Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Saurabh Singh
Table of Contents
MBA Management 2011 Dissertation
Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1. Background…………………………………………………………………………………………………………4
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3. Chapter 3: Methodology
3.8. Sampling……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..42
4.1. Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………………..43
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5. Chapter 5: Conclusion
List of References………………………………………………………………………………………………………....81
Appendix 1: Questionnaire………………………………………………………………………….………………..87
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Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1. Background
The most contentious problem of the modern society, especially in the tough business
environments is providing jobs to able workers. Once this problem is resolved, the
responsibility shifts towards the management of a business organization for now it
becomes its duty to keep its employees motivated in order to perform effectively over a
long period of time.
Motivating is in itself a challenge and keeping people motivated a bigger one. Li (nd.)
suggests that 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 people’s 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.
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Factors
affecting
motivation
Motivation of
employees
Performance
of employees
The research proposal will communicate the need to evaluate the employees’
motivation within the context of a business organization. It is easier for an organization
to perform well when its employees are motivated towards their professional, personal
and organizational goals and objectives. I attempt to study this very issue wherein I
focus on evaluating the various factors that impact the motivation of employees and the
extent of this impact. Subsequently I also focus on deriving the relationship between
motivation and performance of employees.
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1. To establish different ways in which LIC India can improve the motivation levels
and increase the productivity without increasing the pressure on employees.
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Robbins (1993, p. 206) defined 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 individual’s cognition
and brings about a change in behaviour according to Kanfer (1991, p. 11, In Dunnette &
Hough).
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Silverman (2006) finds there is an essential need for employers to promote idea sharing
and collaborative functioning towards developing the motivation and increasing the
performance. 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.
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.
H4: There is no significant relationship between the supervisor’s attitude, behaviour and
leadership style followed and employee motivation.
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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 of LIC (India)
branches of Lucknow, Kanpur, Gorakhpur and Varanasi, thus acting as the
representative sample for the overall population of employees working at LIC India. 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. Also this study is restricted to
studying the motivation of sales personnel working at the Life Insurance Company of
India, thus the results may not be replicable in the other organizations in the same
business. The needs may be different in other parts of the countries as well.
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Higgins, 1994 (Cited in: Linder, 1998) has defined motivation as “the psychological
process that provides purpose and direction to an individual’s behaviour, a tendency to
behave in a purposive manner which helps to satisfy the specific unfulfilled needs”.
According to Young (2000) motivation is the driving force that controls the level of
efforts, direction of execution and persistence of work.
Greenberg & Baron (2000, p. 190) have defined motivation as a three dimensional
process wherein there is a drive in an individual that leads to action; then there are
choices that individuals make and the changes in behaviour that occur and lastly
maintenance of behaviour in order to persist until the desired goals or targets are
reached and the needs are fulfilled. Halepota (2005) has defined motivation as active
participation and commitment towards achievement of specific goals to attain the
desired results. According to Halepota, the concept of motivation is contingent upon the
different situations because no one particular strategy can be effective in all the
situations.
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However this was later challenged by researchers who claimed this to not be
the case, thus advocating for enrichment of the scope of motivation. They
also proposed that people do not hate work naturally and there are not only
basic needs but more than that.
According to Maslow, these needs which are the driver of motivation for an
employee to work are arranged in a hierarchical order of increasing
importance. This order is known as “prepotency”. It means that a need
satisfied remains no longer a motivator and only the next higher level of
needs can motivate an employee to perform further. This was l ater criticised
because there is no certainty that these needs are motivators in strictly the
hierarchical order as suggested, therefore motivation doesn’t always follow
the hierarchy as mentioned in Maslow’s theory of needs.
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Frederick Herzberg’s two factor theory (motivation and hygiene factors) postulates that
employees are motivated by two sets of factors- motivation and hygiene. The
motivation factors including achievement, recognition, participation, involvement,
delegation, autonomy and other intrinsic aspects when fulfilled generate motivation in
the employees. Contrary to this, when Herzberg’s hygiene factors such as salary,
working conditions, policies and administration are not properly fulfilled or not
managed well lead to dissatisfaction in the employees (Saiyadain, 2009, p. 158).
