Employee Motivation And Organizational Performance

1 INTRODUCTION

In contemporary human resource literature, it is a widely accepted believe that promotion of the motivation of workers in both private and public organisations leads to a higher quality of human resources and increase in performance. Consensus is also growing among managers about the significance of combining good human resource performance approaches on motivation incentives to encourage good performance. An institution’s overall success in achieving its strategic objectives relies heavily on the performance level of its employees. Employee performance is a function of ability and motivation, where ability is comprised of the skills, training and resources required for performing a task and motivation is described as an

Traditionally, motivation has been defined by the two dimensions that comprise it namely, energy and direction (Deci, 1980; Deci & Ryan, 1985; Roberts, 1992). The energy dimension of motivation is the driving force behind someone’s effort and persistence during engagement in a particular activity. Direction of motivation determines the area or field of interest in which that effort is projected. Both are necessary elements of a complete motivational act. Energy without direction has no purpose, and direction without energy results in a state of motivation.

Beyond defining motivation, however, researchers have also categorized various types of motivation, based on whether the motivational states are internally or externally derived. These two global motivational states are called intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (Deci, 2000) theorized about both intrinsic and extrinsic motivational states and about correlates of those states.

2.2 Motivation

He says this will boost morale both personally and collectively. He adds that employee incentive programs such as small bonuses serve to better the morale of an individual employee and that of a group as a whole by making them more satisfied.

This is in agreement with Likert’s (2004) study which concluded that since everybody wants to feel appreciated and special for the work done, they can therefore be motivated by appreciating them and making them feel special. He adds that the more satisfied the employee is, the better he/she will perform.

Mwanje (2000) believes that non-financial incentives are the most important motivators of human behavior in terms of the needs of human beings. He refers non-financial incentives to non-monetary ways of rewarding employees. They are opportunities that help employees in the accomplishments of the set goals. They include;

Training