The Impact of Personality and Motivation on Employee Performance

Personality Traits and Employee Performance

Personality traits and motivation are factors that profoundly influence employee behavior and performance. The two concepts have been selected for this paper since they both revolve around psychological and physiological elements. Even though the impact of personality traits on the performance of employees was ignored for a long time, there have been developments explaining how different personality traits can be used to predict performance in the workplace (Ahmad et al., 2015). Previously, scholars were against the use of personality to increase the productivity of employees, but in recent years, the use of personality assessments in the manipulation and increasing the performance of employees has elevated (Ahmad et al., 2015). The five-factor model or the big five is a personality theory that uses five core traits to explain personality. The principal proponents of the big five traits approach were Costa and McRae. The five traits are conscientiousness, openness to experience, extraversion, emotional stability, and agreeableness.

Conscientiousness and Job Performance

The five-factor model of personality traits is vital to organizational behavior as it highlights predisposition traits, which relate to job performance. The trait of conscientiousness is best held by employees who are dependable, hardworking, organized, persistent, responsible, and self-disciplined. Of all the attributes, conscientiousness is believed to have the strongest correlation with job performance (Ahmad et al., 2015). Conscientious individuals tend to be high performers on any job while individuals who are irresponsible, impulsive, and careless tend to record lower performance on any job. Conscientious employees are rarely absent from work, are often self-driven, and they set for themselves higher goals and performance expectations (Youshan & Hassan, 2015).

Extraversion and Job Performance

Individuals with high extraversion excel more in sales and management. The descriptive characteristics of emotionally stable individuals are: unworried, secure, happy, and calm (Youshan & Hassan, 2015). Employees who have high emotional stability are competent in handling situations that are stressful while those with high agreeableness are more effective with customer relations and conflict. Agreeable individuals are warm, trusting, cooperative, courteous, caring, and good-natured. Individuals who are open to experience have job training proficiency (Ahmad et al., 2015). Openness to experience can be used to describe individuals who are curious, cultured, flexible, creative, intellectual, imaginative, and artistically sensitive (Youshan & Hassan, 2015). The characteristics that describe the trait of extraversion are: assertive, sociable, outgoing, gregarious, and talkative. The strategic management style is often used by individuals who are more open to experience and have an open conscience. On the other hand, extraversion and openness are associated with individuals who have a strong interpersonal management style. The big five traits can be considered when formulating teams within an organization to get the best performance from the teams (Youshan & Hassan, 2015).

Variables Influencing Big Five Traits and Job Performance

There are three variables which affect the big five traits that eventually impact job performance, and they are: communion, accomplishment, and status (Youshan & Hassan, 2015). Individuals striving for communion are those who aim to get along with other employees in the organization. Task-oriented individuals strive towards accomplishment, and the people who seek to be ahead of people in an organization are driven by achieving the status (Ahmad et al., 2015). These variables greatly motivate employees, leading to improved employee performance.

Motivation and Employee Performance

Like personality traits, motivation has a significant impact on employee performance (Lazaroiu, 2015). Three main elements make up the system of motivation: needs, drives, and incentives. Needs are often created due to imbalances, which may either be psychological or physiological, for instance, when the person does not have people serving as companions (Kumari, 2014). Even though psychological needs are often based on deficiency, sometimes a strong desire to get ahead may motivate an individual to succeed. Drives are usually set up to alleviate needs. A drive refers to a deficiency with a direction that offers an energizing thrust towards achieving an incentive (Lazaroiu, 2015). For instance, hunger gets to be a drive to look for food. The incentive is the final stage in the motivation process, and it refers to anything satisfying a need, which, in turn, reduces a drive. As such, achieving an incentive restores balance, both physiological and psychological, and cuts off the drive.

Primary and Secondary Motives

Motives are categorized into two; primary and secondary. Primary motives are those that are unlearned and are physiological, for instance, hunger, sex, sleep, thirst, maternal concern, and avoidance of pain (Kumari, 2014). Just like personality traits, the physiological needs are equated with the primary motives. The performance of employees and the impact of this performance on engagement with customers revolve around a motivating factor which is determined by the brain. Also, primary motives influence the talents and emotional mechanisms that individuals bring to work. Even though the primary needs may be similar to all, secondary motives often differ. Secondary motives are acquired or learned and as the society becomes more complex, and they replace primary motives as the motivating factors (Lazaroiu, 2015). The learned secondary motives include affiliation, status power, security, and achievement.

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation

Besides primary and secondary classifications, motives can also be intrinsic or extrinsic. Intrinsic motives are generated internally. They include feelings of responsibility, accomplishment, achievement, and feelings of being competitive or challenged. Extrinsic motives are tangible and can be seen by others, for instance, pay, promotions, need to avoid punishment like termination, and benefits (Lazaroiu, 2015). Extrinsic motivators are vital in attracting workers to an organization and retaining them. Organizations typically use extrinsic motives to inspire workers to reach goals, for instance, giving them additional payoffs or recognition. Intrinsically motivated employees are more genuine in their work and are more fulfilled by performing well. As such, intrinsic motivation relates more to the long-term satisfaction of the employees with themselves and their jobs.

Motivation and Personality Traits

Motivation and personality traits greatly influence the performance of employees. Thus, highly motivated employees are determined to record high performance to reach their goals. The big five personality traits can be used to explain the high performance of individuals in different job positions. For instance, conscientious individuals perform highly on any job, while individuals with high extraversion are best in sales and marketing.

References

Conference paper abstract retrieved online Ahmad, J., Ather, M., & Hussain, M. (2014, June). Impact of the big five personality traits on job performance. Paper presented at the Human Capital without Borders: Knowledge and Learning for Quality of Life; Management, Knowledge and Learning International Conference 2014. Portorož, Slovenia. Abstract retrieved from http://www.toknowpress.net/ISBN/978-961-6914-09-3/papers/ML14-597.pdf.

Kumari, N. (2014). Effect of motivation on the employee behaviour and organization as a whole. Journal on Management, 6(9), 303-307. Retrieved from http://hrmars.com/hrmars_papers/The_Impact_of_Motivation_on_the_Employee_Performance_and_Job_Satisfaction_in_IT_Park_(Software_House)_Sector_of_Peshawar,_Pakistan.pdf

Lazaroiu, G. (2015). Employee motivation and job performance. Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations 14 , 97-102.  Retrieved from https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/addleton-academic-publishers/employee-motivation-and-job-performance-1yzcyBeS9U

Youshan, B. B., & Hassan, Z. (2015). The effect of employee personality on organisational performance: Study on insurance company. International Journal of Accounting, Business, and Management, 197-206.