Hybrid work model’s Impact on Motivation and Productivity and Can Gamification be the answer in maintaining motivation and productivity?

Working from home became a forced experiment during and post the COVID-19 pandemic and the world intends to continue the same. Every sector has embraced work from work-from-home model but this model was never tried before and companies and employees faced operational, managerial, and technological challenges which had an impact on motivation levels and productivity levels. As the COVID impact reduced companies started the practice mixture of a few days from home and a few days from the office. This was probably a way to address the problems of a 100% work-from-home scenario and at the same time take advantage of reduced costs. Different companies used different mix ratio. This mixed style of operations then became known as the hybrid model of working.

Maintaining motivation and productivity levels is still a challenge without face-to-face communication and physical presence in the office daily. Employees face problems on personal levels while maintaining the work-life balance, handling technology part, and social isolation, and this leads to stress. ?

Rational.

The above questions become extremely relevant since working from home has become a new normal. An individual’s personality and home environment are quite crucial in determining employees' responses to such a work environment. There are additional skill sets that need to be acquired by managers to handle the teams successfully. Productivity is largely dependent on a person’s motivation and it is crucial to understand the factors affecting both aspects.

Factors affecting Motivation ??

Work from home model’s biggest challenge is how to keep the employees motivated. However, it is essential to study the factors which ultimately affect the motivation of an employee. There are various theories of motivation established to date. Major one includes Maslow’s theory of hierarchical needs, Hertzberg’s two-factor theory, McClelland’s theory of needs, and McGregor’s theory of X and Theory of Y. However, these theories were put forward at a time when work from home as a result of the pandemic had not taken place. These theories were still based on the assumption that people work from the office.

Among many theories, self-determination theory is still relevant in today’s scenario since it deals with human psychology.

The self-determination theory of motivation (Ryan and Deci, 2000) is pioneering and discusses aspects of human behaviour that will drive their motivation levels. The self-determination theory suggests all employees are motivated in two different ways i.e. intrinsic and extrinsic ways. ?Intrinsic motivation means individuals are motivated to work because they enjoy the activity and derive pleasure from the same. Intrinsic motivation emanates from 2 psychological needs i.e. autonomy and competence. Intrinsically motivated individuals like the autonomy to work and they believe in their competency. These individuals feel more motivated by positive feedback and acknowledgment from their superiors. Whereas extrinsically motivated individuals are motivated with social recognition and rewards in terms of money or prize. ?Different ways of motivation will be required in handling these two types of employees.

However, the self-determination theory of motivation appears to be apt in analyzing the motivation factors in the case of workers. On the other hand, McGregor’s theory of motivation is useful in understanding the manager’s behaviour while managing the work-from-home atmosphere.

Diem et al. (2022) have further elaborated that three factors affect the worker’s motivation. They have further dived into the intrinsic motivation aspect as explained under self-determination theory. These factors are the individual’s competence, individual’s autonomy, and individual’s social relatedness. Competency drives the motivation to complete the task effectively since it is their capabilities. This indirectly increases productivity. Autonomy gives them the freedom to make their own decisions and gives them a sense of fulfilment. Lastly social relatedness gives individuals a sense of being secure and a sense of closeness to others.? Motivation is much higher when all these psychological needs are met.

Autin et al. (2021) have tried to establish the relationship between psychological needs satisfaction, autonomous motivation, and work meaning. They suggested that once the individual due to competency and automation completes the task efficiently it leads to the feeling of achieving meaningful work. Individuals will feel contained in working towards achieving the goal. They established the direct relationship that the fulfilment of psychological needs translates into a sense of meaningful work which then translates into intrinsic motivation. This approach is true in the case of work-from-home workers who are motivated due to intrinsic factors. The achievement of completing meaningful work will generate motivation due to the satisfaction of intrinsic factors in the case of workers who are working from home.

Impact of gamification on motivation.

Pura (2022) in their article established the relationship between engagement through gamification and motivation. They pointed out that if the employees are engaged then it has a positive impact on motivation and this can be achieved through the introduction of gamification in the organization culture. The article also mentioned that Samsung, Google, Cisco, and Deloitte have used gamification to engage employees. The article explained that gamification rewards increase the intrinsic or extrinsic factors leading to increased motivation in the case of work-from-home structure. A cash prize could be a reward for employees driven by extrinsic factors leading to an increase in motivation. Gamification can be further understood from the articles mentioned below.?

Davanesan (2020) in his article mentioned how companies have been pushing with gamifying remote work operations to instill engagement among employees, even when they are not in a common office space, and how they can be kept engaged using the same technological tools.

Laker (2020) in his article talked about finite and infinite gamification in the remote workplace. Finite gamification may end up in physical reward or a complete set of badges whereas infinite gamification may end up as a continuous process with no end game.

