CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
There are internal and external factors that stimulate desire and energy in any people to continually be interested and committed to a job, role, subject, or make the effort to attain a goal. It usually results from the interaction of both conscious and unconscious factors such as the (I) intensity of need or desire, (ii) incentive or reward value of the goal, and (iii) expectations of the individual and of his or her peers. These factors are the reasons one has for behaving a certain way. This is what we refer to as motivation.
Motivation is a theoretical construct used to explain behavior (Wikipedia, 2015). It is the scientific word used to represent the reasons for our actions, desires and needs. It can also be defined as our direction to our behavior or what causes us to want to repeat a behavior or vice visa. A motive is what prompts a person to act in a certain way or at least develop an motivation for specific behavior while the act or process of giving someone a reason or reasons for doing something, or making the person eager to work or influence the person to do something is what is known as motivation ( Webster, 2015)). From the above brief definitions, one can deduct that the two words motivate and motivation are inter-related. One is the act i.e. motivate while the other i.e. motivation is the process. Sometimes we ask ourselves the questions: what makes people do what they do? Why do some people succeed while other fails? The answer might just be motivation. We know from an early age that motivation prompts us to want to learn and exhibit different types of behavior and stimulates us to accomplish new feats of success thus making us see the importance of motivation. As we grow and mature through the different stages of life, we hopefully learn what motivates us and what does not.
In an organization, the story is not different. Motivation prompts employees to put in their best, which brings out more output and helps the organization, irrespective of their different aims to achieve their goals. It also leads to the attainment of a good, active interpersonal relationship and collective dreams and ambitions. That is why William G. Scott, a managerial expert and industrialist puts motivation simply as “a means of stimulating people to action to accomplish desired goods and goals”.
Civil service as a government institution plays an important role in ensuring that government policies result in tangible services for the population. The term “civil service” in this paper refers to the services within government ministries and departments charged with the responsibility of implementing public policies (Ezeani 2005). This comprises all employees working in the public service industry, those in parastatals, police and armed forces. In this case, all civil servants are public servants.
Without the body of professional civil servants and other members of the civil service, No country can efficiently function and Nigeria is no exception. The civic service is entrusted with not only the formulation of policies but also to effectively implement them. In this regard, the civil service is an institution saddled with the responsibility of designing, formulating and implementing public policy, discharge of government functions and development of programmes in an efficient way.
Staff performance is most basic, a performance evaluation is simply providing constructive feedback on whether an employee is underperforming at, meeting, or exceeding the goals and objectives of their job. Employees need this feedback so they can feel confident knowing what is expected of them and how and where they can improve. But job goals evolve over time. Good collaborative performance reviews arise from sitting down with your employees to update personalized goals and objectives, and then agreeing on the best ways, or metrics, to measure the performance. Some activities are relatively easy to measure, such as reaching a specific sales volume. Others might be more subjective, such as the ability to solve customer complaints in a way that preserves long-term loyalty.
The realisation of the importance of the human resource to the success of the organization has confronted managers with the challenging task of getting the workers to put in their best efforts towards increasing the productivity. The issue of how to stimulate or motivate employees to put forth the desired best efforts towards the realisation of the set objectives and goals has been the main focus of attention of management in both the private and public sectors of many countries.
Generally speaking, motivating workers to carry out or perform assigned tasks to meet predetermined goals is one of the major problems confronting management. Motivation is that energizing force that induces or compels, and maintains behaviour. This implies that individual behaviour arises from the driving force of needs which are directed towards some desired goals or ends. In this sense, motivation best explains why people do or refrain from doing certain things.
The subject of motivation is very complex, in that what motivates one person may not motivate another.
Generally, motivated behaviour has three major characteristics viz: it is sustained, goal directed and results from a felt need. The motivation of an individual to work therefore, depends largely on the management’s appreciation of the employee’s motivational needs. Employees could be motivated by such things as increase in wages, desire for promotion, lively working condition or environment, etc. Equally, they could be motivated by fear of dismissal (the stick) or by greed for lavish bonuses (the carrot).
There are two types of motivation viz: positive and negative motivation. In positive motivation, a superior officer influences another officer (his subordinate) to do his will by making the subordinate realise that he stands to gain or profit or get a reward like money, status, promotion, etc . (the carrot), as a result of his action. In a negative motivation, a superior officer influences his subordinate to do his will by making the subordinate realise that he stands to lose, for instance, recognition, status, money or even face dismissal (the stick) by his refusal to act in accordance with the superior’s will. Negative motivation, therefore, involves the use of threats. According to Flippo, fear could be used to advantage if it is not made the predominant approach to get things done in an organization.
Positive motivation on the other hand, could be secured by praising employees when they have done well in a task. Motivation is enhanced when employees perceive that management bas sincere interest in them as individuals.
The motivational process begins with the presence of a felt need in an individual which builds up tension within him. This tension in turn moves him in a certain direction in the bid to achieve the desired objective. On the realisation of the objective, tension relaxes. When a need is satisfied, it ceases to motivate, but an unsatisfied need motivates until satisfied.
The Motivational Process.
