Two-factor theory, also known as motivation-health care theory, was put forward by American behavioral scientist Frederick Herzberg, also known as "two-factor motivation theory". Two-factor motivation theory is his most important achievement, and he has also carried out groundbreaking research on job enrichment. Introduction to Two-factor Incentive Theory In the late 1950s, Herzberg and his assistant visited 200 engineers and accountants in Pittsburgh, USA. The interview mainly revolves around two questions: what are the things that satisfy you at work and how long this positive emotion will last; What are the things that make them dissatisfied? Estimate how long this negative emotion will last. Based on the answers to these questions, Herzberg set out to study what makes people feel happy and satisfied at work, and what causes unhappiness and dissatisfaction. As a result, he found that what satisfied employees belonged to the work itself or the work content; What makes employees dissatisfied is the working environment or working relationship. He called the former an incentive factor and the latter a health care factor. The effect of satisfaction of health care factors on employees is similar to that of health care on physical health. Health care can eliminate harmful things from the human environment, which can not directly improve the health level, but can prevent diseases; It is not therapeutic, but preventive. Health care factors include company policies, management measures, supervision, interpersonal relationships, material working conditions, wages, welfare, etc. When these factors deteriorate below the acceptable level, there will be dissatisfaction with work. When people think that these factors are good, they only eliminate dissatisfaction, and will not lead to a positive attitude, forming a neutral state of neither satisfaction nor dissatisfaction. Those factors that can bring positive attitude, satisfaction and motivation are called "incentive factors", which can meet the needs of individual self-realization, including: achievement, appreciation, the challenge of work, the increase of work responsibility, opportunities for growth and development, etc. If all these factors are available, people will be more motivated. In this sense, herzberg believes that the traditional incentive assumptions, such as salary incentives, improving interpersonal relationships, providing good working conditions, etc. , will not produce greater incentives; They can eliminate dissatisfaction and prevent problems, but these traditional "incentive factors" will not produce positive incentives even if they reach the best level. According to herzberg, the management should realize that the health care factor is necessary, but once it neutralizes the dissatisfaction, it will not have more positive effects. Only "incentive factors" can make people have better work performance. Herzberg and his colleagues later conducted many surveys on various professional and non-professional industrial organizations. They found that due to different respondents and conditions, the attribution of various factors is somewhat different, but overall, the incentive factors basically belong to the work itself or work content, and the health factors basically belong to the work environment and work relationship. However, Herzberg noticed that there was some overlap between incentive factors and health care factors. For example, appreciation is an incentive factor and basically plays a positive role; But when it is not appreciated, it may play a negative role and then show up as a health care factor. Salary is a health care factor, but sometimes it can also bring satisfactory results to employees. Like Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory and McLelland's achievement motivation theory, Herzberg's dual-factor theory of incentive factors and health care factors in this paragraph focuses on some reasons for trying to persuade employees to pay attention to work-related performance. It is one of the most controversial incentive theories at present, perhaps because it has two unique aspects. First of all, this theory emphasizes that some work factors can lead to satisfaction, while others can only prevent dissatisfaction; Secondly, there is no single continuum between job satisfaction and dissatisfaction. By investigating the relationship between job satisfaction and productivity of a group of accountants and engineers, and through semi-organizational interviews, herzberg has accumulated information on various factors that affect these people's feelings about work, indicating that there are two different factors. The first kind of factors are incentive factors, including work itself, recognition, achievement and responsibility. These factors involve the positive feelings about the work and the content of the work itself. These positive feelings are related to personal past achievements, recognition and responsibility, and they are based on lasting rather than short-term achievements in the work environment. The second kind of factors are health care factors, including company policies and management, technical supervision, salary, working conditions and interpersonal relationships. These factors are related to the negative factors of work, as well as the atmosphere and environment of work. In other words, these factors are external factors of work and work itself, while the incentive factors are internal, or internal factors related to work. From another perspective, external factors mainly depend on formal organizations (such as salary, company policies and systems). Only when companies recognize high performance can they be rewarded accordingly. However, internal factors, such as the sense of accomplishment in completing tasks well, are largely personal inner activities, and organizational policies can only have an indirect impact. For example, only