Motivation, the process that account for an individual’s willingness to exert high levels of effort to reach organizational goals, conditioned by the effort’s to satisfy some individual need. Effort, a measure of intensity or drive direction toward organizational goals need personalized reason to exert effort. Motivation works best when individual needs are compatible with organizational goals.”

Caribbean managers are no different from any other manager in any other part of the world, whether you are a manager in North or South America, Asia or China; Managers are expected to accomplish their organization’s goals through people as effectively and efficiently as possible. A major factor in attaining the goals of an organization would be the ability of management to motivate employees. It is important to have a motivated staff, when motivated, employee’s efforts can be increased and sustained under the right conditions; employee can be assigned a task and completed that task without constant supervision. Self motivated employees would be vital asset in any organization, by providing a competitive advantage by way of offering suggestions and working to satisfy customers.

The development of motivation and its enhancement can be found in a number of motivational theories. These theories can be divided into three categories, Needs, Cognitive and Reinforcement . In the first category of Needs consist of theorist such as Maslow’s Hierarch of needs, Alderfer’s ERG theory, Herberg’s two factor theory and McClelland’s Learned Needs theory. Second category, Cognitive, a contemporary approach these theories consist of, expectancy theory, equity theory/ social comparison and the goal setting theory. The third category is that of reinforcement theory or operant conditioning , this is geared towards showing how rewards and reinforcement sustains motivation over time.