IMPACT OF COVID-19 CRISIS ON EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION.

• Author: Rivera, Michelle

INTRODUCTION

Employee motivation deeply impacts many areas of a business, from employee performance, retention, and ultimately the organization's success. Managers must be able to identify what motivates their employees, and also take action to improve the work environment and meet employee needs. Since each employee has different needs and focuses on various motivation factors, a manager must determine the best way to lead and encourage each individual employee based on individual needs. It would be short-sighted for a manager to take a one-fits-all approach to employee motivation (Hitka et al., 2020).

Theories and management actions to enhance employee motivation have been studied for decades, but what do the studies indicate about how a crisis impacts employee motivation? According to Tao et al. (2021, p.1), "Organizational crises are adverse events that occur suddenly and unexpectedly to an organization." Organizational crises can jeopardize organizational goals attainment as well as the organization's reputation, and financial standing. Most research focuses on how to rebuild an organization's financial standing and relationships after a crisis, but the importance of internal organizational communication with the employees has sometimes been overlooked. Although crises are disrupting to other stakeholders and management, the impact on employees is substantial. Employees play a key role in organizational success during a crisis by adapting to the changing organizational climate, participating in crisis communication, crisis management, and maintaining performance outputs (Tao et al., 2021).

The most recent crisis with world-wide impact is the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Vu et al. (2021, p.1) explain the coronavirus as "enveloped positive-strand ribonucleic acid viruses that can infect a variety of animal species, including humans. It was a novel coronavirus named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)." This virus was first reported among twenty-seven patients in December 2019 in Wuhan, China. By January 2020, the World Health Organization declared it an international public health emergency. Due to COVID-19's contagious nature, the fast-spreading virus infected millions of people in countries all around the world in a year's time and continues to be a global health crisis (Vu et al., 2021). The COVID-19 pandemic was not only a health crisis, but it also caused substantial changes in the stock market, economy, and financial stability of businesses and families (Shokeen & Nandal, 2020). COVID-19 forced changes in operating norms and reorganizations in nearly every industry sector, as well as mass layoffs and furloughs and the new norm of working from home (Yue, 2021).

Although there have been other types of crises, the COVID-19 pandemic's impact has been far more significant than business leaders and employees could have imagined, changing every person's daily life. COVID-19 forced employees to adapt to the new normal of social distancing, wearing face masks, working from home, and possibly new service models. While leaders were forced to face challenges required for maintaining job performance, they also had to prioritize employee health, motivation, satisfaction, and attitudes. Recent research presented in this paper indicates that employee motivation has been significantly affected by COVID-19. Due to the unprecedented potency of the COVID-19 pandemic emergence in the workplace, employee sources of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation had to be re-evaluated.

Additionally, factors like workplace safety, job insecurity, and risk of infection played a significant role in employee motivation. Consequently, employee motivation and behavior influence played a crucial role in the execution of new ideas, organizational effectiveness, competitive advantage, and long-term success (Saether, 2019). In times of crisis, employees often look to the organization and its leadership for guidance and information; therefore, internal organizational communication played a crucial role in employee motivation and job performance. With the emergence of COVID-19 in the workplace, managers in all business sectors and employees of all demographics have had to adapt to the new normal.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Since employee motivation contributes significantly to employees' work performance, innovative work behavior, and organizational engagement, it is essential to consider and enhance the sources of employee motivation. The two types of employee motivation are intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Rooted in Vroom's expectancy theory, research indicates that managers have significant control over employees' non-financial rewards, or intrinsic motivation. Non-financial motivators include clear goal setting, providing adequate resources for employees to excel in their work, offering recognition for a job well done, and utilizing effective communication (Majerova et al., 2021).

Majerova, et al. (2021) performed a study among 2,000 Slovak employees to determine if there had been a change in the sources of intrinsic motivation of employees during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research was performed in two phases: the first quarter of 2020 (before COVID-19) and the first quarter of 2021 (during the COVID-19 pandemic). Intrinsic motivation dives deeper into employee purpose, meaning, and needs that influence employee behavior. The top sources of intrinsic motivation analyzed are listed in order of importance: (1) sense of choice, (2) sense of meaningfulness, (3) sense of progress, and (4) sense of competence. Before COVID-19, intrinsic motivation sources were ranked in that respective order, with sense of choice being the most important for employees. During COVID-19, the intrinsic motivation source rankings were slightly changed to reflect: (1) sense of choice, (2) sense of progress, (3) sense of meaningfulness, and (4) sense of competence.

At a glance, it does not seem like a significant difference between the two-phase results; however, the noticeable difference was in reviewing the measured components within each intrinsic motivation source. For example, the sense of progress measure examined components like a collaborative climate, milestones, celebrations, access to customers, and measurement of improvement. Nearly all these components ranked higher in priority during COVID-19 compared to pre COVID-19. Analyzing the intrinsic motivation sources, the rank change in the sense of progress could be attributed to the absence of interpersonal contact during COVID-19. This change highlights the extent to which employees value effective communication.

The sense of meaningfulness intrinsic motivation source was measured by components like maintaining a non-cynical climate, clearly identified passions, an exciting vision, and relevant task purposes. The decline in rank of the sense of meaningfulness intrinsic motivation source may be due to the fact that organizational vision was overlooked by employees, as the immediate at-hand task items related to performance were more impacted by COVID-19 limitations (Majerova, et al. 2021). The study highlighted the fact that the intrinsic motivation components of sense of choice and sense of competence generally remained the same, maintaining their pre-COVID rankings. The intrinsic motivation source of sense of choice remained the top priority for employees (Majerova, et al. 2021).

Prior to COVID-19, the top ranked component of intrinsic motivation was delegated authority, whereas during COVID-19 the top ranked intrinsic motivation component was a clear purpose. Employees highly valued understanding what they individually, and as an organization, were trying to accomplish during the time of COVID-19. Furthermore, the study's review of the participants' demographic information determined that intrinsic motivation is more effective in promoting overall work motivation for Generation Z...