One of the key elements to create a successful business is the motivation of employees. However, the opposite of this can be applied to the case of NUMMI (New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc). In 1982, due to the ineffective labour-management, the Fremont plant of General Motors had to shut down for two years and reopened again thanks for the joint venture between General Motors and Toyota. The Japanese company applied its effective management ideology and helped the Fremont plant from one of the worst plants of General Motors into the best one (Siegel, 2010). The purpose of this essay is to critically analyse the three motivation theories (which are the Maslow’s hierarchy needs theory, the McClelland’s three needs theory and the Four drive theory) and its application to the NUMMI’s management strategy of motivating its workers, then the essay will recommend some possible approaches to further strengthen or to limit the management practises. Finally, it will conclude all the findings, key analytics and recommendations.
Maslow’s hierarchy needs theory, the McClelland’s three motivational needs theory and the Four-drive theory are the three theories related to the case of NUMMI. Firstly, the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory, one of the most popular motivation theories, according to McLeod (2014), is theory describe that people are motivated to acquired 5 specific stages of needs which respectively are “physiological”, “safety”, “social”, “esteem” and “self-actualisation” and after a need is achieved, people will aim to the next one and so on. Secondly, Wood et al. (2013) believe that the learned needs theory of McClelland describes the three needs which are “the need for achievement”, “the need for affiliation” and “the need for power”. These three needs can profoundly affect a person’s motivation, work roles and preferences. Therefore, managers normally use this theory to assess the characteristics of themselves and their employees in order to assign the right work roles for the right people. The third theory, the Four-drive theory, which according to McShane, Olekalns & Travaglione (2010), are the “drive to acquire”, “drive to bond”, “drive to learn” and “drive to defend” and they are essential to the employees motivations.
After reopen the Fremont plant, the first thing that the new managers did was to negotiate the “UAW Labor Contract” which based on UAW (2014), its obligation is to create opportunities for workers to develop their financial status, work environment and security. According to McLeod (2014), one of the five needs of Maslow’s hierarchy needs theory is the need for security, for the stable and secure working environment such as working benefits and safety workplace. The managers also ensures the workers job security by the “no-strike, no-layoff” deal in the contract. In other words, besides the case if workers try to strike the company, under most circumstances, workers will not be layoffed due to the affection of the deal. One practical example of this deal was when NUMMI was producing the most unsuccessful output at its earlier stage and had 400 excess workers, it had to send those people to training and other activities in order to keep them on payroll. Moreover, the managers also followed the UAW contract by create opportunities for former workers who were discharged when the plant was first shut down in 1982 to have the first chance to get the new job. This action could be closely related to the first stage of Maslow’s hierarchy needs theory, which according to McLeod (2014), is the need for physiological, for basic needs such as stable and adequate income. It is possible the reason NUMMI management team aimed for the UAW contract first when they started the plant was to ensure that they provided the two first needs of the Maslow’s hierarchy needs which are “physiological” and “safety”, thus motivate the employees to continue aim for the next three needs.
Another highlight of the new NUMMI management ideology is to let people from in small groups with the group leaders receiving 60 cent more than other group member due to more task and responsibility. McShane, Olekalns & Travaglione (2010) believe that one of the four important drives in the four-drive theory is the drive to bond in which people are driven to from positive social relationship and develop mutual caring for others and thus, motivate them to cooperate and healthy support with each other. Realise such potential motivation among workers in groups, it is wise to provide group leaders such reward to further motivate them to work harder to support their group and potentially establish loyalty and create positive thinking towards the plant. As a result, “drive to bond” theory encourages managers to foster bondings and creates social interaction in order to help other employees identify themselves as part of the team with more motivation. A demonstration of this was the activity that managers requires professional people to spend the first several weeks to work with normal workers on the line in order to understand the work conditions of others, thus acquire job acceptance and trust with others. Additionally, the need for belongingness also relate to this case as it fulfilled their needs to be accepted and worked in an organisational environment (Tanner 2014)