CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Today’s reality in the global world is that, organizations influence several important aspects of employees attitude to work in a multitude of ways. They conceive and implement strategies, while the employees and reward systems determine the organization’s capabilities. Competencies are required to execute the strategy, and these competencies are primarily a function of the skills and knowledge of an organization’s human capital.

Therefore, if an organization is to treat its employees as its most important asset, it has to be knowledgeable about what it is that motivates people to reach their full potential (Lawler, 1990). It is not easy though to know all the things that motivate people in life or at work but an effort has to be made in each case.

Traditionally, individual attitude to work in organizations has centered on the evaluation of performance and the allocation of reward systems. Organizations are starting to acknowledge planning and enabling individual performance as a critical approach towards organizational performance.

Strategic success for the organization lies in focusing attention at all levels on key business imperatives, which can be achieved. The planning process is one of the primary elements of the total reward system. According to Adam, (1964),a reward system is an reinforcer only if its delivery increases the probability of a behavior or attitude of the target indiciduals.

This study is focused on reward system and teachers attitude to work. It is important to note that, reward system is the process that impacts performance between pay checks and provides the basis on which individuals results are measured. It is the bonding agent in programmes that direct rewards to true performance. The primary focus of reward and recognition programs is how organizations define their rewards system and communicate this in a manner that employees clearly understand the link between reward and teachers attitude to work (Bassy, 2002).

Rewards and recognition programmes create environments especially where jobs provide intrinsic rewards good feelings that people get from doing the work itself. Yet in many organizations, recognition is reserved for an elite few and rewards are defined solely in terms of wages and salaries. Effective recognition enhances employee motivation and increases employee productivity all of which contribute to improved organizational performance (Bassy, 2002).

1.2 Theoretical framework

This study is guided by;

(i) Adam Stacy’s Equity Theory of motivation

(ii) Victor Vroom’s Expectancy Theory.

(i) Adam Stacy’s Equity Theory of motivation

The Equity Theory states that employees expect fairness when being rewarded for the work done. The theory was developed from the Hertzberg’s job satisfaction theory and linked to the reward system by Adam Stacy. An important factor in employer’s motivation is whether individuals perceive the reward structure as being fair. The Equity theory essentially refers to an employee’s subjective judgment about the fairness of the reward she/he got in comparison with the inputs which include; efforts, time, education, and experience when compared with others in the organization.

The Equity theory of motivation concerns on the people’s perception and feelings on how they are treated as compared

with others (Armstrong, 1996). The argument is that people work well in accordance to what they regard as fair. Employees consider whether management has treated them fairly, when they look at what they receive for the effort they have made. Maslow (1954) agrees with this that employees expect rewards or outcomes to be broadly proportional to their effort. In this regard, Carter (2002) give the formula below to illustrate the comparison.

Input (A) =Input (B)

Reward (A) =Reward (B)

Employee A compares the ratio of his/her input to his/her reward to that of employee B. If he/she feels the ratios are similar, he/she is bound to be satisfied with the treatment received. If he/she feels inadequately treated, he or she is bound to be dissatisfied. This dissatisfaction is likely to breed tension and frustration in such employees and their consequent performance may be negatively affected and this may perhaps further lower rewards (Carter 2002). Much as Employees must be rewarded, employers’ perception towards performance-based rewards can depend on many factors such as politically rewarding someone because of his/her political affiliation, circumstantial instances like one being in the right place at the right time and be rewarded with a high office position, it can be gender sensitivity, strategic, just because someone teaches well mathematics so it is assumed that he can equally teach physics, it can be ethical, personal, such as one being rewarded because of the relationship he/she has with the head teacher.

(ii) Victor Vroom’s Expectancy Theory.

On the other hand, the Expectancy theory helped the study to understand how individuals are drawn to make decisions as regards various behavioral alternatives and perceptual differences among people. It also suggests that motivation is based on how much one wants something and how likely he/she could get it (Cascio, 1989). This is because the motivational force of every individual is influenced by his or her expectancies, valances all of which depend on a personal way of perception. The formal framework of expectancy theory was developed by Victor Vroom (1964).

This framework states basically that motivation plus effort leads to performance, which then leads to outcomes. According to this theory, three conditions must be met for individuals to exhibit motivated behavior and these include: effort to performance expectancy must be greater than zero, performance to outcome expectancy must also be greater than zero, and that the sum of the valances for all relevant outcomes must be greater than zero.

The Expectancy theory explains that in any given situation, the greater the number and variety of rewards that are available to the employees (teachers), the greater is the probability that extra effort will be exerted in attaining the set goals or targets in the hope of getting the desired rewards (Cascio, 1989). Gerald (1986) agrees with this and explains that Vroom focused especially on the factors that are involved in stimulating an individual to put an effort in doing something since this

is the basis of motivation.