CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

The sole aim of every organization is the achievement of high productivity. To get at this according to Atuemyi (2001:24) depends very much on the performance of the workers, performance being a function of motivational ability, tools, moral and integrity that motivation according to O’ Donnel (1999:81) is a means of including people to work in a desired meaner. It is the process that causes, channels, and sustains people’s behaviour. Human beings are the neck that holds the head of an organization; they are the most precious capital resources of the industrial society that we cannot afford to overlook their inner state of mind towards performance in the organization.

It is believed that motivation is an internal state that causes a person to direct his energies towards a specific goal or set of goals. Motivation cannot be seen taking place in any human being but its effect can be seen. For a person to be motivated, a need has to be activated. This need activation is known as a motive. People are motivated by their various individual needs. For instance, one who is hungry has the need to obtain food to eat, and this need motivates him to take necessary steps to get food. Motives are the impulses within a person that causes certain behaviour.

According to Obayi (2009:52) motivation is imperative in promoting productivity. One of the greatest tasks confronting the educational sector is that of motivating his workers to greater performance. To succeed in getting his subordinates to achieve the organization goals and objectives, the manager should understand the fundamentals of motivation.

By and large, the motivation process begins with a need and a motivational need is a felt want; these needs can be physiological based or psychologically based. People join organization so that they can ultimately achieve their individual objectives (needs) by helping the organization to achieve their own objectives. In other words, a person joins an organization to satisfy his needs and therefore would be motivated to work willingly and enthusiastically if he sees his organization as helping him to satisfy his needs.

However, human needs are complex and varying and so are the processes of motivating them. Thus, motivation has faced a lot of thought as to how it operates in an organization. Many proposals or theories thereupon made overtime have ranged from the work of Fredrick Taylor to human relative movement, to Abraham Maslow, to Fredrick Herzberg, to Expectancy theory and to Douglas McGregor’s theory X and Y. an appropriate mix of these motivational theories coupled with an understanding of employees needs will help to solve the motivational problems in Enugu State College of Education Technical.

A manager or management should realize that every action he takes in the organization stimulates a reaction in employees (staffs). He should realize as well that a person comes to work to get both the intrinsic and self fulfillment, and intrinsic rewards like promotions, pay and other conditions of service. All these are some of the motivational strategies that would be borne in mind to stimulate employees to action. Increasing the pay package alone would not be enough to stimulate employees.

Consequently, the importance of motivation cannot be neglected. The research conducted by William James in the late 1800s indicated this; He found that hourly employees could keep their jobs by using approximately 20 to 30 percent of their ability. James also found that highly motivated employees work at approximately 80 to 90 percent of their ability.

In other words, highly motivated employees can bring about substantial decrease in problems such as absenteeism, turnover, tiredness, strikes and grievances.

This research work therefore, wants to use this study to explore the staff motivational strategies in Enugu State College of Education (Technical) Enugu and hence see what the staff in this organization from their jobs and how best their expectations can be met with a view to motivating them to higher performance bearing in mind that their organization is service oriented.