CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY.
In every organization, large or small, private or public enterprise, human resources (employees) are always the pillar to the success of the organization. These human elements have their individual drives, desires, needs, wishes and similar forces which they intend to satisfy when they are coming into an organization. Satisfaction or non-satisfaction of these needs by the organization has an impact on the behaviour or performance of the employee and eventually on productivity.
The usefulness of motivation cannot be over emphasized. Every organization depends on motivation amongst other factors for the attainment of their objectives. Organizational objectives cannot be fully achieved unless the employees are trained and motivated to acquire the necessary skills, knowledge, and ability to perform their jobs effectively and efficiently. With the drive towards technological advancement in Nigeria, motivating and training of employees are inevitable, the monetary incentives like bonuses, wages, salary increment etc. are to motivate the employees thereby making them to put more effort in their work which help to improve the level of productivity in both private and public industries.
Motivation is defined differently by different authors. According to Koontz and O’Donnell (1980, p.334), motivation is defined as a means of inducing people to act in a desired manner. Also Pinder (1984:24) defines motivation as the force within a person that affects his or her direction, intensity and persistence of voluntary behaviour.
The major problem of motivation is how to induce a group of people, each with a distinctive set of needs and a unique personality to work together towards the achievement of organizational objectives. The ability to understand why people behave the way they do and the ability to motivate them to behave in a specified desired manner are two inter related qualities which are very important for managerial effectiveness.
Luthans (1998:8) posits that motivation is the process that arouses, energizes, directs and sustains behaviours and performances. That is, it is the process of stimulating people to action, being committed towards achieving a desired objective, one way of doing this is to employ proper motivational technique which makes workers more satisfied with and committed to their job.
The most concern of employer is to make the employees to contribute to the attainment of organizational objectives, but they should know that if the employees are not happy with the management of the organization; there will be a very low rate of production in the organization. That is why Hekina and Jones (1967)
visualize that employees should be seen and valued as assets for the allocation of organizational resources. This project will be based on the review of motivation as a management tool for increasing the productivity of employees using Emenite Nigeria Plc., Emene as a case study.