The Influence of Motivation on Job Performance - Essay Example

The Influence of Motivation on Job Performance (Name) (University Affiliation) (Date) Introduction In the current rapid evolving working environment, job performance has become a significant criterion to define or rather determine a firm’s employees’ job efficiency, the outcome as well as well reputation. It is worth noting that workers in an organisation often need to improve their skills as well as enhance their knowledge frequently if they are to remain competitive. As Imran et al. (2014) explicates, job performance can be defined as organizationally oriented activities expected of the employees as well as how well those activities have been executed. Important, the individual performance in the firm is often of high relevance and significance for organisations as well as individuals (Kanfer et al., 2005). It is also argued that depicting high performance when accomplishing the assigned tasks often lead to satisfaction, as well as mastery (Kanfer et al., 2005). Over the last twenty years, a significant number of scholarly studies have been done with regard to the concept of job performance. Accordingly, there is a general agreement among the scholars that indeed job performance is often a multidimensional concept. According to Bellé (2013), job performance involves two core aspects: the process (i.e., behavioural) as well as the outcome. The behavioural aspect is closely associated with what an employee does while at work, that is, the action itself. The outcome, on the other hand, is associated with the employee’s behaviours. It must be noted that the behavioural, as well as the outcome aspects, are highly are related. Nevertheless, there is often no complete overlap since the outcome aspect is impacted by other elements or factors than the behavioural aspect (Chiang & Hsieh, 2012). Besides, Kanfer et al. (2005) point out that the management should distinguish the aspect of performance from effectiveness. Kanfer et al. (2005) also stress that the concept of performance must also be distinguished from productivity or efficiency. According to Kanfer et al. (2005), the aspect of effectiveness can be defined as the evaluations of the results of performance such as the financial value of sales. On the other hand, productivity is closely related to the ratio of effectiveness to the cost of achieving the outcome. For instance, the ratio of hours of work, also referred to input, in relation to the products assembles, also referred to outcome, defines productivity. Equally, Chiang and Hsieh (2012) defines job performance as all the behaviours a worker engages in while at work. However…. is of the view that a fair amount of the workers’ behaviour displayed at working environment is not necessarily associated with job-specific aspects. As such, Imran et al. (2014), believes that job performance is closely related to how well an employee performs at his or her work. From a worker’s point of view, job performance is fundamentally the result of a sequence of behaviours. In other words, the tasks performed on a daily basis often contribute to job performance in general. Motivation Many studies have often shown that workers usually need motivation to feel good about their jobs. Some employees find value in money-motivated initiatives while others prefer recognition as well as rewards as a form of motivation. In essence, most management scholars agree that motivation is by inference something done by one individual to another. As Pinder (2014) explicates, motivated individuals need to be induced to perform some action or use a degree of efforts, which they would not otherwise wish to do. The concept of motivation has been found to be of the utmost significance to the prosperity of the organisation. It is has been argued that voluntary motivated behaviours are, almost without exception, those individual behaviours that are critical in determining the effectiveness of organisations. Motivation is linked to the psychological process that causes the arousal, persistence as well as the direction of behaviour (Cerasoli, Nicklin, & Ford, 2014). A significant number of studies agree that motivation at the workplace often plays a vital for the organisation’s success. It has been found that unmotivated workers hardly spend their efforts in their jobs and at times they usually avoid the workplace. In fact, at some point, they often produce low-quality work and exit the organisation if given an opportunity. On the contrary, workers who feel motivated to carry out their daily duties are likely to be persistent, turning out high-quality work, productive as well as creative. A lot of studies have been done with regard to motivation; however, little has been done with respect to the behaviour of groups of people in order to find out the reason workers do not perform at their level best (Jibowo, 2007). Of the few studies that have been conducted, a few realities have been gathered and among them is the fact that every employee has often different ways of becoming motivated. As such, many scholars have suggested that employers should take their time and study their employees and as such use different methods to motivate each individual employee based on their personal needs as well as wants (Evans, 2006). McClelland’s Need Theory It should be noted that motivation and needs are correlated since an individual is often motivated to acquire particular needs thus improving on his or her job performance. As Kreitner and Kinicki (2008) explicates, McClelland identified three needs, that is, a need for affiliation, achievement and power. According to Benson (2008), each individual is often different as far as employee needs are concerned. In effect, this complicates the issue of addressing individuals’ needs for the management as well as employers of individuals. This indicates that the manager of the workers must know and understand each worker thoroughly in order to ascertain the various employees’ needs with respect to three common needs delineated above: the need for power, the need for affiliation and ultimately the need for achievement Benson (2008). The need for achievement is closely linked to getting the employees’ drive to excel in their career, or rather the striving by an employee to succeed. On the other hand, the need for power can be closely connected to getting people to act according to one’s guidelines and not necessarily to how the people would have behaved in their own accord. Ultimately, the need for affiliation is fundamentally related to the need for interpersonal relationships such as love, care and acceptance (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2008). As Kreitner & Kinicki (2008) argue, motivation and job performance often differ depending on the strength of an individual’s need for achievement and can always be perceived as a desire by the individual to grasp something difficult. From the above theory, it can be argued that individuals often work towards achieving certain needs and before they can only think of achieving higher level of needs after meeting their most basic needs. This, therefore, depicts that motivation often affects job performance as individuals would increase