Does Money Motivate You ?

Money motivates most employees to perform at satisfactory level and many perform at superior levels, when it is used properly. Money motivates in almost mysterious ways. First of all, for most people it is not motivator for its own sake, but rather for what can be bought with it. With money person can usually purchase good and service that do satisfy lower level needs-physiological needs. If money can be provided for future contigencies through saving, pension plans, and insurance, it will help to satisfy security need. And money can help to satisfy social need as well.

In reality, money can be a satisfier for higher level needs, by serving as tangible symbol of an intangible reward. For example, a person who seeks to satisfy esteem needs may value a raise in salary as a symbol of increased status. The symbolic value may be more important than the increased buying power represented by the raise. Considering again the special case of the individual with high need for achievement, money can serve as an objective mechanism for measurement of performance. Commissions for the sales person, prize money for professional athlete, and profit for enterpreneur can provide the feedback desired by high achievers. In such cases, the money it self may not be as important to the individual as the satisfaction of earning it. Our society normally looks more favoraby on the person who makes a great deal of money than it does on one who makes little.

To the person who seeks seft actualization, money is probably a symbol of achievement. Becoming all that one is capable of becoming includes the financial demonstration of achievement.

There is a problem, however, in relying on money as reward for upper level of the need hierarchy. The problem is that larger and larger quantities of money are generally required to yield the same degree of satisfaction one progress up the hierarchy.

Money is more of a short motivator than it is a long term motivator. But make no mistake about it, money motivates. And if current economic trends continue, it will again become a primary motivator for most of the population.

Finally, the process may or may not continue according to the impact of the process on the individual's self -image. The evidence suggests that no simple formula will give a totally accurate picture of the relationship between self-image and performance. When the process maintains or enhances the individual's self-image, performance would be expected to continue at present levels or to increase. When the process lowers the individual's self-image, one would expect the level of perfomance to decline.