Mr. Sanjay Tandon has been working as the Personnel Manager of Chickware Garments Company which manufactures children's clothings and accessories. Last year, he attended a management development seminar, where considerable attention was given to motivation and especially the theories of Maslow and Herzberg. Impressed by Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Herzberg's Hygiene-Motivation Theory, he felt that the Company could immediately make practical use of them. Since the company's wage and salary levels were among the best in the industry, he was convinced that the company should concentrate on Herzberg's motivators.
The Executive Committee of the company succeeded in starting programmes of emphasizing recognition, advancement, greater personal responsibility, achievement, and making work more challenging. After the various programmes emphasizing these factors had been in operation for a number of months, Mr. Sanjay was puzzled to find that the results were not as he had expected.
Clothing designers appeared to react enthusiastically to the programmes although some felt that these were a poor substitute for higher pay. Sales people took the position that they already had challenging jobs, that their sense of achievement was fulfilled by exceeding their sales quotas, that their recognition was in their commission cheques, and that all these new programmes were a waste of time with them. Cutters, seamsters, pressers and packagers had mixed feelings. Some responded to the recognition they got from the top management whereas others regarded it as a managerial ploy to get them to work harder without any increase in pay. Their union leader, agreeing with the latter group, openly criticized the new motivational techniques. With reactions so variable, Mr. Sanjay came under considerable criticism by the company's top executives who believed that they had been taken in by the overzealous Personnel Manager. On discussing the problem with the company's management consultant, Mr. Sanjay was advised that he had taken too simple a view of human motivation.
Questions
(i) Comment on, this case by referring to various motivational models.
(ii) Compare and contrast the Maslow's and Herzberg's theories of motivation as they
apply to this case.
