Employee Motivation and Job Performance- Exploring the relationship

Background

Motivating is in itself a challenge and keeping people motivated a bigger one. Employee
motivation is one of the most important and critical function to be performed by the managers
due to need for increasing productivity and utilizing the resources in the most optimum fashion.
The simplest terms in which motivation can be defined is the stimulation of peoples needs,
wants and desires and lead them into action and converting those unfulfilled expectations by
providing the right channel.

This is the backdrop against which I propose to carry out a research to deduce the dimensions of
relationship between motivation and performance, particularly emphasizing on which factors are
most effective in promoting the motivation of employees in an organization.

The research proposal entitled Relationship between motivation and performance intends to
assess the various factors that affect the level of motivation in the employees and how motivation
is related to their level of performance.

Objectives of Research

Primary Objective

1. To assess the impact of various factors within a work environment those motivate the
employees to perform.

2. To analyze the dimensions of relationship between the motivation of employees and their
performance at work.
Secondary Objectives

1. To establish different ways in which LIC India can improve the motivation levels and
increase the productivity without increasing the pressure on employees.

2. To study the impact of monetary and non-monetary systems of reward on the employees
motivation and performance.

3. To examine the relationships between the employees motivation, performance,

satisfaction and organizational effectiveness.

Problem Statement

Motivation as a process which results from unfulfilled needs that create a tension and thus drive
an individual to satisfy those needs by performing certain functions. This easing of tension
influences the individuals cognition and brings about a change in behavior. This proposal
intends to present a case for relating motivation and performance at the level of employees and
examine the drivers of motivation and develop practical solutions for organizations where
employees lack motivation and performance suffers due to this problem.

Research Questions

1. Does a positive relationship exist between employee motivation and job performance? To
what extent does motivation influence performance of employees?

2. What is the influence of different motivation factors that affect and increase/decrease the
motivation level of the employees of LIC, India?
Hypotheses

H1: There is no significant relationship between incentives based rewards and employee
performance.

H2: There is no significant relationship between employee training & development and
employee motivation.

H3: There is no significant relationship between performance appraisals system and employee
motivation.

H4: There is no significant relationship between the supervisors attitude, behaviour and
leadership style followed and employee motivation.

Scope and limitations

The primary focus of research will be to assess the drivers of motivation and the impact of
motivation on employees performance. The research will emphasize on the employees working
in the middle and lower management categories. This study will include employees irrespective
of their age gender and marital status. The study will be a blend of traditional and contemporary
theoretical perspectives on the issue and empirical analysis from responses sought in
questionnaires.

The aspect of limitation in this research is the concentration of sample size. I expect around 250
respondents including four distinct age groups. Moreover the results may not be applicable to
every company or organization as the motivational needs of employees may be different in
different organizations.