Regardless of how much you love your job, there are always days when you don’t feel like working. Sometimes, you don’t feel like anything is motivating you to go to work other than your responsibility for paying your mortgage/rent/debt.
In other words, sometimes the only thing motivating you to go to work is because of something external: the paycheque.
Other times, you might not want to go to work because you don’t feel like you’re doing anything meaningful or influential in your job. You might feel like your work is no longer giving you a sense of fulfillment or enjoyment, so finding the motivation to work becomes a bit harder on those days.
I think of these reasons as being internal. Something inside of you is not finding the job meaningful enough to keep going.
One theory that addresses questions of motivation and job satisfaction comes from Fredrick Herzberg. Herzberg was an organizational psychologist who developed the two-factor theory to determine whether or not you are satisfied or dissatisfied with your career and work.
Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory
Imagine this. You are working with someone on a project, but this co-worker isn’t contributing their share. They seem to miss deadlines, or they miss essential planning meetings. When you ask them for their thoughts on the project, they have nothing constructive to say.
According to Herzberg, you can zero in rather quickly on what is causing the employee to behave the way they are if you can identify the two categories that make them satisfied and dissatisfied.
The two categories that can explain a person’s motivation and satisfaction are Motivating Factors and Hygiene Factors.
The way I view these factors is whether a person’s motivation for their work is externally based (hygiene factors) or internally based (motivators).
Motivating factors. These factors refer to the aspects of a job that keep a person motivated and satisfied. Examples of motivating factors are whether or not the person feels they are contributing to the overall organization. Or do they feel a sense of independence and autonomy? Do they have a sense of responsibility for the outputs of the organization? Is there variety in their work? Is this employee permitted to be creative with their ideas?
Motivating Factors are what keep a person satisfied at work. Without these factors, a person has very low career satisfaction.
Hygiene factors refer to the elements that address the employee’s basic needs. For example, are they satisfied with their pay? Is there enough job security? Does the employee have flexibility in their schedule? Can they work from home? Do they get along with their boss? Is their commute time reasonable?
Hygiene factors contribute to a person’s level of dissatisfaction. In other words, you are less dissatisfied if you are happy with your salary and benefits (hygiene factor).
But good pay and benefits do not make you satisfied. The presence or absence of motivating factors is what contributes to job satisfaction.
You Can’t Have One Without The Other
For Herzberg, job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction were two mutually exclusive concepts. That is, you can be both satisfied and dissatisfied with your work. For example, you might feel like you are contributing to your organization and are doing meaningful work (motivating factors). Still, you might be dissatisfied because you are not getting paid the market value for your services and have no flexibility in your schedule (hygiene factors).
Herzberg’s theory helps you understand how you might feel about your Occupation – one of the domains of a balanced life. Because our jobs occupy so much of our week (and our lives), Herzberg’s theory gives you some parameters to help you reflect on why you might be satisfied or dissatisfied with this area of your life.
Richard P.S. My plan for the next couple of months.Over the last several months, I’ve used the word PROMISE to help categorize some topics I write about. For example, this past May and June, I wrote about Relationships, such as empathy and boundaries. And for July and August, I wrote about Occupation. I plan on writing about Mind and Mental Health in September and October.
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Why You Might be Satisfied (or Dissatisfied) with Your Work
