Abstract

Motivation is an important aspect in human life and most especially in various parts of their lives which include their jobs. Several factors indicate that while some employees may be motivated by their salaries others are motivated with other incentives like being acknowledged for their work . the title of this paper is “Effects of employee motivation on job performance”: a case study was done on the refinery company SONARA in Limbe Cameroon and the general objective of this study was to give an overview of the relationship between service benefits and employee or staff performance.

The total population was 600 employees and the sample size dropped to 70 employees and the design research employed the use of closed survey questionnaires. The questionnaires were administered to students in the SONARA refinery in Limbe, Cameroon. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics.

The data was analyzed to calculate its reliability and special attention was given to the relevance of survey questionnaires and clarity of instructions for this research. Results of the study showed that most employees feel more motivated with their salaries which makes them work harder and even with other incentives they feel happy with their jobs when working which helps to boost their performance in their jobs and also that some employees are neutral about motivation and it has no effects on their job performance.

The recommendations which were made for the company to motivate their employees by giving them some form of encouragement even when they make mistakes at work so that they can learn from their mistakes. The significance of this study is important to the government, other researchers, and the company because it creates awareness on motivation and promotes the wellbeing of employees so that they can be more effective and comfortable with their jobs so that their job performance would be positive.

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

The introduction chapter discusses the objectives of conducting this research. A Cameroon refinery company situated in the town of Limbe was selected as the case study organization. A brief introduction is provided in the current chapter to state the importance and need of the current research topic, the rationality, and the significance of the topic.

Employee motivation is defined as enthusiasm, energy, Level of commitment the amount of creativity that an employee brings to an organization on a daily basis. Motivation is derived from the Latin word “Movere” which literally means movement.

Various definitions from books or in dictionaries relate to the fact that motivation is behavior and in order to achieve desired goals and results, one needs to channelize this behavior. This is also an attitude that employees have towards their work which could be desire, the energy that makes people continually interested in and committed to a job in other words what drives them, pushes them to achieve, or even shows up at work every day.

It is important to note that this motivation plays a role in the outcome of the performance in the employee’s job. An employee simply refers to an individual who was hired to carry out a certain job or task in exchange for payment. Therefore employees are human beings and humans are social beings who reason, think and act differently in their daily life on daily basis. So this motivation could therefore serve as a push force for better results.

Getting people to work hard and do their best to be highly motivated is a central problem not only for individual businesses but for the economy as a whole in the world, Africa, and especially in Cameroon.

The motivation was applied on a massive scale in the later part of the 20th century. Employee’s motivation is the heart of giving the people what they really want and most work (Dell, 1988). Johns and George (2010) argue that employee motivation is the psychological force that determines the direction of a person’s level of effort and a person’s level of persistence.

The behavioral direction of a person is described as the many possible behaviors that a person could engage in. Effort indicates how hard people work. Persistence on the other hand refers to whether when dealing with obstacles of employees keep trying or give up. Motivated employees always look for a way to do a better job and are more quality-oriented and productive.

According to Abraham Harold Maslow who was an American psychologist (1943, 1954) human potential and motivation are based on people seeking fulfillment and change through personal growth. This also applied to all parts of the world be it Africa or Cameroon. Motivation is said to be extrinsic and Extrinsic in nature.

The motivational strategy in Nigeria (Africa) also uses motivation on their employees for example in the public and private sectors in Nigeria it was being observed by researchers and its own conclusions were drawn from it. If a company wants the most impressive graduates it must offer the highest entry salaries but still companies in Cameroon struggle with motivation.

Their employees don’t seem to care about work itself and they go ahead to chatter, gossip, and feel bored, and even get tired easily. Organizations are constantly playing around with the levers of financial motivation.

Though capitalism tends to describe humans as primarily financially driven self-maximizing creatures, there is an important extent to which people are driven to serve other people and gain great thrills from doing so. An unsatisfied need creates tension that stimulates drives within the individual. These drives generate a search behavior to achieve particular goals that will satisfy their need and leas to a reduction of tension.

1.2 Problem Statement

Most employees in Cameroon sometimes have a feeling that it is not fair to receive the same pay or increment as those who contributed little or nothing to the job and have a low performance. For this reason, they start reducing their workability and most employees are often paid less for their hard work which they put in the work which therefore brings low Spirit to the employees and affects their production . This often brings a psychological change in the way they view their work, which leaves certain questions like “ how does employee motivation encourage productivity”?

1.3 Main Research Questions

How important is employee motivation to job performance in society?

1.3.1 Specific Research Questions

1. How important is employee motivation and how does it affect job performance in an organization?
2. What measures are taken to address motivation?

1.4 Main Research Objective

To give an overview of the relationship between service benefits and employee or staff performance.

1.4.1 Specific Objective

1. To investigate the impacts of service benefits for enhanced performance.
2. To give a theoretical exposition of concepts service benefits and employee performance.