I. Overview of Expectation Theory

Expectation theory was first put forward by American psychologist frum in his book Work and Motivation. Frum believes that everyone has needs, needs to cause behaviors and achieve certain goals. There is motivation when there is need. When the goal is not achieved, this need is only an expectation, and expectation itself is a potential force, which can stimulate people's behavior and improve people's enthusiasm for achieving the goal. Therefore, the individual's inspired strength has a specific relationship with the goal he pursues and the possibility of achieving this goal. Expressed by the formula: need-goal ↓ excitation intensity (M) = valence (V) × expected value (E)

M(Motiveforce) refers to the intensity of internal enthusiasm being stimulated, indicating the degree of efforts made by individuals to achieve their goals.

Value V(Value) refers to the value of a job or a goal to meet individual needs, or the position of a goal in the mind of the stimulated object.

Expectation e (expectation) refers to an individual's subjective estimation of the possibility of achieving a goal, and the expectation is between 0 and 1.

The essence of expectation theory is to deal with three relationships, namely, the relationship between effort and performance (E→ P): the more individuals believe that effort will bring good performance, the stronger their expectations for E → P, and vice versa.

Job performance → reward relationship (P→ O): The more strongly individuals believe that performance will bring rewarding returns, the more they will work hard and effectively.

Reward → Personal Goal Relationship (O→V): The satisfaction of organizational rewards to personal goals and needs depends on the individual's evaluation of reward returns. The higher the individual's evaluation of reward return, the greater the incentive effect.

Second, the expected incentive period

Through the appropriate transformation of PDCA cycle, an application program of expectation theory can be constructed, which is called expectation incentive cycle.

According to PDCA cycle, the model systematically combines individual needs, motivations, goals, efforts, individual performance evaluation and rewards (rewards) to complete the whole incentive activity. Divided into five stages:

The first stage: determine the unmet needs of individuals. When members of an organization have unsatisfied needs, they will have psychological pressures such as anxiety, which will be influenced by internal or external reasons and become the basis of individual behavior. At this stage, we should determine the nature, category and relative importance of personal needs;

The second stage: set goals and make plans. After confirming individual needs, enterprise organizations should intervene in time, guide and help employees to set personal goals through goal negotiation, analyze the possibility of achieving goals, prepare personal action plans and countermeasures, and incorporate them into the organizational target management system;

The third stage: personal efforts and achievements. That is, the stage when individuals take practical actions according to the established goals and implementation plans and achieve corresponding results;

The fourth stage: performance evaluation stage. In other words, we should give an objective, accurate and fair evaluation of certain achievements made by individuals through hard work, and the evaluation subject should include managers at all levels in the organization and employees themselves.

The fifth stage: the reward stage. According to the results of performance appraisal, combined with the enterprise organizational target responsibility system, the members of the organization are given corresponding rewards to meet individual needs. The higher the satisfaction of organizational rewards (material rewards and spiritual rewards) and the sense of accomplishment of the work itself to personal goals and needs, the greater the incentive effect.

Next, start the next PDCA cycle. It is worth noting that the stages of the above procedures are not completely separated, but can be crossed or carried out simultaneously.

Third, the application strategy of expectation theory

1. Accurately grasp the needs of employees

Maslow believes that human needs are divided into five levels, from low to high, namely, physiological needs, security needs, social needs, respect needs and self-realization needs. Markov believes that it is not necessary for individuals to be completely satisfied when they advance along the ladder of needs, and those basically satisfied needs no longer have an incentive effect. Therefore, if you want to motivate a person, you must know what level he is at now, and then meet these and higher-level needs. Maslow gave us an important hint, that is, to motivate employees, we must proceed from the needs of researchers and prescribe the right medicine. Therefore, in practical work, we should accurately grasp the needs of employees. How to get this information? The human resource management department can carry out employee demand questionnaire survey in the enterprise on a regular basis, which can be conducted once a year. The content of the questionnaire should include multiple-choice questions and some open-ended questions. The human resources management department will summarize, analyze and archive the questionnaire results, and put forward research reports for managers to make decisions and help employees to clarify their own needs. This behavior should be incorporated into the enterprise system.

target setting

The goal itself has an incentive function, but it is limited to the appropriate goal. Too high a goal will reduce employees' expectations, while too low a goal will reduce employees' potential, both of which will reduce employees' efforts and thus reduce the incentive effect. How to correctly establish employee goals? It is through training that employees can define the overall goal of the enterprise organization and the organization's goal system, which is used to motivate employees and rally morale. It is necessary to adopt the way of goal negotiation to help employees establish their own goal system and unify organizational goals and personal goals.

3. Accurate performance evaluation

Performance evaluation is a fair and accurate evaluation of employees' work performance, ability and attitude. To accurately evaluate employee performance, we should pay attention to: first, set evaluation indicators and weights reasonably; Second, correct the attitude of the evaluator. The evaluators of performance evaluation are not only managers, but also employees themselves, and work attitude refers to employees' subjective emotional color and psychological state when implementing work behavior. Only when the evaluation work and results are linked with the responsibilities and interests of the evaluator can the evaluation results be fair, so it is necessary to establish and improve the responsibility system of the evaluator and strengthen democratic supervision; Third, maintain a good attitude of employees. Only by maintaining a good and positive attitude can employees correct their work attitude and correctly evaluate their work achievements and abilities; After encountering setbacks, you can quickly straighten your mind and correct your shortcomings. Therefore, it is particularly important to establish an excellent corporate culture and create a relaxed, harmonious and positive working environment. Fourth, improve the ability of employees. Performance evaluation is not only to evaluate employees' work results, give corresponding rewards and punishments and investigate their responsibilities, but more importantly, to help employees overcome obstacles, improve their work ability and realize the transformation of managers from "referee" status to "coach" status.

4. Rewards should keep a distance from others and "do whatever you want"

Employees work hard to get rewards from good work performance. First, we should see the basis for employees to pursue economic interests, and we should not ignore the important incentive role of "money"; Second, we should combine material incentives with spiritual incentives, especially from the work itself, to improve employees' sense of responsibility, pride and accomplishment; Third, abide by the "iron triangle of responsibilities and rights" theorem, which not only ensures that each employee's responsibilities, rights and interests are equal, but also makes employees' job responsibilities slightly higher than their abilities to tap their potential; Fourth, the reward should distance itself and "vote for what it likes". According to the target responsibility system, employees should be "fair" in the input-output ratio, and the rewards should distance themselves, encourage "advanced" and pull "backward". Rewards should be given to employees who like them. Specific rewards can be targeted according to the employee demand questionnaire provided by the Human Resources Department, and the greater the incentive effect on individuals.