China, where Kompan’s business is not so established will perceive the tasks that they are doing as or more important as the business in any other country, they will feel motivated and responsible for developing the company to its full business potential and with it, developing themselves.

In order to balance the authority in the company and not to discriminate, the newly hired salesperson can help the one that was delegated to get familiar with the culture. Autonomy is important when it comes to make people feel that their contribution is essential to the development of the company. However, before giving full autonomy to all employees, Kompan has to be able to create the connection and transfer of knowledge between their employees in order to make sure that all of them are performing in accordance to the same standards and have the same chances to be rewarded or promoted. Once the new employees have learned the tricks and tips for a good selling process and the relocated employees are acquainted to the culture, full authority can be given, fact that will show that the company has full trust in them in achieving their business mission.

Feedback needs to be given in order to keep employees motivated, by acknowledging when they have done a good job as well as for giving constructive criticism and reestablish any details that might have compromised a perfect performance.

When it comes to the Chinese employees it is important that feedback is given individually and direct criticism is avoided. It is inappropriate for a Chinese employee to be criticized in front of his coworkers because this is going to dramatically lower his self-confidence and compromise his motivation for improving in the future.

These are only two different motivational theories that can be used in order to motivate people in Europe and in China. They have to be considered differently due to the big culture gap and adjusted as the environment changes.