CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Since the beginning of time, leaders have risen to take charge of societies and make decisions. These decisions often meant the difference between being successful and being a failure, having shelter or being homeless, and sometimes the difference between life and death. As society progressed, there have been great technological advances which have brought a high level of convenience to our lives. Despite having advancements, the basic needs for humans still remain the same. A question often asked by business managers is, “How do we motivate our employees to ensure optimal performance?” Effectively motivating employees to achieve a desired outcome is one of the most important functions of a business manager. There are pointers to show that business organizations are facing challenges retaining employees due to limited opportunities for advancement and the current competitive labour market in Nigeria. It does not appear things will get any better in the future. The loss of employees means  loss of skills, knowledge, and experiences and can create a significant economic impact and cost to corporations as well as impacting the needs of customers/clients. Business managers who can motivate employees assist the organization by improving employee retention and reinforcing positive behaviours and consequently, their enduring ability to effectively motivate workers to achieve the highest result determines the level of success of a business. Motivation is the intention of achieving an objective or aim, an ability to change behaviour, that inner directing drive, leading to goal-directed behaviour towards the attaining goal. Motivational rewards/incentives can be either non-monetary or monetary. In order for motivation to be present, the manager must both value promotion and see the relationship between his efforts and promotion. Thus, for an individual reward or outcome the argument is that a combination of its value and the appropriate effort-reward probability is necessary. However, an individual's motivation is influenced by more than one outcome. Thus, in order to determine an individual's motivation it is necessary to combine data concerned with a number of different outcomes. One of the major problems confronting management today is that of motivating to perform assigned task to meet or surpasses predetermined standard.

Motivation is that energizing forces that induces or compels and maintains behaviour. It is not easy to motivate an individual, for the success of any motivational effort depends on the extent of which the motivator meets the needs of the individual employees for whom it is intended. Motivation is an internal psychological process whose presence or absence is intended from observed performance. In Nigeria today, lack of proper managerial knowledge, economic depression and high rate of unemployment have made most workers subjected to themselves, to deplorable working conditions, which of course are the catalyst of low performance. The management of most organization tends to believe that workers are satisfied with their job but unfortunately they are not. Job satisfaction presupposes going to work and getting believed of work done. In Nigeria, most at times, the pay given to a worker is not commensurable to the type of work done. This is the reason why sometimes efficient and experience worker leave an organization for another organization that pay more or stay in the organization and perform below expectation. Job dissatisfaction is quite prevalent in most organization. low performance which comes as a result of job dissatisfaction is always the basis for conflict between organization and workers. Managers always blame the workers for not putting in their best, and on side of the workers they blame management for not providing or creating an enabling environment as in motivation. Whoever may be guilty, the bottom line is satisfying the objective of the organization, which of course is to make enough profit to keep the organization moving.

To meet the above object there need for both the management and employee to reach a consensus, the management meeting the desires of the workers and in turn the employees put in their best in terms of performance. The workers need security of all types; physical, psychological and economic are important for effective and efficient performance.