An Assessment of Employee Motivation as One of the Factors Affecting Employee Job Performance a Case for Sameer Africa Limited, Nyeri Branch

Employee motivation is, or at least must be, one of the key issues for directors, managers and personnel managers. The leader must be able to find the sensitive strings of his subordinates, which can be motivated by influencing them to achieve high performance. The correct use of motivation encourages staff to make more efficient use of their knowledge, skills, and talents. In today's turbulent, often chaotic environment, commercial success depends on the employee's talent and effort. Despite the many existing theories and practices, some of the motivation of leaders today remains a mystical term. This is partly due to the fact that people are motivated by different things and techniques.

Motivation is derived from an internal force that provides an individual the opportunity to achieve their needs or goals. People are motivated by a variety of things and often have different motivating factors. Employers should be mindful of individual motivating factors when attempting to motivate staff to increase performance. While some people may be motivated by money, many are motivated by things like: recognition, promotion, and increased responsibility. Once an employer has identified motivating factors they are able to analyze a variety of motivational theories to design and implement a program that will motivate employees to go above and beyond what is expected of them.

In any workplace, workers are no doubt the essential mainstay that holds any business or corporation together. Employees achieve important tasks to help the company’s long term vision and goals to be successful and efficient. A business can’t be successful without a proper management that is why it is important for employees to enjoy going to work and they also have maintain a positive attitude while being productive and completing tasks. Motivation is what gives a person the purpose to perform or behave in a certain way with the desire or willingness to gain something. There are two types of motivations, motivation that comes from a person and motivation that comes from materially goals. It is very necessary that employers keep their employees motivated and encourage them to perform above expectations.

The biggest problem to a manager is managing employees. This is because employers often do not know how to handle their employees. An effective manager knows that motivation is a difficult skill to acquire. So over the years, many theorist have studied motivation in order to

Over the last several years, the issue of employee motivation inside the workplace has been increasingly brought to the forefront. The reason why is because, globalization has been having an effect on the ability of firms to compete (which is placing more pressure on them). To deal with these challenges, most organizations are relying on their employees. The results are that those employers who are able to use this resource will be able to make adjustments quickly. This is when the firm will be able to maintain their dominance in the marketplace.

Motivation in the workplace is one of the major concerns that managers face when trying to encourage their employees to work harder and do what is expected of them on a day-to-day basis. According to Organizational Behavior by John R. Schermerhorn, James G. Hunt and Richard N. Osborn the definition of motivation is "the individual forces that account for the direction, level, and persistence of a person's effort expended at work." They go on to say that "motivation is a key concern in firms across the globe." Through the years there have been several theories as to what motivates employees to do their best at work. In order to better understand these theories we will apply them to a fictitious organization that has the following

Within a corporation, employees are expected to achieve a high level of quality in their work. Excellent work is attainable with the support of one’s motivation. Motivation comes in many forms and not everyone would have the same motivation because people are motivated by different goals. Moreover, I believe that different surroundings and external factors contribute largely towards one’s motivation.

In today’s turbulent, often chaotic environment, commercial success depends on employees using their full talents. Yet in spite of the available theories and practices, managers often view motivation as something of a mystery. How are employees motivated? What are other companies doing to motivate employees and is it possible to motivate employees without money? These are questions that need to be answered.

There are two reasons why people do things, first because they want and willing to do, or second because they have no choice. If people do things when they have to, it is likely that they will do no more than necessary, and they will stop doing as soon as they can. Therefore, the term "motivation" is introduced, in order to make people want and willing to do things. This essay will be looking at how best managers can ensure their employees are motivated at work, because this is important for an organization to achieve its goals. Before we start, we have to clarify the term: motivation.

High employee motivation helps businesses to achieve high levels of productivity and eventually more profits. A highly motivated workforce is energetic, creative and committed to organization’s goals. Therefore it is important for the management to achieve highest levels of motivation of their employees by using extrinsic and intrinsic motivational strategies to form a profitably organization.

Motivation defines itself as the inner drive to act in a certain manner. Behind every action there is a motive.

There are many theories regarding what motivates employees; McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y is the first theory that I will examine in relation to motivation in my organization. Theory X is a “pessimistic view of employees: that they dislike work, must be monitored, and can only be motivated with rewards and punishments” (Kiniki & Fugate, 2016, p. 148). Holding this theory would lead management to focus on extrinsic motivation such as monetary rewards. Theory Y is a “positive set of assumptions about people at work: that they are self-engaged, committed, responsible, and creative”

A successful company only exists if its employees are properly motivated. However, finding the right types of motivation proves to be difficult considering the variety of employees within the company. While one employee may appreciate vacation time, another may feel he is not properly motivated to do more for the company. One employee may crave recognition, while another finds solace in completing their work without any applause. Also, in terms of incentives, it would be hard to distinguish employees who work intrinsically to perform quality work from those who work extrinsically for the reward. Too much of a stimuli leads to habituation and employees may ultimately become demotivated (Myers 340). Without motivation, however, employees

Staff spend a considerable part of their lives at work, so it is not surprising that they expect to be rewarded and satisfied with the job that they do.. Motivation is concerned with why people do things as well as what drives them to behave in a particular way. Understanding what motivates individuals is important in work place. Research suggests that motivated employees are happier at work. They get more satisfaction from their work, are absent less often, tend to be more loyal and work with enthusiasm. This encourages them to contribute more to the development of the organisation.

Baron (1983) says that “motivation is a set of process concerned with a kind of force that energizes behavior and directs it towards achieving some specific goals” (Baron, 1983, p. xxx). According to Kreitner and Kinicki (2001, p.162) motivation represents “those psychological processes that cause the stimulation, persistence of voluntary actions that are goal directed”. Consequently, these definitions lead to the assumption that motivation is something evolving from within an individual as well as the individual being influenced by external factors.