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The article is a practitioner-oriented conceptual article. It builds on Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory and uses prior empirical evidence, illustrative exhibits, and a company job-enrichment experiment to argue that lasting employee motivation comes from enriching the work itself rather than relying on external incentives or better working conditions alone.
Research question
How can managers motivate employees in a lasting way?
More specifically, the article asks why common managerial approaches such as pay increases, benefits, improved working conditions, human relations training, communication programs, and task reshuffling often fail to create genuine motivation.
Hypotheses
Not specified.
The article is not structured as a formal hypothesis-testing study. However, it develops a clear theoretical argument: factors that prevent job dissatisfaction are different from factors that create job satisfaction and motivation.
Method
The article is a conceptual and practitioner-oriented management article.
Herzberg builds the argument from his motivation-hygiene theory of job attitudes. The theory was originally developed from research on engineers and accountants and then supported by additional investigations across varied occupational groups.
The article reports that at least 16 additional investigations had been completed after the original research, making motivation-hygiene theory one of the most replicated studies in the job attitudes field at the time.
The central empirical base discussed in the article includes 12 investigations with samples totaling 1,685 employees. The occupational groups included lower-level supervisors, professional women, agricultural administrators, men about to retire from management positions, hospital maintenance personnel, manufacturing supervisors, nurses, food handlers, military officers, engineers, scientists, housekeepers, teachers, technicians, female assemblers, accountants, Finnish engineers, and Hungarian engineers.
The article also includes an illustrative company experiment involving stockholder correspondents at a very large corporation. In this experiment, one group received job enrichment through vertical job loading, while a control group continued working in the traditional way. Two additional groups were used to assess whether observed changes could be explained by attention rather than job redesign.
The article is not a modern randomized controlled trial report and does not present regression models, statistical significance tests, or full measurement instruments. Its contribution is a managerial framework supported by prior research evidence and practical examples.
Results / key findings
Herzberg’s central argument is that managers often confuse movement with motivation. External pressure, incentives, or rewards can make employees move, but they do not necessarily make employees want to do the work.
The article labels many traditional managerial practices as KITA, meaning external pushes that get people to act but do not create internal motivation. Herzberg distinguishes between negative KITA, such as punishment or pressure, and positive KITA, such as rewards, benefits, incentives, or status. His point is not that rewards have no effect. His point is that they generate movement because management provides an external stimulus, while genuine motivation requires an internal drive connected to the work itself.
The article critiques several common myths about motivation.
First, reducing time spent at work does not necessarily motivate employees. Herzberg argues that motivated employees seek more meaningful work, not simply fewer hours.
Second, raising wages may reduce dissatisfaction or prevent complaints, but it does not by itself create motivation. The article argues that once employees receive higher wages, the new level tends to become expected rather than motivating.
Third, fringe benefits may improve comfort and security, but they can also become treated as rights rather than sources of motivation. Herzberg notes that benefits may reduce dissatisfaction without creating positive motivation.
Fourth, human relations training, sensitivity training, communication programs, employee counseling, and participation programs may improve interpersonal climate or reduce complaints, but the article argues that they do not reliably create motivation if the content of the job remains unchanged.
The core theoretical finding is the distinction between hygiene factors and motivator factors. Hygiene factors are extrinsic to the job and include company policy and administration, supervision, interpersonal relationships, working conditions, salary, status, and security. Poor hygiene factors create dissatisfaction. Improving them can reduce dissatisfaction, but it does not automatically create job satisfaction.
Motivator factors are intrinsic to the job and include achievement, recognition for achievement, the work itself, responsibility, growth, and advancement. These factors create positive job satisfaction because they connect to psychological growth and meaningful accomplishment.
Exhibit I is central to the article. It summarizes factors affecting job attitudes across 12 investigations. The exhibit separates 1,844 job events associated with extreme dissatisfaction from 1,753 job events associated with extreme satisfaction. Herzberg reports that 81% of factors contributing to job satisfaction involved motivators, while 69% of factors contributing to job dissatisfaction involved hygiene elements. This visual evidence supports the article’s main claim that satisfaction and dissatisfaction are not simple opposites.
A major practical finding is that job enrichment should be vertical rather than horizontal. Horizontal job loading means adding more tasks at the same level of difficulty, rotating employees through similarly limited jobs, or removing difficult parts of a job so employees can do more easy work. Herzberg argues that this does not enrich work because it does not increase responsibility, achievement, or growth.
Vertical job loading means redesigning work so employees gain more responsibility, autonomy, feedback, and opportunities for achievement. Exhibit III lists principles of vertical job loading. These include removing some controls while retaining accountability, increasing individuals’ accountability for their own work, giving employees complete natural units of work, granting additional authority, making periodic reports directly available to the worker, introducing new and more difficult tasks, and assigning specialized tasks that allow employees to become experts.
The company job-enrichment experiment illustrates these principles. The subjects were stockholder correspondents in a large corporation. The job was complex and challenging, but performance and job attitudes were low. One group received vertical job loading based on the article’s enrichment principles, while the control group continued with the traditional job design.
The results were introduced gradually over the first two months. After six months, the enriched group outperformed the control group and reported higher job attitudes. The article reports that the enriched group had lower absenteeism and a much higher rate of promotion.
Exhibit IV shows the shareholder service index over the six-month company experiment. The enriched group initially performed worse, but by the third month performance improved sharply and eventually reached a high level of accomplishment. The control group showed a more modest pattern by comparison.
