Employees' perception of how managers motivate their subordinates

Employees who are motivated to perform are typically more productive by investing more of themselves in their work (Salvendy, 2012). Responsibility is also placed on the leadership of an organisation where motivating employees is seen as a core competency (Latham, 2012). This research focused on employee perception of how managers motivate their subordinates, analysing the impact of leadership on employee motivation. A qualitative approach was adopted, using semi-structured interviews (SSI) as the method of data collection. Interviews were held by the research with eight participants (aged between 18 and 23 years), all of which have been in employment between 6 months and three years within a customer care role. Thematic analysis was applied to the collected data. The questions were all designed to answer the main research question; ‘What is the employees’ perception of how leaders motivate their subordinates?’ Running the SSI allowed the researcher to gather data which was analysed to find common themes. Thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2013) was used to interpret the experiences of individuals within their organisations. The results showed that all participants were affected by similar experiences represented in themes, namely implicit communication, explicit communication and relationships at work. The research concluded that leadership did have an impact on employee motivation and a great emphasis was placed upon the relationship between employee and superior. Practical implications of the study suggested that leaders should understand the importance of their role in relation to motivation, by placing more focus on developing incentive schemes based on employee feedback as well as implementing intrinsic rewards. Future research is recommended to gain the perspective of leaders on this issue and to examine how different leadership styles may affect employee motivation within different occupational backgrounds