Imagine you are the manager of small team of employees at a large retail department store,which sells many types of products in different departments. Salaries at your store are well aboveindustry average, which is why after reviewing data from an employee survey, you are surprisedto learn that employees are not feeling motivated to perform well at their jobs.Using content from the lecture and/or tutorial readings in Week 6 (Goals and Motivation), explaintwo ways you might increase employee motivation (4 points). Then, using the Week 6 article Howto Keep Working When You’re Just Not Feeling It, explain one more way you might increaseemployee motivation (1 point). Be sure to use and define terms from the lecture and/or readings,as well as provide examples of concrete organisational changes in your response. Also make sureto consider the retail department store context.

Based on the content from Week 6 (Goals and Motivation), one way to increase employee motivation is through goal-setting. Goal-setting theory suggests that employees are motivated when they have clear, specific, and challenging goals, along with feedback on their progress towards these goals (Locke & Latham, 2002). As a manager, you could implement regular performance reviews where employees are given specific targets to achieve and regular feedback on their progress. For example, a sales associate could be given a goal to sell a certain number of a specific product each month, and then receive feedback on their progress each week.

Another way to increase motivation is through job design. The Job Characteristics Model (Hackman & Oldham, 1976) suggests that jobs that are high in skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback lead to higher intrinsic motivation, job satisfaction, and performance. As a manager, you could redesign jobs to increase these characteristics. For example, you could give employees more autonomy by allowing them to make decisions about how they display products in their department.

From the Week 6 article "How to Keep Working When You’re Just Not Feeling It", another way to increase motivation is by helping employees find meaning in their work. This can be done by connecting their tasks to a larger purpose or goal. As a manager, you could regularly communicate the store's mission and how each employee's work contributes to this mission. For example, you could explain to a cashier how their friendly service contributes to the store's goal of providing excellent customer service and creating a pleasant shopping experience for customers.