Exhibit V shows changes in attitudes toward tasks over the same period. The enriched group’s job reaction mean score rose substantially from March to September, while the control group’s score remained roughly similar or declined slightly. Herzberg uses this to argue that job enrichment improved both performance and attitudes.
Exhibit VI contrasts rejected horizontal loading suggestions with adopted vertical loading changes. Rejected suggestions included setting higher quotas, composing additional routine letters, channeling difficult inquiries to a few employees, and rotating employees through different kinds of customer letters. Adopted vertical loading changes included appointing subject matter experts, allowing correspondents to sign their own names, reducing supervisory checking, giving employees fuller responsibility for outgoing letters, discussing production in terms of full workdays, and encouraging more personalized responses.
The article’s final argument is that job enrichment is not a one-time intervention. It is an ongoing managerial function. As employees grow, the work may need to be enriched again so that challenge remains aligned with ability.
Practical implications
For managers, the article’s main message is direct: do not confuse reducing dissatisfaction with creating motivation.
Pay, benefits, working conditions, supervision, and company policy matter, but mainly because bad hygiene factors create dissatisfaction. They are necessary for a healthy workplace, but they are not enough to create lasting motivation.
Managers who want motivation should redesign the work itself. The job should give employees more responsibility, clearer ownership, more direct feedback, more meaningful achievement, and more opportunity to grow.
The article is especially useful because it challenges several common management reflexes. When motivation is low, managers often add incentives, introduce training, improve communication, or rotate tasks. Herzberg argues that these interventions often leave the core job unchanged. If the work remains narrow, controlled, and low in responsibility, motivation is unlikely to improve for long.
The distinction between horizontal and vertical job loading is one of the most practical parts of the article. Adding more of the same work is not enrichment. Giving employees more complete responsibility for meaningful work is enrichment.
For practitioners, useful diagnostic questions include:
- Are employees dissatisfied because hygiene factors are poor?
- Are managers trying to create motivation using tools that only reduce dissatisfaction?
- Does the job itself provide achievement, responsibility, recognition, growth, and advancement?
- Are employees given complete units of work or only fragmented tasks?
- Do employees receive direct feedback from the work itself, or only through supervisors?
- Are controls being used because they are necessary, or because managers do not trust employees?
- Could employees take more ownership without removing accountability?
- Are jobs being enlarged horizontally or enriched vertically?
The article also has an important implication for supervisors. Job enrichment may make supervisors uncomfortable because it transfers some responsibility, information, and control from supervisors to employees. Herzberg argues that supervisor resistance should be expected and managed, not treated as proof that enrichment is a bad idea.
Theoretical implications
The article contributes to motivation theory by arguing that job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction are not opposite ends of one continuum. Instead, they are influenced by different kinds of factors.
This distinction is the foundation of Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory. Hygiene factors prevent dissatisfaction, while motivator factors create satisfaction. This challenges simple reward-based views of motivation because it suggests that better external conditions do not automatically produce internal motivation.
The article also contributes to job design thinking. It argues that the motivational power of work depends on job content, not only on pay, supervision, or interpersonal climate. Jobs can be structured to support psychological growth through responsibility, achievement, and meaningful work.
The article also connects motivation to organizational design. If work is divided into narrow, controlled, low-responsibility fragments, managers may need more supervision, more incentives, and more corrective interventions. If work is enriched, employees can take greater responsibility and become more self-directed.
For later research, the article is important because it anticipates several themes that became central in job design, work motivation, and employee engagement: autonomy, task identity, feedback, responsibility, meaningfulness, and growth.
Limitations
The article is a classic practitioner-oriented management article rather than a modern empirical research paper.
Although the article reports supporting evidence from prior investigations and a company experiment, it does not provide full statistical details, regression models, effect sizes, or modern causal identification standards.
The company experiment is described as a successful application, but the article does not provide a full research design report. Details such as sample size, random assignment procedure, exact measurement scales, statistical tests, and long-term follow-up are not fully specified.
The article assumes a strong distinction between hygiene factors and motivators. Later research has debated how cleanly these categories separate in practice and whether factors such as pay, recognition, or working conditions can sometimes have both hygiene and motivational effects.
The article focuses heavily on job enrichment as a managerial solution. It pays less attention to broader contextual factors such as labor markets, organizational justice, leadership quality, team dynamics, individual differences, and institutional constraints.
The tone and terminology reflect the management context of the 1960s. Some language and assumptions about workers, managers, and job roles are dated.
The article does not specify a single country or industry context for the overall framework. The supporting evidence spans varied occupational groups, but the exact context of each investigation is not fully described in the article.
Future research
Future research could test Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene distinction using modern longitudinal and experimental designs.
Researchers could examine when hygiene factors become motivational, especially in contexts where pay, security, fairness, remote work, or working conditions carry symbolic meaning.
Future studies could compare vertical job loading with other job design interventions, such as autonomous teams, agile work systems, job crafting, participatory design, and flexible work arrangements.
Another useful direction would be to study job enrichment in knowledge work, platform work, healthcare, manufacturing, public administration, and hybrid work environments.
Researchers could examine how much autonomy and responsibility employees want, and whether job enrichment works differently depending on skills, career stage, psychological safety, or workload.
Future research could also investigate supervisor resistance to job enrichment. If managers lose some control when jobs are enriched, implementation may fail unless the organization redesigns supervisory roles at the same time.
Finally, future studies could connect job enrichment to modern outcomes such as employee engagement, burnout, retention, innovation behavior, service quality, and productivity.