Productivity.

Productivity is a result of multiple factors like changes in the meaning of the job, stress, well-being, and motivation. A sudden change and shift to work from a work-from-home environment due to Covid 19 resulted in the absence of physical contact, and a feeling of isolation. These changes certainly affected workers and managers as well and it impacted productivity. ?Workers who are driven by extrinsic motivating factors find it difficult in a work-from-home environment. George et al. (2021) bring out the relationship between Job meaning, stress, and well-being in their article which also gave the results of their survey which claims that freedom to innovate and independence play a major role in productivity. However, some employees prefer social environments like office and connectivity and these employees may not perform up to the expectancy resulting in an effect on overall productivity. This again relates to individual behaviour and physiological traits. Some employees perform exceptionally well whereas others dip in productivity levels in a 100% work-from-home structure.

These changes forced companies to experiment with a mix of physical office and work from home. Companies used to call employees to the office on certain days and for the remaining days, employees were allowed to work from home. The number of days in the office varied from company to company. Companies wanted the best of both i.e. cost saving from work-from-home structure and control on productivity through occasionally physical office structure. This method subsequently became popular as a hybrid model of working. Jossfesson (2023) brought out the advantages of the hybrid model of working which helps to maintain the level of productivity.

Patanjali et al. (2022) conducted a study in India on the impact on productivity in the work-from-home model. Their study identified a relationship between organizational culture, its values, and its understanding by employees. Their research suggested a shared value model indicating the commitment of an employee towards the organization if they believe in the values of the organization. These are shared sets of values. They concluded that productivity and motivation will remain at the same level if employees share the same set of shared values in the organization.

Findings from the Global Workplace Analytics Survey.

Global Workplace Analytics (2023) conducted a survey post covid of 3000 employees across countries and the following findings emerged concerning productivity and satisfaction in work-from-home.

·?????? 86% of respondents feel fully productive at home. ?They gain back 35 minutes a day due to fewer unwanted interruptions.

·?????? Managers are just as satisfied with work performance as employees (70% report the same or better results), but remote management and collaboration skills should be a focus for improvement.

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Gamification and its impact on motivation.

World over companies have been using gamification for motivating employees. Pura (2022) in his paper has given various examples of infinite gamification like Times Person of the Year, Employee of the Month, and leaderboard competition. He further mentioned how UN staff had used social media gamification to promote the organization's activities. Some of the companies using gamification are Microsoft, Cisco, IKEA, KFC, and Starbucks.? (Spotify 2023).?

Gamification may have some adverse impacts like a distraction from core responsibilities due to more involvement in games. It is more titled towards the extrinsic factors of motivation since the rewards from games become more prominent. At times it may result in unnecessary competition. However, the fact that giant companies as mentioned above have incorporated gamification in their strategy itself indicates that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

Boskamp E. (2023) published an article giving some key statistics collected on gamification surveys and one of the surveys was done on 500 business workers. This survey indicated that 27% of employees felt inspired to be more productive and another 20% of the workers felt that focused more on the job and got less distracted.

Gamification is an important tool for managers while managing their workforce be it training, recruitment, or operations. Leaderboards, badges, reward points, points converted into monetary rewards, and progress bars on social media networks are some of the key examples of gamification.

Georgiou M. (2023) in his article has shared examples of gamification being used in some of the world’s largest companies. MacDonald used training videos, SAP created a dashboard for customers that was open to all and offered a prize for the best suggestion, Google created an in-house currency called Gooble which can be encashed to earn extra server time and Dominos created a game for users wherein they can create their personalized pizza as a new idea and once it is marketed by Dominos the creator would get a monetary reward.

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Conclusions.

Motivation.

After a substantial literature review and based on the findings and analysis, we can conclude that motivation is quite individual-centric and it would be incorrect to use the same methods of motivation across the company. Motivation directly affects the productivity of the person and therefore companies need to address the same. Every individual has different needs which trigger his motivation levels and they can be in the form of monetary rewards and promotions or independence to work, autonomy, and power to make decisions.

?Productivity

Productivity is normally measured in terms of the achievement of company and departmental goals. However, in the absence of face-to-face meetings and communication, it is difficult at times to measure the feedback of the team while setting up the goals. It is also noticed that if the leader or manager is not competent to provide the virtual leadership then the team will not be moving with the same purpose.

The literature review highlighted the shared value model wherein organization and team work towards achieving the same goals. ?It is also noticed in various surveys that few employees perform better working from home whereas some of them underperform which is directly related to their motivational levels. The challenges faced in the 100% work-from-home model gave rise to a hybrid model of working where employees attend the office on designated days in a week and for the remaining period, they work from home.