when the standards of excellent performance are determined can organizations influence individuals to think that they have accomplished their tasks quite well. Although motivation factors are usually related to personal positive feelings about work, sometimes they also involve negative feelings. However, health factors have almost nothing to do with positive feelings, and only lead to depression, separation from organization, absenteeism and other results. The figure below illustrates the main content of the two-factor theory. As shown in the figure, the achievement is over 40% in the satisfactory work experience and less than 10% in the unsatisfactory work experience. Herzberg's theory holds that satisfaction and dissatisfaction do not exist in a single continuum, but are completely separated. This double continuum means that one can feel satisfied and dissatisfied at the same time. This also implies that health care factors such as working conditions and salary can not affect people's job satisfaction, but can only affect their job dissatisfaction. This paragraph is an editor's argument about the two-factor incentive theory. herzberg's two-factor incentive theory is similar to Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory. The health care factors he proposed are equivalent to Maslow's lower-level needs such as physiological needs, safety needs and emotional needs. Incentive factors are equivalent to higher-level needs such as respect and self-realization. Of course, their specific analysis and explanation are different. However, these two theories do not link "the satisfaction of individual needs" with "the realization of organizational goals". Some western behavioral scientists doubt the correctness of herzberg's two-factor motivation theory. Some people have done a lot of experiments and failed to confirm this theory. The experiments made by Herzberg and his colleagues were criticized by some behavioral scientists as the product of their methods: people always attribute the good results to their own efforts and blame the bad results on objective conditions or others, but the questionnaire did not consider this general psychological state. In addition, the respondents are not representative enough. In fact, people of different occupations and classes have different responses to motivation factors and health care factors. Practice has also proved that a high degree of job satisfaction does not necessarily produce a high degree of motivation. Many behavioral scientists believe that whether it is related to the working environment or the work content, it may have an incentive effect, not just to satisfy employees, which depends on many conditions in the environment and employees' psychology. However, the two-factor motivation theory has positive significance, because it urges enterprise managers to pay attention to the importance of various factors in the work content, especially their relationship with job satisfaction and job satisfaction. Herzberg told us that the depth and effect of incentives caused by meeting various needs are different. The satisfaction of material needs is necessary. Without material needs, it will lead to dissatisfaction, but even if it is satisfied, its role is often very limited and unsustainable. To arouse people's enthusiasm, we should not only pay attention to external factors such as material interests and working conditions, but also pay attention to the arrangement of work, do what we can, give spiritual encouragement, praise and recognition, and give them opportunities for growth, development and promotion. With the solution of the problem of food and clothing, the importance of this internal incentive is becoming more and more obvious. Editor's Note: Frederick Herzberg Herzberg received a degree from City College of new york and a doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh. Later, he worked in management education and management consulting in the United States and more than 30 other countries. He is a professor of special management at the University of Utah. His main works are: Motivation of Work (1959, with Bernard? Barbara Mosna? Snideman) Work and Humanity (1966) and Management Choice: More Effective or More Humanity (1976). Frederick Herzberg (1923-) is an American psychologist, management theorist, behavioral scientist and the founder of the two-factor theory. Herzberg received a bachelor's degree from City College of new york and a doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh. Later, he worked in management education and management consulting in the United States and more than 30 other countries. He is a professor of special management at the University of Utah and head of the Department of Psychology at Case University in the United States. After the success of the incentive factors, after a period of pause, herzberg returned to the argument with a paper published in Harvard Business Review 1968. The title of this paper is: "Once again, how do you motivate employees?" After reprinting, * * * sold 6.5438+0 million copies, making it the most popular article in the journal's history. Herzberg has also published more than 65,438+000 papers in various academic journals, such as "Re-discussion on how to motivate employees". In the United States and more than 30 other countries, he has been employed as a senior consultant and management education expert for many times. The interview mainly revolves around two questions: what are the things that satisfy you at work and how long this positive emotion will last; What are the things that make them dissatisfied? Estimate how long this negative emotion will last. Herzberg's popularity in the field of management lies in his famous "theory of motivation and health care factors", that is, "two-factor theory". Two-factor theory is his most important achievement, and he also made a pioneering study on job enrichment.