According to John (2007, p. 41), a lot of responsibility for handling motivation issues of
employees’ rests on the shoulders of the organization’s leaders. Although it is difficult
for them to directly overlook the motivation of individual employees, it must be an
important area for managers to deal with so as to manage the motivation of employees
in direction of performance and better results.
According to the argument in Herzberg’s theory, the two types of factors work in polar
directions, however the extrinsic work factors (hygiene factors) are unable to act as a
source of motivation on a standalone basis. Motivation is only possible when the
hygiene factors are satisfied, thus they are a pre-requisite for the motivation factors to
work. Thus motivation factors alone cannot motivate employees even if completely
satisfied, thus necessitating the need for fulfilment of hygiene factors.
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This again highlights the importance of material incentives for motivating people.
Factors like recognition and participation can influence people at work once hygiene
factors are met.
Once all or most of the hygiene factors are present, the employees would
reach a state where there is not any “dissatisfaction”. It is now that the
presence of motivation factors can be utilized to improve the motivation
levels of the employees by engaging them in development thus improving
the overall productivity of the employees an d thus the organization. The
combined operation of these two types of factors guides the employees
towards higher motivation levels and the managers and supervisors must
ensure that the hygiene factors are sound and therefore operate effectively
by managing the right motivation factors by manipulating the various
aspects of work such as involvement, appreciation, autonomy. This not only
motivates the employees to perform better but also makes the job more
enriched and fulfilling.
It is also important to note that the Herzberg’s two types of factors seem to
emanate on the basis of Maslow’s hierarchy needs with two clusters namely
hygiene corresponding to lower levels such as safety, social security and
physiological and motivation factors corresponding to hi gher levels such as
relationships, job security and salary. Figure 2.2.2.1 shows the remedial
measures by the managers for different types of factors .
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It is critical to note that both Maslow’s hierarchy needs and Herzberg’s two
factor theories are subject to criticism. Goldthorpe et al. argued that
whether it is the scientific management approach or the human relations
approach, their applicability is continge nt and is thus not applicable
universally in all the situations. A prime reason behind this proposition
seems to be that different employees behave differently in various
situations are motivated through different ways. Even people from different
socio-economic backgrounds exhibit different work orientations (Parker,
1972).
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Thus it is critical for the management to study the types of workers and
their behavioural patterns, expectations from job and o rganization and their
attitudes towards the work to be able to formulate an effective motivational
environment. Goldthorpe (1968) termed these variables as to be “culturally
determined” instead of being psychological contracts.
And the highest of the three, the Growth needs include the employees’
desire to learn, grow and develop and it aligns with Maslow’s self -
actualization needs category. The ERG theory succeeds the Maslow’s theory
due to the fact that it doesn’t attribute imp ortance to the hierarchical order
of such needs and does not stress that only once a particular need is
satisfied, the employees can move up the need level. As such there is no
level of need in ERG theory. Also the most important element of this theory
is that it promotes the idea that the employees can look towards satisfying
their various needs at one point of time. An employee who is socially
satisfied can at the same time look for personal development and self -
actualization. Thus employees are considere d to satisfy more than one type
of need simultaneously.
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This theory suggests that the employees who show a higher drive to excel
achieve more than their counterparts with lower motivation to succeed.
These employees also work towards attaining more personal achievement
instead of earning rewards from the management since they are dedicated
to personal development and achievement and exhibit a desire to perform
more effectively and efficiently in order to be more productiv e.
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Also these types of employees always look for finding solutions rather than
waiting for management to provide them. They prefer to work in situations
where the opportunities for personal development are high, where they
receive regular and prompt feedback regarding their performance and use it
to continually improve themselves. According to McCellend, the
achievement oriented employees avoid the work tasks if the y consider is as
“too easy” or “too difficult”.
Figure summarises the four classical need theories and compares what
constitutes their basic concepts.
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Moving from the theories that concentrate on the need based motivation,
the process based theories present a perspective that focuses on the
particular aspects of work that motivate and bring forth a permanent change
in the behaviour of employees. Process based theories provide for listing
specific factors that motivate the employees in an organization and also
studying how these factors motivate the behaviour. Ultimately pro cess or
content based theories seek to find how employees satisfy their various
needs while choosing between the alternative behavioural patterns possible.
