Human Motivation
The receptionist position at the MRI Center is one that has produceda long string of bored individuals who were capable of presenting a caring,professional face to clients and a pleasant voice on the phone just untilthe novelty of a new job wore off. After realizing that the best employeesin that position had been temps when the 'regular' employee was sick or onvacation caused a re-examination of the requirements of the position. Itwas determined that there were two possibilities for motivating the holderof that position to excel. The way that was rejected was the waymotivational researcher Frederick Herzberg describe as 'making peoplework,' as opposed to making them want to work (Porter 1996), or at least,encouraging them to want to work since no one can make a free human beingdo anything. Herzberg was convinced that motivating employees by threatsor promises of rewards does little to get so much as a good day's work outof the unmotivated, never mind excellence. (Porter 1996) So the 'make them work' idea was scrapped before it was evendiscussed. But another approach was to split the position, making twopeople into a combination medical transcriptionist and receptionist. It,
Reception was a dead-end job, however. The author noted that spirituality is intrinsic to human nature. In the redesign, the liaison function with thehospitals and physician's offices was shifted from the transcriptionist,who fit it in whenever she could, to the client comfort coordinator. As aresult, any candidate who had insufficient skills for doing that would betrained at company expense, as long as he or she exhibited the otherfeatures we sought, most especially the desires to help and the desire toexcel and move up. But what was added was thepossibility of finding new ways of making clients comfortable, which theclient comfort coordinator would need to work up and present at weeklymeetings, putting the job on the same professional level as the techniciansand administrative and public relations/sales staffs in some respects. The job itself would be redesigned to attract such applicants. Herzberg also maintained that the "only way to motivate employees is togive them challenging work for which they can assume responsibility. It had no bottom-line responsibility,virtually no self-management, and certainly no management of others, allthings that are important in enhancing intrinsic motivation attitudes andbehaviors. The job redesign borrowed from an idea presented in Nursing Diagnosismagazine. Inaddition, the opportunity was created for the client care coordinator toparticipate in sales and public relations events when it was feasible, withthe idea that over time, that would become an avenue for advancement. "(Porter 1996) In the end, we felt that the redesign contemplated would fulfill therequirements of intrinsic motivation identified in a recent NursingEconomics article. But it waspossible to interview with intent to elicit whether the interviewee vieweda job as separate from life and spirituality, or part and parcel of it.
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Frederick Herzberg,
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Nursing Economics,
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Acceptance Essays
