Determining Motivating Power of Rehabilitation Zone Jobs at Welfare (Behzisti) Centre in Tehran Province, on Motivating Potential Score

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Samane Poorhadi⁽¹⁾, Dr. Nader Khalesi⁽²⁾, Dr. Mohammad Kamali⁽³⁾, Malahat Akbarfahimi⁽⁴⁾

1. MS in Rehabilitation Management, School of rehabilitation Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences.
2. Assistant Professor, School of Management and Medical Information Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences.
3.Associate Professor, School of rehabilitation Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences. Rehabilitation Research Center - kamali@mkamali.com
4. Faculty member, School of rehabilitation Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences.

Correspondence:
Nader Khalesi, PhD of Health Service Management, Iran, Tehran.
Tel: +98 21 88788829 (office), +98 21 22352886 (home)
E-mail: nkhalesi@yahoo.com

There is a universal question f - "why do people work?" Some people work in order to gain money, or because they love their jobs. Some work because of the social aspects of their jobs. In discussion regarding employee's motivation it is postumated that people work because they are capble of performing a job and they are motivated to do that job. In other words, people do their jobs in a right and careful manner when they are able and desirous to do that job. (Saatchi, 2006)
Management requires creating and preserving a working environment where employees work together and as a group in order to achieve the common goal. A manager cannot be successful in a job unless he knows what can motivate people to make an effort? Attending to motivating factors in organizational tasks and roles, the performing of these tasks and roles as well as leadership processes should be on the basis of motivation concept knowledge. (Contz, Odanell and Vihrikh, 1995)
To create motivation and maximize it in an organization requires management flexibility and an understanding of people's different goals and needs, regarding their job satisfaction. (P Robins and D Senzo, 2005)
Traditional management knows that material factors are a unique way to motivate, neoclassic school prescribed social relations. They also pay attention to personnel. (F Stoner, Freeman and R Gilbert, 2003)
The next schools and views of management discuss methods involving extrinsic job factors. Another group of management theoreticians pays attention to the job itself. They saythat a job can be effective on employees' motivation, satisfaction and productivity by itself. It is also said that people cannot lay away their emotional and social needs when they are working. Less support of extrinsic factors and more attention to intrinsic motivating factors instead is this theory's purpose. It makes people do the job because of their interest in the job, its challenging nature and synchronizing of good job with good and well-proportioned bonuses. They also believe that each job can be a motivation in itself if it has some distinct features. (Stirs and Porter, 1996)
There are many benefits in proliferating a job, that provides personal growth and self-actualization. They also try to design jobs in a method that stimulates intrinsic motivation. In this way, performance improves and the job will be more productive and its human feature will intensify. The negative effects of jobs such as absence, passing news to each other and the act of killing time will decrease. Both employees and society will benefit by this method. Employees work better, are more satisfied and achieve more self-actualization. Thus, they can be more effective in all life's roles. (Davis and New storm, 1995)
We can calculate total motivating potential of each job in employees with motivating potential score and in following job diagnostic surveys, identify jobs with high or low motivating scores. Finally, jobs with low MPS are separated from others in order to redesign and increase their motivating score. (Morhed and Griphin, 2007).
In different organizations and industries, research has done on the features of jobs and feature surveys, but it seems that there is less research in the field of rehabilitation and welfare services. This item and the significance of a welfare center's duty and performance in society, shows that it is essential that a job's design should be challenging and motivating, but we should assess their current motivating score first. So, this research is designed in order to calculate the current motivating scores of jobs that exist in welfare and rehabilitation centers.
Determining the scale of skill variety, task identity, task importance, autonomy, feedback and motivating potential score, in the rehabilitation zone in rehabilitation centers of Tehran province, was one of the goals of this research.

 

MATERIALS AND METHODS

This study is a descriptive-analytic study that has been done by a sectional method in welfare centers of Tehran province. Research population comprised all the employees of the rehabilitation zone including physical therapists, speech therapists, occupational therapists, audiologists, optometrists, technical orthopedists, psychologists, social workers and physicians who had worked in governmental daily welfare centers of Tehran province. The 102 employees in the research sample were selected by census. MPS questionnaire was the instrument of collecting data and that was designed by (Oldham and Hackman, 1980) and extracted from scientific management resources. We used test-retest method in order to measure the reliability of the questionnaire. We distributed and collected questionnaires among 10 experts, then, we did that again on the same experts after 10 days. Correlation coefficient gained was 0.89 and that meant there was good reliability. The questionnaire has two parts and the first part included 7 demographic questions and the remainder included 23 questions to determine motivating potential score. In the second part, 5 questions were related to skill variety, 4 questions were related to task identity, 4 questions were related to task significance, 4 questions were related to autonomy and 6 questions were about feedback. To score questions we used a 5 score scale. Then, we calculated motivating potential score with the following formula:
Feedback *autonomy *{3 / (task significance + task identity + skill variety)} = Motivating potential score
After completing the questionnaire, we collected them and checked answers. Then, data analysis in descriptive and analytic statistical methods was carried out through SPSS. We used T-Test and ANOVAs in order to examine the relationship between demographic variables and motivating potential score and its subscales. We also examined through one-sample t-test in order to compare the mean of the job's five dimensions with standard score.

In this study mean and standard deviation of sample population's age was 35.8+8.9. They were divided into 3 groups: under 30 (32 persons), 31-40 (40 persons), over 40 (30 persons). There was also 24.5% single and 75.5% married.