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Goal setting theory is largely credited to Locke (1968). He proposes that the
major source of work motivation is inherent in the employees’ intention
towards goals and objectives. Therefore the performance is enhanced when
employees are challenged with specific goals and as these goals become
difficult, if accepted by the employees, their performance increases to
higher levels and more feedback is sought than earlier.
Locke and Latham, 1994 (Cited in: O’Neil and Drillings (1994) in their study
have found evidence that the individual performance goals as powerful
motivator. Locke and Latham (1990) propounded that simplest reasons
behind some individuals’ performing better is their different performance
goals and objectives and their actions are driven and controlled by those
goals. That is what helps them perform better than others. Greenberg and
Baron (2003) have linked motivation with performance by defining
motivation as a process that directs behaviour towards achieving goals and
objectives. Goal setting and feedback have been considered to be critical
elements of a successful performance appraisal program; which help to
generate motivation required by employees for job performance (Earley et
al., 1990; Neubert, 1998 and Fletcher, 2001).
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Presumably, while other factors being constant, as the goal becomes more
difficult the performance increases as does the level of challenge
acceptability. Though it is natural that easier goals are more easily
acceptable, however if the job task is challenging enough but not
intimidating, the more involved employees will take up the challenge as they
are encouraged by higher achievement and will ev entually put in more effort
to reach the desired goals.
Where the employees have the autonomy to participate in their own goal
setting, they are more motivated to achieve those goals than those designed
for them by the managers and supervisors as it gives them a sense of
freedom (Moorhead & Griffin, 1995). Though this is to be empirically
established, when this is the case, the employees may be willing to accept
more challenging and difficult goals and roles. According to Kennish (1994),
too much of control inhibits the employee motivation whereas a more open
and participative approach propels them to accept and achieve tougher
objectives thus increasing the productivity of an organization.
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Vroom’s expectancy theory (1964) deviates from the ideology that seems to
fixate the needs of people; instead it approaches the issue of motivation in
concordance with the complexity and variability of the human nature. It
assumes that all the people act differently and they have their own ideas of
motivation and achievement. The assumptions underly ing this theory have
been enlisted in the following list:
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4. Distort the other employees’ perception and believe that the other
employees’ work is not suitable or desirable as perceived earlier.
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This theory completely overlooks the internal state of the employees while
concentrating wholly on the behaviour emanating from an action or path
taken by them. Also this theory is not specifically a theory of motivation
because it is not concerned with the behaviour that produces motivation; in
broad view it completely ignores the human elements (such as attitudes,
expectations, feelings, responses, etc.) of behaviour .
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Both managers and employees can enhance their motivation through such
activity. The motivational environment should be moderate, neither too
liberal nor too strict. It should be such that the employees are motivated to
their level best and work to their maximum abilities w ithout pushing too
much. At the same time, it should be challenging enough so that employees
can test their own abilities and seek more effective performance in certain
situations. It is not necessa ry that the employees are satisfied in all kinds of
circumstances, some might promote efficiency while some may need to be
modified or the right kinds of employees are employed to take on the task.
Capozzoli (1998) stated that motivational environment should be based on
determinants such as subjectivity, fairness , equality, and high service and
performance standards. Leadership and learning should be given primary
importance while overlooking the motivation levels of employees.
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This can also affect the morale of the employee significantly and hamper the
motivation. Prior to assigning any task, the employee may be trained to
reach the level where performance becomes possible . It is here that the
managers should exhibit their leadership while keeping faith in their
employees.
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Lee & Bruvold (2003) suggest the need fo r management to invest in the
development of employees as it helps to maintain and develop the level of
skills, knowledge and abilities (SKAs) of employees and business
organization.
Moreover the studies by Gagne & Deci (2005) support the positive
relationship between autonomic work environment and intrinsic motivation
which helps to enhance the performance of employees. Kuvaas (2006, 2007)
and Piccolo & Colquitt (2006) have considered intrinsic motivation as an
indicator of task performance at job. Recent study by Grant (2008) reveals
the strong linkage between intrinsic motivation and “persistence,
productivity and performance”.
