1. Strategic Human Capital Leadership
Training Series—Session 2
Employee Motivation:
Leveraging Employee Capacity to
Optimize Workplace Potential

2. Introduction
Jonathan H. Westover, Ph.D.
Visiting Fulbright Scholar
Belarusian State University
School of Business and Management of Technology MBA Program
Assistant Professor of Management, Woodbury School of Business
Email: jon.westover@gmail.com; jonathan.westover@uvu.edu
About Me: about.me/jonathan.h.westover

4. What we will Cover
This session will address proven best practices and principles of
employee motivation with a focus on how to leverage employee
capacity to optimize workplace potential and overall firm success.
We will:
1. Explain the importance of human capital maximization.
2. Define the elements of a job analysis, and discuss their significance
in human resource management.
3. Identify approaches to designing a job to make it more motivating.
4. Explain how dissatisfaction affects employee behavior and firm
performance.
5. Describe how organizations contribute to employees’ job
satisfaction and retaining key employees.

5. How Are We Doing?
–We are confident that:
1. Employee turn-over is low, particularly with our best
people.
2. Morale is high and that our people are happy in their
jobs.
3. We know the dreams and aspirations of our people
and have developed career planning tools to match
these desires with opportunities for development.
4. We have put in place strategies whereby we will lose
fewer of our talented people this year than we did last
year.

6. The Challenge of Utilizing Human
Capital
• How can I get the right people into
the right job?
• How can I reduce employee
turnover?
• How can I improve my
performance management
process?
• How can I create a high-
engagement work culture?
• How can I best tap the full
potential of my employees?

7. Maximizing Your Human Capital
Potential

8. Importance of Job Analysis
• Job analysis is so • Work redesign
important to HR • Human resource
managers that it has
planning
been called the building
block of all HRM • Selection
functions. • Training
• Almost every HRM • Performance appraisal
program requires some
type of information • Career planning
determined by job • Job evaluation
analysis:

9. Approaches to Job Design

10. Designing Jobs That Motivate:
The Job Characteristics Model
1. Skill variety – the extent to which a job requires a variety of
skills to carry out the tasks involved.
2. Task identity – the degree to which a job requires
completing a “whole” piece of work from beginning to end.
3. Task significance – the extent to which the job has an
important impact on the lives of other people.
4. Autonomy – the degree to which the job allows an
individual to make decisions about the way work will be
carried out.
5. Feedback - the extent to which a person receives clear
information about performance effectiveness from the
work itself.

11. Characteristics of a Motivating Job

12. The Truth about Motivation
Mastery
Autonomy

13. Job Withdrawal
Job withdrawal – a set of behaviors with which employees try to
avoid the work situation physically, mentally, or emotionally.

14. The Causes of Job Dissatisfaction
Personal • Negative affectivity
Dispositions • Core self-evaluations
• Role ambiguity
Tasks and • Role conflict
Roles • Role overload
Supervisors • Negative behavior by managers
and Coworkers • Conflicts between employees
Pay and • Pay is an indicator of status in the organization
Benefits • Pay and benefits contribute to self-worth

15. Job Satisfaction
Job satisfaction – a pleasant feeling resulting from the perception that one’s job
fulfills or allows for the fulfillment of one’s important job values. The three
important components are: (1) Values, (2) Perceptions, and (3) Ideas of what is
important

16. Employee Empowerment
• Employee Empowerment – Giving employees responsibility and
authority to make decisions regarding all aspects of product
development or customer service.
• Employee Engagement – Full involvement in one’s work and
commitment to one’s job and company. This is associated with higher
productivity, better customer service, lower employee turnover

17. Pike’s Place Fish Market
1. Play
2. Make Their Day
3. Be There
4. Choose Your Attitude

18. QUESTIONS?
Jonathan H. Westover, Ph.D.
Visiting Fulbright Scholar
Belarusian State University
School of Business and Management of Technology MBA Program
Assistant Professor of Management, Woodbury School of Business
Email: jon.westover@gmail.com; jonathan.westover@uvu.edu
About Me: about.me/jonathan.h.westover