According to Antony and McVicar (2011), motivation may be defined as a stimulus, workforce which can affect people's action because of a need or desire. It should be linked with people's performance and the goals of productivity. Usually, motivation plays an important role in achieving business goals in a workplace where is consist of workers. It could bring every employee enthusiasm in their work to gain the goals of productivity or the organization objectives if the managers motivate their staff well (Dysvik and Kuvaas, 2008). So, how to motivate the employees challenges the managers of the organizations or companies. High level of motivation could lead to high level of performance, and then good performance could cause high productivity. In contrast, low motivation perhaps makes turnover happen frequently. Motivating in the workforce is complicated and difficult due to many different reasons such as work itself, work conditions, relationship between supervisors and staff (Herrera, 2002). The managers probably need to motivate their employees by some motivational theories. The theories of motivational could help them to improve worker's performance, reduce the turnover, make employee remain the right attitude towards the work. Consequently, the high level of performance usually can improve the productivity. This essay will describe three kinds of theories of motivation which are Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory, Herzberg's two factors theory and Vroom's expectancy theory firstly and choose three companies which are Manpower, Tesco and Nokia to analyze how these three kinds of motivational theories are used by their managers.
Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory is one of the most well known theories of motivation in the world. Maslow states that it could be used to explain most of human behaviour (Maslow, 1987). Many companies motivate their employees by this theory, for instance, Tesco, Starbucks and McDonald's.