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The studies by Fagbemi (1990) and Latham & Pinder (2005) indicate the
direct and strong association between motivation and job performance and
therefore reflect the organization’s management to identify the most
motivating factors and leverage with them to increase the motivation of
employees and thus performance.
If the management is aware what motivates their employees best, they can
utilize the knowledge and create motivational programs, performance
appraisals and performance management systems in place.
When the employees are not properly or adequately motivated, there are
chances of failure to achieve the goals which can cause a decline in their
self-efficacy (Ordonez et al. 2009), however there are no reporting that
higher self-efficacy in employees affects the achievement or failure to reach
goals (Bandura, 1997).
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For the management to motivate their employees in the right fashion; the prerequisite
is to ascertain the types of motivational factors that will be helpful in motivating them
and then manoeuvring the different motivators to better the performance at job. Job
designing plays the vital role in achieving this through matching the available job
responsibilities with skills, abilities and knowledge of employees. Furthermore, with
increasing empowerment among the employees, there are higher chances of them
going on to assume tasks which are more challenging and rewarding.
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This helps create professionals who can deliver as and when required of them. The
whole process becomes more result-oriented when the managers and employees
continuously exchange feedback through a suitable feedback mechanism and enrich the
decision making capabilities in relation to key aspects of the job responsibility.
Zimmer (1998) supports the view that when the employees get a chance to learn by
making mistakes, they are better equipped to take critical decisions in future with better
ability. Employees should have the opportunity to learn by doing. He also supports the
need to motivators like projects, social communication, teamwork, appreciation and
rewarding.
Robbins & Coulter (1996) have suggested that employees can be motivated and kept
motivated by designing jobs that are motivating for them. This can be suitably done
through job enlargement (expanding the responsibilities within a particular job profile),
job enrichment (increasing the quality of work involves in a job) and job rotation
(switching different jobs for different employees and assigning best person at best
position within an organization).
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Chapter 3: Methodology
3.1. Methodological Framework
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Ethridge (2004) has defined research as “the systematic approach to obtaining and
confirming new and reliable knowledge.” According to Brink and Van der Walt (2006)
research involves four phases including conceptual phase (idea development takes
place), empirical phase (doing), interpretive phase (analysis of results) and
communication phase (research writing). Saunders et al., (2009) distinguished between
“research method” and “research methodology”. Research methods infer the
techniques employed in a particular research whereas methodology refers to the
manner in which a research is conducted.
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The two basic reasoning methods in a research are deductive reasoning and inductive
reasoning (Trochim, 1999). In a deductive study, research takes the direction of working
on an already existing theory or proposition, thereafter deduce hypothesis, test those
hypotheses on the basis of empirical analysis conducted in the research (Bryman & Bell,
2009). The inductive research takes the opposite direction in which observation leads to
development of pattern, thereafter hypotheses are developed and a theory is
generalized. Thus deductive approach is from more general to more specific and
inductive approach is from more specific to more general (Saunders et al., 2009).
For the purpose of this research I intend to utilize the descriptive research. In this type
of research, I will describe the data collected through surveys conducted on the sample
population and present the characteristics regarding sample and the topic of research.
This research will include surveying (through questionnaires) and correlational studies.
My aim through this research work is to ascertain the role and importance played by
motivational factors in influencing the motivation level of sales personnel in the
organization LIC, India. The foundation to this project is provided by the several theories
which explain the relationship between motivation and job performance. Further the
results are ranked in order to provide a better comparison of the impact of various
motivation factors on the job related performance of sales personnel. The respondents
are asked to rank a particular set of motivation factors thus marking them according to
their impact on employees. A survey method through questionnaire is adopted to
achieve this. However this study is solely focussed on the sales personnel at LIC, India.
The sample population comprised of sales personnel from different demographic and
behavioural characteristics.
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Primary source of data collection is the responses in the questionnaires (Appendix 1).
Secondary sources of data collection include company websites, academic journals,
business periodicals, business magazines, books and conferences. The commonly
referred databases include Business Source Premier, Science Direct, JSTOR, SAGE
Journals, Wiley Blackwell journals, Emerald Full Text, Springer link, and Harvard Business
Review.
