Impact Of Motivation And Incentives On Employees Job Performance And Productivity

Introduction

1.1 Background of the study

One of the major problems facings most employers in both public and private organization is how to motivate their employees in order to improve performance and productivity. Economics based on the assumption that monetary incentives improve performance.

It is generally believed that effect of monetary incentives is unambiguously positive, large monetary incentives improve employee job performance and productivity. Motivation is very important and plays an important role on the performance and productivity of employees for the success of any organization.

According to Chaudhary and Sharma (2012) the word motivation is derived from “motive”. The meaning of motive is need, wants and the desire of the persons. So employee’s motivation means the process in which organization inspiring our employee with the shape of rewards, bonus etc for achieving the organizational goal. The issue of employee performance cannot be overemphasized. The general believes is that employee will not perform to the best of their ability unless they are motivated to do so.

Various researchers have come up with various ways to motivate people at work. However, because human beings are different from one another in terms of needs.

Some employees are motivated financially and some non-financially but recent studies have shown that the combination of financial and non-financial incentives can motivate employees to perform well on their job.
Motivation is the main factor that affects the human resources of the organization. The organization should be motivating their employees for the best performance or for achieving the organizational goal. Also, motivation will lead to the fact that worker or employee’s efficiency of the organization will seriously do his duties and responsibilities Azar and Shafighi (2013). Attractive salaries also are a valuable tool and play an important role to increase employers’ performance and also increase the productivity of an organization Muogbbo U.S (2013).

Motivation is one of the most important term of psychology and most of manager who want maximum output and productivity tackle this with a good way and motivate their employee in better way and also increase the cooperation between employees and managers. It also encourage their responsibilities and overseas other employees and monitor their performance along with their maximum interaction towards work and knowing employee’s working capacity and assign work according to their capacity to get maximum productivity Ali, Abrar and Haider(2012). An individual who possessed skill, ability and knowledge will not do much without being motivated. However an individual with skill, ability and knowledge added with motivation is somehow to succeed. Motivation is the willingness to work, the drive and stimulations which enables individual to perform their work. Managers in an organization continuously seeking for ways to create a motivating environment where employees will work at their optimum level to achieve the organization objective.

1.2 Statement of Problem

Organization employee’s leaves their work due to the fact that they are not well motivated enough. Though, an organization motivates its employees in order to achieve their vision, mission and goal. Some are not willing to leave because they are enjoying some benefit in terms of promotion which leads to increase in salaries and wages, bonus and some other incentives.

In a bid to motivate and improve the performance of workers in the Nigerian public sector, various Nigerian governments at different periods introduced different measures. Some of these measures include public service reforms, review of salaries and wages, creation of training institutes, housing and health insurance schemes and minimum wage act. These measures notwithstanding, the performance of public sector workers has been very poor and remains a major concern to the Nigerian government and its citizens. The prevailing situation at the work place has been one of low work performance and poor service delivery. It is estimated that Nigeria losses over 44 million US dollars annually due to poor public service delivery (World Bank Report, 2009).

Poor performance in the Nigerian public sector in most cases stem from dissatisfaction among workers. In turn dissatisfaction among workers in the public sector is attributed to many factors of which low motivation is a key factor. At the workplace, low motivation manifest itself in various ways including absenteeism from work stations, low quality work, low productivity, lateness, stealing of government property, corruption, insecurity, laziness, a high rate of complaints by the workers, and high staff turnover among the professional staff (Unanka, 2009). The problem of low motivation also affects the performance of workers in the Nigeria Communications Commission. The commission which is the statutory agency set up by government to provide regulatory services to operators in the telecommunication industry has not performed its regulatory roles effectively. Some of the indicators of low motivation and poor performance among workers of the commission include: inadequacy of technical supervisory personnel, high rate labour turnover among professional staff, lateness, restricted training opportunities, poor remuneration and compromise and lack of institutional strengthening (Ndukwe, 2003; Ekakitie, 2010). The implications of these are low quality expectations and lack trust in telecommunication services on the part of consumers and ultimately, the failure of government programmes in the sector.

1.3 Research Questions

In order to provide solutions to the problem of this study, the researcher provided answers to the following research questions:

Is there any relationship between motivation and increased job performance for staff of Nigeria Communications Commission?

Is there any relationship between incentives and work habits for staff of Nigeria Communications Commission?

Does the management recognizes successful completion of task for staff of Nigeria Communication Commission?