The largest number of employees in the rehabilitation zone were in Molavi center (28.4%) and the least in in Samane welfare center (2.9%).
In order to accomplish this examination we divided the study population into two groups as follows. Because of the dispersion of this study's population:

1) Employees who were directly related to rehabilitation included physical therapists, technical orthopedists, speech therapists, occupational therapists, audiologists and optometrists with 60;
2) Employees who were indirectly related to rehabilitation and included psychologists, social workers and physicians with 42.

According to the results of statistical examination ANOVA and t-test; there were no relations between demographic variables (such as age, gender, job experiment, marital status, educational degree and kind of employment) and motivating potential and its subscales. (p<0.05)
Based on one-sample t-test, the mean of skill variety, task identity, autonomy and motivating potential were found to be statistically significant with the standard score. The mean was higher than the standard score, so jobs exist in the rehabilitation zone of welfare centers of Tehran province, which probably have skill variety, task identity, autonomy and motivating potential. (p<0.05)
The mean of task significance were not found to be statistically significant in one sample t-test. It shows that jobs exist in rehabilitation zone of welfare center of Tehran province that have job significance. (p<0.05)

The mean of feedback was lower than standard (3.35) and was found to be statistically significant beyond the 0.05 level through one sample t-test. We can conclude that the jobs that exist in the rehabilitation zone probably don't have feedback.

There were no relationships between demographic variables (such as age, gender, job experiment, marital status, educational degree and kind of employment) and motivating potential score and subscales in this study. There was no relationship between demographic variables and motivating potential in Tang's study (2000), too. Olckers and co-workers (2005) did not find a significant difference between black and white groups in JDS variables. These are compatible with the results of this study. The research results confirm the equivalence of the structural model of the JDS. Thus, proof does exist that the JDS measures could be used across cultural groups as part of the process of implementing and utilizing the JDS theory for job enrichment programs.
In this study, the jobs that exist in rehabilitation zone had skill variety. It shows that job design provides conditions that utilise different skills and talents of employees where possible. Majidi (1998) found a similar result from office-workers and expert job groups in this field. In Tang's study (2000) teachers of social development schools also had skill variety that matches our results. These may bebecause: Educational degree of research populations is completely in line with their services and the various kinds of patients referred and the special kinds of services that each person receives.
There is some un-matched research as follows: Khalili (2000) found that all job groups,l unless they are in the communication job group, do not have skill variety. Majidi (1998) had a similar result in the expert job group. Amir Esmaili (2005) has found low scores for skill variety in all educational hospitals of Kerman.
Jobs that exist in the rehabilitation zone have task identity, and job design in a way that provides the possibility of doing a job from start to end with a visible affect. Majidi (1998) has found a similar result in expert and management jobs.
Khalili (2000) has found that most of the job groups (all except communication and computer services job groups) do not have task identity. There was not this subscale in the office-worker job group in Majidi's study (1998). In Amir Esmaili's research (2005) task identity scores were low. Tang (2000) also said there was no task identity in teachers. These do not follow a similar direction.
In the field of task significance it seems that jobs exist in the rehabilitation zone which do have task significance. So, we can say job design made them effective in people's lives. Indeed, according to the duties of rehabilitation and welfare centers it was expected. There was task significance for expert and management job groups in Majidi's research (1998). Khalili (2000) found task significance in communication and software job groups. All job groups in Amir Esmaili's research (2005) have a good score in task significance. Tang (2000) also reached the same result with teachers.
Khalili (2000) said except communication and software job groups, others do not have task significance. In Majidi's study (1998), the office worker job group were low in this field, which did not match our result.
This research supports the premisethat jobs that exist in the rehabilitation zone have autonomy. We can say design of these jobs were not limiting employees in decision making, methods of doing job and programming their tasks. Majidi (1998) found autonomy just in management jobs. Teachers achieve good scores in Tang's study. These are compatible with the results of this study. There is similarity among teachers, managers and rehabilitation experts. As teachers and managers are independent in their activities, experts of rehabilitation zone are the last decision makers in their therapeutic programs.
There are some adverse result with ours. Khalili (2000) concluded none of the job groups in her research, have autonomy. Majidi (1998) also said office-workers and experts are in low levels of autonomy. Amir Esmaili (2005) reached all job groups but in his research autonomy was low.
Feedback on jobs of the rehabilitation zone were weak, and showed that design of them does not provide feedback for employees. Khalili (2000) foundno job groups that received feedback from their activities. In Majidi's study (1998) feedback of the expert job group was in a low level. The Nurses' job group had a low level of feedback in Amir Esmaili's study (2005). We had expected that feedback in job groups of the rehabilitation zone be high because the experts can observe progress in therapeutic process. This unexpected result may be because of this reason that most of questions about feedback related to the amount of feedback received from management and colleagues, not by patients.
Majidi (1998) in office-worker and management job groups reached a different result that showed feedback is proper. In Amir Esmaili's study (2005) feedback score is suitable except in nurses. Teachers also in Tang's research (2000) received a good level of feedback. These are not compatible with the result of this study.
Motivating potential score of rehabilitation zone in current research were higherer than standard score. So, there is a possibility that these jobs provide enough motivation for employees to work. Sense of motivation was proper for management jobs in Majidi's conclusion (1998). Sum (1992) also found highest score of MPS in educational jobs. These are similar to our results.
Khalili (2000) has found none of his research job group had a good score. In Khalili's study (2000) office-workers and experts were in a low level of motivating potential score. All job groups of Amir Esmaili's research (2005) were low regarding motivating potential score.
According to the results of this study, it seems that job groups in the rehabilitation zone of welfare centers of Tehran province are in possession of motivating potential and subscales (skill variety, task identity, task significance and autonomy) except feedback. This is the first research about intrinsic characteristics of job in welfare centers. The compared studies also relate to organizations other than welfare centers. So, mixed results seem to be prevalent.

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