The most common demarcations of research methods are qualitative research methods
and quantitative research methods. During this research a mix of qualitative and
quantitative research methods will be used. The quantitative methods will reveal the
extents of relation between motivation and performance whereas qualitative methods
will infer the causes behind the phenomenon. The quantitative method will use
statistical tool of analysis which is correlation to help test the hypotheses and draw
inferences from results.
3.7. Sampling
The sampling design used for this research is simple random sampling. The population
for study is the employees working in LIC of India branch offices. From this population a
specific number of respondents (which is proposed to be around 250) will be obtained
from the population. Thus sample size, N= 250. This will be done through probability
sampling where each subject will have equal odds of being selected in the research
sample.
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4.1. Introduction
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1. 20-25 years
2. 26-30 years
3. 31-35 years
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Table 4.2.1- Age based sub groups and number and percentage of
respondents belonging to each group.
20-25 60 24.00%
31-35 52 20.80%
The majority of respondents surveyed belong to the age group 26 -30 years
(46.40%) and it can have a significant impact on the motivation as governed
by differing needs of various age groups. The age group 20 -25 years and 31-
35 years are respectively the second (24%) and the third group (20.80%)
based on the number of respondents.
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Job satisfaction 12 25 11 5
Fair performance 10 15 7 2
appraisal
Recognition by 8 13 7 1
supervisors
Effective reward 9 7 5 1
management
Opportunities for 6 22 8 3
promotion
Work 2 9 1 2
environment
Incentives 5 12 4 2
Working hours 2 5 1 2
Pay scale 5 7 6 1
Punitive action 1 1 2 1
Pay scale and incentives are ranked higher in case of employees from age
groups of 20-25 years and 26-30 years. Younger sales personnel are driven
by the material incentives they receive whereas their senior counterparts
exhibit penchant for promotion and recognition .
5 Incentives 25 10.00%
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Looking at the overall ranking, it is evident that the top four ranked
motivating factors are:
Whereas the two lowest ranked factors are working hours and punitive
action, the second last and last ranked ones respectivel y with overall
percentage of merely 4% and 2%. This gives us an insight into the
performance of sales professionals being impacted most by satisfaction they
derive from their work. It is more important to them in comparison to
material incentives such as pays and rewards.
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The results are presented according to the responses sough t from the
participant employees at LIC, India. The responses are in tabulated and
graphical forms. The results are structured according to the questions asked
in the survey questionnaire. The following descriptive statistical sets of
responses are as following:
Highly motivated 75 30
Motivated 153 61
Neutral 17 7
Demotivated 5 2
Highly demotivated 0 0
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A total of 91% the respondents at LIC find the behaviour of their supervisors
as motivating or highly motivating, whereas remaining 9% think otherwise.
This leaves a scope for improvement and even the demotivated employees
can be motivated leading to improvement in results.
Highly satisfied 85 34
Satisfied 140 56
Neutral 18 7
Dissatisfied 5 2
Highly dissatisfied 2 1
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Majority of the respondents (90%) vouch for the effectiveness with which
their performance is managed and rewarded. Still 10% of them remain either
unsure or negative regarding the issue. The potential cause of this may be
the underlying problems with the way supervisors and managers handle the
motivation of employees and it needs to be sorted out to improve overall
effectiveness.
Financial 75 30
Non-financial 50 20
A combination of 125 50
both
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Managers and supervisors use the reward and recognition as strategic tools
to formulate and implement organization’s policies and strategies aimed at
recognizing and rewarding the employees in a manner consistent with the
motivation related goals and other objectives. A proper reward management
framework exists in LIC as represented by the responses of the surveyed
employees (a total of 82% found it to be highly important or important
motivating factor for them). As generally perceived, reward system is not
entirely dependent on financial rewards, non -financial rewards are also
important. Still monetary rewards are highly rated towards improving
motivational level. While 20% find non -monetary rewards as motivating,
30% chose monetary rewards and the highest proportion, half of the
respondents (50%) find a combination of both financial and non -financial
rewards based rewards program as most effective.