To motivate an employee, management must create a real or imagined need for the employee to aspire to. A real need could be a desire to achieve promotion or increase in wages. Imagined needs on the other band, could be an aspiration to have coffee at a particular time, which is the entitlement of successful executives.
Nevertheless, it is the task of management to understand these differences and adapt their leadership strategies accordingly. This study therefore, strives to ascertain whether or not the Nigerian worker could be motivated and if yes, what motivates him best; using a federal government owned establishment, the Ministry of Education, Kano State as a case study.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Workers in any organization be it the organized private or public sector need something to keep them working. Most people are under the impression that it is money which is almost true in most circumstances but there is a significant majority whose driving force is not money but other things like time, challenges, opportunities, recognition, e.t.c. whatever the case might be, an employee must be motivated to work for an organization. If no motivation is present in an employee, be it internally or externally, then that employee’s quality of work in general will deteriorate (Reis et al; 2000)
Civil servants have already been pin pointed as very vital instruments in the day to day running of affairs in a country. They can be said to be the proof on which the administrative process of a nation hangs on. So when there is a problem with this vital arm of the nation, there can be said to be a problem with the nation as a whole. The civil service at both federal and state levels in Nigeria have been enmeshed in myriads of problems which includes weak governance structure, red-tapism, weak accountability, low professionalism, waste and corruption, lack of control, redundancy and most importantly poor productivity (Florence et al, 2015).
When one critically analysis these problems, they are all in one way or the other related to performance or a lack of it. Governments in Nigeria (from post independence era to the contemporary times) have embarked on articulated patterns of reforms aimed at improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the service (Salisu 2001) but the problems persist.
According to Salisu (2001) however, what has been done so far is nothing but addressing the symptoms rather than the root cause which is the personnel. Why do civil servants give out poor performance, low output and non-challancy to their jobs? What does motivation has to do with their performance and how can it be used as a tool in efficiency? These and many more is what the study intends to outline and highlight.
All the problem that we stated are the main factors that de-motivate and demoralize a staff. Whenever staff been demoralize definitely his performance will decrease. For example if there is weak accountability in organization in which the performance of employee cannot be trace and accounted for appraisal, this may lead an employee to be reluctant.
1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
This study, motivation and staff performance in the civil service shall be guided by the following questions with the aim of finding possible answers to them:
1. What are motivation and its types?
2. Is it necessary in the civil service and does it influence performance in any way?
3. Can motivation be used as a problem solving tool in the civil service?
4. What is the relationship between motivation and performance?
1.4 HYPOTHESIS
H1: motivation and performance are inseparable in the civil service
H2: motivation can be used to overcome a greater part of the challenges of the civil service
1.5 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The study aims to look at the various challenges of the civil service, examine some school of thoughts on motivation, critically identify performance then relate them all together while trying to achieve a common ground and finding lasting solution to the problems and challenges of performance using motivation as a tool and ice – breaker.
1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The civil service is a vital part of any nation thus when it is faced with challenges, the whole nation is faced with those challenges.
Hence this study attempting to identify challenge over-coming tools like motivation and performance will help in increasing the productivity and enhancing the performance of civil servants which in turn will mean growth of the nation. This research will be very significant to the following stakeholders:
i. The government can use this study to identify the relevance and relationship of motivation as regards performance.
ii. The Human Resource departments of private sector can use this study in setting Key performance indicators (KPI) for their staff.
iii. The academic and research world can use the study as a reference point in or for further research.
1.7 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
Some of the basic characteristic of the civil service in Nigeria is their performance, continuity and uniformity in bureaucratic processes. Bearing this in mind, covering the whole of the civil service parastatal will be time and resources consuming thus
1. The time scope of research is 2010 to date
2. Contents scopes of research are to cover all relevant literature available as regards the subject matter in order to represent all important and necessary view points.
3. The geographical scope of research is restricted to the ministry of education, Kano state using it as a case study for the research
1.8 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This study, considering the sanctity of the subject matter, the need for accuracy, up to date data concerning the issues at stake, and random sampling technique one probability sampling method should be adopted in order to get relevant findings for generalization. Questionnaires shall be distributed to selected respondents while the in-debt interview method (I.D.I) shall also be employed alongside the questionnaires to make up for grey areas.
1.9 DEFINATION OF KEY TERMS.
BEHAVIOR: to do things in a particular way
EMPLOYEE: someone paid regularly to work for a person or an organization
EMPLOYER: person, company or organization that pays someone to work for them or as a member of staff
GOVERNMENT: people who control a country, region or town and make decision about its laws and taxes
HYPOTHESIS: an idea that attempts to explain something but has not been tested or proven to be correct.
PERFORMANCE: standard to which someone does something such as a job or examination.
PRODUCTIVITY: achieving good results
STUDY: team about a problem or a particular subject using scientific methods
APPRAISAL: a judgment or assessment of the value of something, especially a formal one.
MINISTRY: government department, at the administrative level normally headed by minister or commissioner, who holds it as portfolio, especially in constitutional monarchy, but also as a polity.
EDUCATION: is the process of imparting knowledge skill and judgment.