their performance if a particular need motivates the employees. It is therefore, important for organisations to understand the particular motivation that would, in turn, improve the employees’ performance. Motivation is the power that causes employees to act in a certain manner or adopt a particular behaviour, in this case, leads to performance. As such, if an employee is motivated through being given the need of power he or she will definitely perform efficiently. Relationship between Motivation and Job Performance Upon conducting a research among employees at the University of Mines and Technology, Afful-Broni (2012) found out that there was indeed a positive relationship between motivation and performance. In essence, the author gathers that low monthly remuneration, as well as general lack of motivation, were the significant factors that led to decreased morale for high performance. Equally, Singh’s (2010) study which focused on sales professionals attached to Life Insurance Corporation of India found that there was a positive connection between motivation factors and job performance. To put it into perspective, the study gathered that motivating factors such as supervisor’s impact, performance appraisal, job satisfaction as well as reward management often influence job performance. Similarly, Ganta (2014) found that more than 98% of employees often need motivation in order to feel good about their job engagements. It was also found that some employees are motivated by extrinsic rewards while others are motivated by intrinsic rewards. Thus, it is evident that statistically, there is a positive relationship between motivation and job performance. Accordingly, motivation at the workplace is needed to improve the worker’s productivity as well as productivity. According to Campus (2011), lack of motivation among employees means that the workers would not bother to do their best in the organisation. Accordingly, this will lead to a decrease in the organisation’s performance. This indicates that there is a direct relationship between motivation and job performance. Equally, Manxhari's (2015) Study concludes that qualified as well as motivated employees are often vital in job performance and the entire organisation performance at large. Upon analysing data, the author found that the motivation highly influence the job performance of employees and even managers. As such, this research is a revelation that there is a correlation between workers’ motivation and their job performance. On the contrary, Khodov (2003) argues that there is no significant relationship between motivation and job performance. He posits that motivation in terms of reward is often short-term as human beings by nature do not get satisfied. His position is strongly buttressed by Mansoo (2008), who believes that investing in a continuous rewarding scheme as a basis of employee motivation is a waste of company resources as the employees often get comfortable at some point and decrease their performance. Proposition Based on McClelland’s Need Theory as well as based on the synthesis delineated in the previous sections, we propose that motivation influences job performance. Conclusion In summation, the paper has found that indeed there is a positive correlation between motivation and job performance. In other words, this means that motivation influences job performance significantly. Thus, the management should come up with motivation schemes or initiatives that can help boost the morale of the employees at the workplace hence increasing job performance and organisational performance at large. From the discussions presented in this paper, it is evident that management support in terms of communication and other motivating ventures are of importance to the employees' day-to-day job performance. Organisations should also understand that as much as money and other financial allowances are important to employees’ motivation, intrinsic rewards such as recognition and appreciation are significant as well. Management support, appreciation, care and love are some of the significant aspects that are often overlooked by organisations hence leading to decreased performance and organisational production. Ultimately it can be stated without contradiction that motivation influences job performance. References Afful-Broni, A. (2012). Relationship between Motivation and Job Performance at the University of Mines and Technology, Tarkwa, Ghana: Leadership Lessons. Creative Education, 3 (3), 309-314 Bellé, N. (2013). Experimental evidence on the relationship between public service motivation and job performance. Public Administration Review, 73(1), 143-153. Benson, J.D. 2008. Motivation, productivity & change management. Research Starters Business: Motivation, Productivity & Change Management, 1:1-12. CAMPUS, S. W. (2011). The Role of Motivation on Employee Performance In The Public Sector: A Case Study Of The University For Development (Doctoral dissertation, Nkrumah University) Cerasoli, C. P., Nicklin, J. M., & Ford, M. T. (2014). Intrinsic motivation and extrinsi incentives jointly predict performance: A 40-year meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 140(4), 980. Chiang, C. F., & Hsieh, T. S. (2012). The impacts of perceived organizational support and psychological empowerment on job performance: The mediating effects of organizational citizenship behavior. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 31(1), 180-190. Evans, M.G. (2006). Organisational behavior: The central role of motivation. Journal of Management 12 (2), 203. GANTA, V. C. (2014). MOTIVATION IN THE WORKPLACE TO IMPROVE THE EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE. International Journal of Engineering Technology, Management and Applied Sciences, 221-230. Imran, H., Arif, I., Cheema, S., & Azeem, M. (2014). Relationship between job satisfaction, job performance, attitude towards work, and organizational commitment. Entrepreneurship and innovation management journal, 2(2), 135-144. Jibowo, A.A. (2007). Effect of motivators and hygiene factors on job performance among extension workers in the former Western State of Nigeria‖. The Quarterly Journal of Administration, 12 (1):45-54. Kanfer, R. and Ackerman, P. L. (2005) 'Work competence: A Person-Oriented Perspective', in A. J. Elliot and C. S. Dweck (eds), Handbook of Competence and Motivation. Guilford Publications, pp. 336-353 Khodov, L., (2003). “The Structure of Small Business and Distinctive Features of Its Motivation. Problem of Economic Transition”, Journal of Applied Psychology,45 (11), pp. 84-90 Kreitner, r. & Kinicki, A. (2008). Organizational behavior. 8th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill. Mansoor, H. (2008). “Motivation: A Challenge for Oil and Gas Companies an Omani Case Study”, Oil and Gas Business. Manxhari, S. M. (2015). The Influence of Motivation on Job Performance Case Study: Managers of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), Kosovo. ILIRIA International Review, 5(2), 41-52. Pinder, C. C. (2014). Work motivation in organizational behavior. Psychology Press. Singh, S. (2010). Employee Motivation and Job Performance-Exploring the Relationship. MBA Dissertation, University of Bangor, Wales. . Read More