1.4 Objectives of the Study

The overall purpose of the study was to assess the impact of motivation and incentives on employee’s job performance and productivity.

Specifically, the objectives of the study were to;

Examine whether there is any relationship between motivation and increased job performance for staff of Nigeria Communications Commission.

Examine the relationship between incentives and work habits for staff of Nigeria Communications Commission.

Determine the effects of recognition on successful completion of task for staff Nigeria Communications Commission.

1.5 Hypotheses

To put this study in proper perspective, the following hypotheses were formulated and tested:

Ho: There is no significant relationship between motivation and increased job performance for staff of Nigeria Communications Commission.

Ho: There is no significant relationship between financial incentives and work habits for staff of Nigeria Communications Commission.

1.6 Significance of the Study

Although the literature is affluent with motivation theories, the problem is that most of them fall short of practical application or offer it only for the private sector. Even the studies that have been conducted on motivation in the public sector were mainly in relation to productivity in organizations whose outputs are easily quantifiable. There is no study that has focused on the impact assessment of employee motivation on workers performance in regulatory bodies like the Nigeria Communications Communication especially in the telecommunication sector.

To this end, this study sought to cover this knowledge gap, as it carried out empirical assessment of the impact of motivation on workers performance in the Nigeria Communications Commission.

This study would also provide empirical knowledge of the problems of motivation in the Nigerian public sector and thus would be of great benefit to the chief executive officials of the organizations and policy makers involved in human resource management. The results of the study would hopefully be significant in the sense that it would show how the various motivational factors (training and financial incentives) could be harnessed to inspire staff to increase and sustain higher performance.

1.7 Scope and Limitations

This study was delimited to the selected commission – Nigeria Communications Commission. The Commission was selected because it is a branch of the ministry of communication, whose regulatory services in the telecommunication sector directly and indirectly affect the economic and social wellbeing of individuals and the nation at large. Besides, its primary responsibility is to ensure that Nigerians enjoy high quality services from service providers in the Nigerian telecommunication sector. The researcher focused on the impact assessment of motivation on workers performance in Nigeria Communications Commission. Some of the motivational factors covered in this study included training, financial incentives and recognition. In terms of workers performance, the indicators covered were increased competence, work habits and successful completion of task. The period to be covered in the study was 2007 – 2012. Within this period, there were series of agitations by labour unions in Nigeria for the improvement of the welfare of workers in the public sector. The study also addresses the meaning of motivation, role of motivation in an organization, employee performance and review empirical works on motivation and workers performance in the Nigerian public sector.

In terms of limitations, two areas of constraint in carrying out this research were:

The difficulty of administering the questionnaires to the staff of the Nigeria Communications Commission due to high level of security surrounding the work area and offices and;

The suspicious attitude of most organizations towards research work which made accessibility to prospective respondents who are to provide needed data difficult.

1.8 Definition of Terms

For the purpose of clarity, some of the important concepts and variables used in this study were defined authoritatively and Operationally as follows:

Motivation:

Robbins and Judge (2008) see motivation as “the set of psychological processes that cause the arousal, direction, and persistence of individual’s behaviour toward attaining a goal”. Operationally motivation consists of those things which are present or are provided in a work situation to improve the performance of the workers. Some of the indicators include level of absenteeism, rate of lateness and level of employee complaints.

Training:

According to Ogunna (1999) “training is concerned with the development of new skills, new attitudes, technical knowledge and values required to perform specific jobs”. Operationally training is the process by which the aptitudes, skills and abilities of employees to perform specific jobs are increased. Examples of training include in- service training, induction training, on – the – job training etc.

Financial Incentives:

These are monetary packages like fringe benefits, bonuses, pension, and gratuity, housing allowance and staff grants provided to workers to boost their morale and enhance their performance in an organization.

Recognition:

Recognition is the process of publicly acknowledging and rewarding an employee’s high quality work or performance.

Workers / Employee Performance:

Workers performance is the successful completion of task by a selected individual or individuals, as set and measured by a supervisor or organization, to pre-defined acceptable standards while efficiently and effectively utilising available resources within a changing environment. Some of the variables or indicators of employee performance are increased competence, successful completion of task, work habits, timeliness, meeting goals, supervisory time, and implementation of new ideas among others. Increased

Competence:

This refers to greater abilities, commitments, knowledge and skills that enable a worker to perform effectively in a job.