
Moreover, experience can’t easily be replaced. That’s why experience is considered to be very valuable input with a remarkable characteristic. ExperienceĮmployees can’t make good use of their knowledge without experience. This is valuable input employees accrue through schooling and training, being interested in their field, and by developing and evolving. They’ve gained these skills through training and experience. SkillsĮmployees have skills they use to carry out their job competently and professionally. The number of examples are endless, but the most common forms of input are listed below: EffortĮvery day employees make an effort by coming into work and carrying out their job and tasks. It’s about the effort they put into the organisation. They work hard, share ideas, trust their superiors and support their co-workers. They spend time, energy, and engagement at work. The input referred to in Adams Equity Theory includes both the quantity and the quality of the contributions employees make to carrying out their work. That’s why fair treatment of everyone involved is essential. When that’s not the case, employees will be unhappy, which can manifest itself in different ways.įor instance, they won’t perform optimally, and there’ll be a risk of high employee turnover as employees choose to try their luck at another employer. After all, we all wanted to be treated fairly. It’s treating different employees differently and unfairly that leads to bad blood and will damage a lot of people’s motivation. This ensures that they’ll be motivated at work. Employees place great importance on being treated fairly and equally. It can even undermine the motivation of other employees. It explains why a promotion or raise rarely has the desired effect. The Adams Equity Theory shows why salary and benefits alone don’t determine an employee’s motivation. Adams is convinced that employees lose motivation when they think or feel that their input is greater than the output. Similar to common theories on motivation like those of Maslow and Herzberg, Adams acknowledges that subtle factors influence how employees view their job and how they carry it out. This can help create an effective company structure in which employees are encouraged to carry out their work with conviction and passion every day. It’s very important for organisations to understand how the Equity Theory works. It is also necessary to take into account others with whom the employee compares.Even though Adams’ theory is over 50 years old, it’s still relevant today.If the rewards are to motivate employees, they must be fair and perceived as fair.Discussions and research in the context of the theory of justice focus on money as the most significant reward in the workplace. When people believe that there has been an injustice, they are in a state of tension, which they try to discharge by modifying their behavior: they can do this by reducing their input (putting in less effort), or by trying to increase their outputs, which often manifests as a request for a pay increase.Ī sense of justice is, therefore, the result of equality between the two relationships. People judge the fairness of their rewards by comparing them either with the rewards received by others for similar expenditures, or with some other ratio of effort to rewards that come to mind. The comparison process is as follows: According to the theory of justice, an individual's motivation is the result of a person being satisfied with what they receive in exchange for the effort they have made. Justice can be defined as the ratio of an employee's workload to the rewards they have earned compared to the rewards awarded to others for similar expenses. There are two main principles to Adams’ Equity Theory: first, there needs to be a balance between our work inputs (effort) and outputs (reward), and second, workers need to feel fairly treated in comparison with their colleagues.Īdams' theory of justice is based on the premise that an important factor in motivation, efficiency, and satisfaction is the employee's individual assessment of justice or the fairness of the award. Much like many of the more prevalent theories of motivation (such as Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Frederick Herzberg's Two-Factor Theory), Adams' Equity Theory acknowledges that subtle and variable factors affect an employee's assessment and perception of their relationship with their work and their employer. The creator (in 1965) of the theory of justice used in the context of consideration of motivation in work( equity theory on job motivation). John Stacey Adams (born 1925) is an American a workplace and behavioral psychologist.
