Frederick Herzberg, a notable sociologist from the late 1900's, developed the Two-Factor theory of motivation. This theory of motivation suggests that people's satisfaction and dissatisfaction are influenced by two factors – motivation factors and hygiene factors.
The first stage of the motivating process according to Herzberg is the elimination of any dissatisfaction, the hygiene factors, that an employee is experiencing. As a manager, by taking steps to improve these conditions one has, of course, eliminated the dissatisfaction. According to Herzberg's theory, though, this does not result in motivation.
To motivate an employee, Herzberg says that managers must refer to the continuum of satisfiers. Herzberg labels the satisfiers as motivators because they have the positive effect of increasing an individual's output. The two strongest motivators that Herzberg found are achievement and recognition. Herzberg said that people are not motivated by failure; people are motivated by achievement. Small achievements act as motivators for bigger achievements. The second motivator that Herzberg considers to be of the strongest is recognition. Recognition occurs when another person acknowledges a person's achievement in some way.
If achievement and recognition are the strongest motivational influences in the workplace, managers wanting to motivate their employees should provide more opportunities for achievement to occur, which would give the manager more opportunities to recognize the employees' achievement, motivating them furthermore.