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Highly effective 68 27
Satisfactory 15 6
Ineffective 25 10
Highly ineffective 5 2
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Highly motivating 50 20
Satisfactory 25 10
Demotivating 18 7
Highly demotivating 7 3
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Important 52 21
Neutral 20 8
Unimportant 3 1
Not required 0 0
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Fairly motivating 62 25
Satisfactory 25 10
Demotivating 18 7
Highly demotivating 7 3
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The null research hypotheses when tested provide the following results:
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1. Individual level
2. Organizational level
3. Environment level
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The jobs with a higher difficulty (perceived or real) level demand higher
incentives than comparatively easier jobs. The importance of incentive
system may be such that it can make or break the employees’ will to
perform as desired. Sales professionals at LIC can be expected to perform
only when they are rewarded accordingly. Incentives attract the talented
people and help them retain people over a long period of time to leverage
their performance to improve the organizational performance.
Tangible Incentives
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The common types of tangible incentive in use at LIC, India are in practice.
These include the following:
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Among the LIC employees working in the sales department, it was found that
they put attach the greatest value to the quota based incentive programs
and drives the individual(s) to perform as desired or even exceed the
expectations to be able to gain higher incentives from the company. Piece -
rate incentive programs are less effective than the quota based incentive
program, however they are more valued than the tournament -based and
fixed-rate incentive programs. LIC should decide on the type of incentive
programs to be used on the basis of interaction between desired outcomes,
complexity of assignment, program implementation and expected
performance levels of the sales personnel (LIC, 2011).
5. The supervisors should regularly ensure that the employees are able
to meet targets set for them.
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2. Choosing the right type of incentive program depend ing on the task
characteristics and employee characteristics. There should be a match
between these two to avoid any motivational problems that may
occur and cause discontentment between employees and supervisors.
This can be done by analysing the utility and interest value of the task
at hand.
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Incentives offered are either financial, i.e. monetary which are in the form
of cash or alike or they can be in the form of intangible non -financial
rewards such as recognition, appreciation and awards. The direct financial
incentives offered to sales professionals at LIC, India are job -based salary,
pension schemes, insurance benefit s, periodic or performance based
bonuses, etc. Other indirect financial incentives may include housing
facilities for employees, healthcare benefits, subsidies in meals and grocery
shopping through official canteens of LIC.
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The sales personnel at LIC are rewarded with both formal and informal
incentives. The formal incentives can come in the form of bonus added
salary and staff privileges. The informal incentives can come in the forms
other than these and may be legitimate or illegitimate depending on the
context in which they are offered. Personal practices which lead to improper
deriving of benefit are not highlighted at LIC as the organization follows a
tight bureaucratic structure. In addition to this, incentives are disti nguished
as being materialistic or non-materialistic which can affect the intrinsic and
extrinsic motivations in distinct ways.
Though generally acceptable view is that money is the single most important
motivator for people to work and perform, the reali ty is found to be
different as non-financial incentives are more or less given equal preference
in comparison to financial incentives by the sales personnel surveyed in this
research. This supports the dynamic nature and presence of underlying
psychological features of motivation. Therefore it is necessary not to be
inclined only or in a major way towards designing rewarding systems which
are based on money; more so because it is critical to recognize that
different people are motivated in different ways an d such ways are varied
and of complex effects.
The usual belief of the management is to follow the performance related pay
system; but with the introduction of concept such as Management by
Objectives which made the management to focus on incentivizing the pay
system. Today any successful organization such as LIC gives a lot of
importance to pay and non-pay related incentives to attracting, developing
and retaining the most talented individuals from the market.
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Pay attracts the prospective employees whereas other rewards retain them
for making the organization more productive. This does not imply that
financial incentives should be neglected because people will not perform to
their optimum and beyond even if they hav e all the required rewards but
lack at financial rewards. Payment mechanism is characterized by presence
of a bonus linked plan where better performing employees are offered
bonuses or reaching certain level of performance. It increases relatively with
their performance. At LIC, India, the sales personnel are given due training
and development towards better motivation and equipping them with ability
to enhance their performance. How the particular job is done and target is
achieved is equally valued as how good the results are.
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H2: There is no significant relationship between employee training & development and
employee motivation.
