The Role of Work Motivation Based on Values in Employee's Retention in the 21st Century

Organizations in the 21th century have to address the problem of employee’s retention as it has direct and indirect costs for the organisation. In regards to this issue several theories have emerged pointing out the strong relationship between retention and employee’s motivation. This last topic is not trivial, as it includes factors from different disciplines such as the psychological or managerial ones. The aim of this paper is to analyse the current literature related to different work motivation theories in order to identify patterns, which might help to understand better the dynamics between motivation at work and its impact on employee retention. In order to do so a detailed revision of the literature has been done classifying the main motivational theories in needs, traits, values, and cognition. Results of the above analysis highlight the “satisfaction of a need” as a common denominator in the motivational theories. Need theories explain why someone must act but they do not explain why particular actions are followed in specific situations. One of the insights is that values are the ones that unveil what drives individuals to achieve a goal. Therefore it is vital for organizations to learn and understand which ones are the employees work values in order to retain them and keep them motivated.