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Sunday, December 8, 2013

Hygiene Factor

In the last byte, we looked at the role Motivation Factors played. In today's blog, we look at Hygiene Factors and attempt to understand them.

Hygiene Factors are said to be a work condition that relates to dissatisfaction caused by discomfort or pain. The job dissatisfaction could be either due to the absence of the factor completely, or it’s presence to an insufficient level. Some of these hygiene factors are: Company Policy and Administration, Supervision, Interpersonal Relations, Working Conditions, Salary, Status and Security. These factors are related to the context of a job and may be considered to be support factors.

If we look at these factors closely, we realize that these are factors which do not really motivate people to work harder and achieve more. They definitely affect the person's discontent. Excellent hygiene factors generally result in an employee being "not dissatisfied" and this would add in to the reduction in the number of complaints about the contextual considerations. When these hygiene factors are low and poor in quality - the general complaints like "poor supervision”, "poor medical benefits" are head about.

Even if these hygiene factors are not up to the mark, there are instances where people are completely motivated to perform their tasks. This is generally when the motivational factors are pretty strong and this influence on the employee is higher. This might look surprising! However, the dichotomy gets sorted out when we realize that the two factors - motivational and hygiene are independent of each other.

Hygiene factors are important to a certain threshold level, but beyond the threshold they do not play a very significant role. The motivational factors on the other hand, are essential to enhance the employee motivation to excel at work.

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