MOTIVATING THE WORKFORCE FOR GREATER PRODUCTIVITY IN THE BANKING SECTOR OF THE ECONOMY OF THE 21ST CENTURY

CHAPTER ONE

1.0     INTRODUCTION 

 Although there is general agreement among psychologists that man experience a variety of needs, there is considerable disagreement as to what these needs are and their relative importance. There have been a number of attempts to present models of motivation which list a specific number of motivating needs, with the implication that these lists are all-inclusive and represent the total picture of needs, unfortunately, each of these models has weaknesses and gap and we are still without a general theory of motivation. All organization are concerned with what should be alone to achieve sustained high level of performance through people. Consequently the subject of adequate motivation of workers as derived from the so many attempts made by management practitioner is to look for the best way to manage so as to accomplish an objective or mission with the least inputs of material and human resources available.

A lot of theoretical concept principles and techniques of management have evolved in response to these challenges. In general management authors have tended to view motivation as a key component of the managerial function of leading or directing. However, leading or leadership style, although an important factor in determining the attitude of employers towards assigned job responsibilities is not the only determinant other managerial function such as planning, controlling, staffing and organization also playa role. In any serious and competitive society workers are one of the tools for economics progress. Their welfare is taken into serious consideration because without a dedicated workforce an organization crumbles. The nations (Nigerian) reward system is probably the poorest in the entire global were an average take home of the worker is put at N35 per month. Workers are used and abused, harassed, treated, offended and discarded without any appreciation for their contribution to their organization and to the society at large. It is therefore apparent that the issue of adequate motivation of worker has relevance in managerial function and activities that are aimed at directing the productive effort of the worker force toward achieving organizational objectives. Knotz et at (1980) holds that management strive to create and maintain an environment that is conducive to the performance of individual who are working together in groups towards the accomplishment of pre- selected objectives workers in organization work in-progress and group dynamics often result in the conflict of goals between individuals and other groups. Conversely motivation according to strauss and sayles, can be provided for workers, using the following methods

 (1)     The traditional approach to motivate which is often referred to as the economic man model assumes the following.

(a)     The only reason why people work: is to earn money and that they will work only if driven to it by fear of losing their job.

(b)     Since no one like to work, people will try to get away with doing as  little as they can, management must tell every worker exactly what to do, spell out every rule and give the worker the narrowest possible range for description

(2)     The human relation approach: this emphasizes motivation basically through satisfying the workers security and benefits that provide some protection against illness old age and unemployment. The social need for belonging should be met by various recreational activities and be the development of strong cohesive work groups. (3)     Approach to motivation is the implicit bargaining when using this approach, management encourages workers to do a reasonable amount of work by agreeing to be more flexible in terms of supervision. These bargaining are usually a matter of implicit unspoken understanding. (4)     The fourth approach to motivation is around competition for the pay increases and promotion that accompany outstanding work. This is important because it helps the worker to satisfy various forms of need satisfaction, some of these include a sense of accomplishment, and added social prestige. (5)     The last of the approaches under consideration is internalized motivation this deals with providing opportunities for need satisfaction through doing the job itself. This approach uses Herzberge’s motivators, which means that management should create conditions under which workers will willingly and voluntarily work towards organization objective because they enjoy the work. Economic motivation is de-emphasized and more stress is put on age mode. These methods according to status and styles can either be used alone or in combination. It is further stated that usually most manager uses a combination of all five methods. It is important to consider the issue of motivation in organization because of the interleave desire of people to pursue their own personal aspirations while the organizational objective are being met. Certain problems of inadequate motivation however do arise as it concerns certain individual who come into the work situation with difference in expectation, behaviour and outlook. These problems of individual motivation inadequately may be divided into two categories? Firstly, the inability of certain individual to be motivated may stem from the fact that there is inefficiency in their personality for such people the design to avoid failure may be too strong while paradoxically. The motive to produce positive results may be too weak. This could produce general resistances to achievement oriented activity that should naturally be overcome by other extrinsic modes of motivation if there is to be any spin to achievement oriented activity at all. Secondly, even when the achievement motive is relatively strong the challenge before the individual worker may be prove to be inadequate or too difficult which ever of these that apply to the individual worker will usually manifest themselves in different ways such as lack of enthusiasm or premature surrender. Bryans and Crouin canted that effective group functioning depends on the development of supportive relationship. This is important because it makes provisions for different views to be put forward and carefully studied, thus mentioning the development of conflicts, which could be destructive to the establishment. Bryan and Crouin further stated that discussion, collective problem solving and decision making could all benefit from a genuinely supportive atmosphere. This is because the individual could derive a sense of acceptance from being a member of the establishment. This could serve as a powerful motivating force in influencing his behaviour towards other member of the establishment. At the base of all these, is the issue of individual differences which go a long way to determine the extent to which an individual is motivated, some of the factors which are responsible for individual include genetic make up, up bringing and current influences. In spite of this entire apparent attendant, problems of motivation and productivity, every organization do necessarily seek means of ensuring continued productivity, which will be geared towards the accomplishment of organizational goals. The organizational system under study can not be said to be different in any way in terms of producing the result for which it was setup. In all these processes, the private and indeed corporate organization business has thus helped to make Nigeria the country it is today. Motivation also finds relevance in the behavioral sciences especially in psychology where attempts are made to find out the what, when, how and who of human behaviour. Nigeria authors, Gbadamosi and Adegbakin, (1996) posit that motivation is an aspect of the sciences that attempt to answer the question as to why human beings behave the way they do. This study will also examine to what extents the economic factors such as achievement, job security, recognition, advancements, job enrichment, or the job itself, responsibility, decisional participation and managerial style are needed to raise the morals of the workers for high productivity. These factors are referred to in this work as non-economic motivators in the sense that their incentive power is not necessarily derived from money. It is often said that one of the key problem in private organization is not that the workers lack motivation but the managers’ lacks the ability to nurture it. Adequate motivation (high moral), leadership style and the success of an organization are closely intertwined. The good leader is who is able to motivate his workers to maximum production and efficiency. A man however only gives what he has. To be able to motivate, a leader must know what a motivator and how to use it. I believe that pay package and fringe benefits are taken for granted and do not serve as primary motivators. On the other hand, certain factors, which contribute to human dignity, may not entail any monetary gain but to the individual may mean much and when they are present may create a very good and healthy atmosphere to induce adequate motivation but when they are absent the result is frustration and de-motivation. The study identifies these elements that promotes dignity and thus raise the moral of the worker for higher productivity. The study further investigates the effect of these factors were referred to as “non-economics motivators on the workers and the consequent output of Zenith Bank International Plc Ababa. For the purpose of these study then, non-economic motivators is used to refer to those factors which are not necessarily computable in monetary term but which, drive human mind from within to behave in a desired way and to maximum realization of the organizational objectives while adequate motivation is simply defined as contentment, fulfillment or job satisfaction. I should perhaps explain that the title “the implication of adequate motivation of workers productivity” is my own compare, which may be likened to Herzberg hygiene factors. Herzberg had concluded from his studies that achievement, recognition, the work itself, responsibility, advancement and growth are major satisfiers because their positive influences is far more frequently an element in satisfaction than their negative effect an element in dissatisfaction more recent studies have advanced on Herzberg’s position. While there are studies to support Herzberg’s list of satisfiers in his sequence there are questions as to the position or order of these satisfiers. All these studies however, have been carried out in the developed light industrialized societies. It is therefore not certain whether the findings can be applied to the Nigeria situation.