MOTIVATION AS EFFECTIVE TOOLS FOR EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE

ABSTRACT

There is an inherent nature in man that desire self-improvement in all ramifications. Therefore an individual who finds himself in an organization where he is contributing his resource to the growth of that organization, would naturally expect something in return.         What the organization gives in return goes a long way in determining the level of commitment such an individual would show to the organization.

CHAPTER ONE

1.1INTRODUCTION/BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY:

The vast majority of accomplishment which occur in our modern society happens because group of people get involved in joints efforts. The primary objective and goal if an organization, is to achieve its aims, which come through the concerted effort’s of groups of people. For these groups of people to perform extensively as to achieving the set-organizational goals, they have to be motivated and compensated. Compensation which motivates workers may come in monetary or non-monetary forms.

“The word motivation” Come from the latin word” “movere” which means to move. It refers to the internal forces such as desires, drives and motives which kindly direct and sustain behaviour towards a goal.

However, motivation is primarily concerned with goal-directed behavious. It is concerned with answer to question of how individual behaviour is energized, directed and maintained. Individual employee tends to perform more effectively and efficiently if they are motivated, thus, increase in productivity.  A manager who is concerned with performance and productivity must know what motivates individuals. A large parts of a manger’s task is getting thing done through people. He must therefore try to understand people’s motivation.

Although, all aspects of motivation of employees cannot be provided by management as other. Influence occur outside the working environment, e.g; Environment (external).

Motivation refers to the way Urges, aspirations, drives and needs of human beings director control their behaviour. It may simply be described as keenness for a particular pattern of behaviour. To guide people’s activities in derived directions requires knowing what leads people to do things in the best way. Hicks and Gullet (1987) proposed that individuals act because of certain driving forces within them, represented by such words as; want, needs and fears. It is the process of seeking to satisfy needs that makes individuals to spend time and energy. The manger in handling his subordinates must realize, therefore, that human being have attitudes, values and sentiments which generally affect their work performance. The facts that superiors give orders to their subordinates does not guarantee the fact that subordinates will perform their duties effectively and efficiently. A good understanding of what motivates an individual employee is needed to reveal how abilities and skills are activated energized.

Many theorists have researched on how to motivate workers to perform their jobs effectively. Abraham Maslow, in his book “Motivation and Personality” (1970), claims that human motives develop in sequence according to five levels of need, i.e; physiological, safety, social, self-esteem and self-actualization. His theory assumes needs follow in sequence and when one need is satisfied it decreases in strength and the higher need then dominates behaviours. This leads to the statement that a satisfied need is not motivator.

Federick .v. Herzberg in his book work and the nature of Man (1968) presented his two factors responsible for satisfaction are different from factors responsible for dissatisfaction. There are various theories of motivation which would later be looked into.

Generally, motivation is necessary in an organization to improve performance and productivity to retain existing worker and encourage them. Where workers are not motivated, situation that can be experienced includes low productivity, high labour turnover, low morale and co-operation, low-performance and antagonistic baheviour.

To control these problem highlighted above organization may embark on attitudes survey to determine the level of motivation. Motivational strategies can then be adopted, such strategies includes, compensation, high remunerations, allowing benefits; job environment, prompt information dissemination, allowing the existence of informal groups e.t.c. It is the interest of the researcher to, examine motivation as an effective tool for employee performance and productivity, Oshodi-Isolo Local Government Area, as a case study.