Performance Degree of
Appraisal motivation
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A high correlation value of 0.918** at 99% confidence level shows that the
two variables viz. training and development and the performance are
strongly positively correlated. This should draw attention towards the need
and significance of development opportunities and their strong influence on
motivation and performance of sales pers onnel at LIC, India.
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Performance Degree of
Appraisal motivation
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At LIC, India the results indicate overall satisfaction among the employees in
relation to the performance appraisal and most of them find it to be fairly
motivating (60% of the respondents), however 10% of them also found it to
be demotivating, which infers there are some problem areas that need to be
identified and rectified so as to improve the appraisal process and make it
more acceptable and fruitful.
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If these problem areas are dealt with in a professional manner, the appraisal
system can become even more effective in improving t he motivation of sales
personnel at LIC.
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Performance Degree of
Appraisal motivation
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However it has been observed through the study that employees perform
better in a motivational and stimulating environment rather than a punitive
one. This requires us to focus our thinking towards the need for right kind of
supervisors as well. Employees may perform better under the supervision of
one leader than the other; therefore it is essential that the right supervisors
work with right sales personnel. This is bound to improve the performance
in sales.
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Conclusion
The research work aimed at scrutinizing the relationship between employee motivation
and job performance is targeted at the sales professionals working at the Life Insurance
Corporation of India. The study presents a critical evaluation of the theoretical
background of this vast subject. In the subsequent sections a quantitative analytical
study is conducted to critically investigate the relationships existing between various
motivation factors and their impact on the motivation of employees at the said
organization. All the null hypotheses as formed in the beginning of research are rejected
and new hypotheses are formed which establishes a positive link between motivation
factors and variables. In the findings and analysis of the outcomes, we can identify clear
existence of relationship between motivation and performance. The employees put a
greater emphasis to motivation factors including job satisfaction, performance appraisal
system, rewards management and supervisor’s impact. According to the statistical
analysis these four factors are ranked highest implying their importance in motivating
the employees. Thus, LIC should focus on leveraging the benefit from improving the
penetration and effectiveness of these motivation factors. While financial incentives
(30%) are given more importance as compared to non-financial incentives (20%), but a
majority (50%) prefers a combination of both these types of incentives. This gives us an
idea regarding increasing importance of non-monetary rewards in modern business
world. However there is a need to appreciate the employees more frequently and in
more innovative ways. The focus should be on devising incentive based rewards
schemes while also taking some punitive action if really required. There is a need for
more planning in terms of training and development of sales personnel at the
organization as they may be well equipped to deal with the challenging work
responsibilities and remain motivated even in hostile business environment in order to
deliver and perform as expected.
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Participation and involvement are important areas where the organization can look
forward to improve because it has a direct bearing on the motivation and confidence
levels of the employees. The system can be allowed to decentralize to an extent and
provide for decision making by the employees concerned. The overall results of this
study infer presence of an effective motivation management framework in place at LIC
and that most of the employees are motivated towards their jobs and responsibilities.
The organization can enhance the motivation level of their sales personnel through
these measures and eventually can perform better at individual and organizational level.
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Appendix 1- Questionnaire
Please mark the appropriate responses by putting a tick mark beside the associated
answers.
Part A
1. Please mention your age bracket accordingly.
a) 20-25
b) 26-30
c) 31-35
d) 36 and above
a) Highly motivated
b) Motivated
c) Neutral
d) Demotivated
e) Highly demotivated
a) Very satisfied
b) Satisfied
c) Satisfactory
d) Dissatisfied
e) Highly dissatisfied
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a) Financial
b) Non-financial
c) A combination of both
a) Highly effective
b) Fairly Effective
c) Satisfactory
d) Ineffective
e) Highly ineffective
a) Highly motivating
b) Motivating
c) Neutral
d) Demotivating
e) Highly demotivating
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a) Very important
b) Important
c) Neutral
d) Unimportant
e) Not required
a) Highly motivating
b) Motivating
c) Neutral
d) Demotivating
e) Highly demotivating
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Part B
Kindly rank the following motivation factors in their order of importance to your
performance at work at LIC, India. (Use numbers 1-10 as you deem suitable).
a) Work environment
b) Recognition by supervisors
c) Incentives
e) Working hours
f) Pay scale
h) Job satisfaction
j) Punitive action
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