THE IMPACT OF MOTIVATION ON PERFORMANCE OF CIVIL SERVICE IN NIGERIA

Introduction

1.1 Background Of The Study

Motivation is defined in general terms as the act or process of providing power from within the person which insights him into action as termed from Weber’s third international dictionary (2011). Motivation is also defined as the process of stimulating the interest of somebody to do something.

Manager involves the creation and maintenance of environment for the performance of individuals working together in group towards the accomplishment of common objectives. Since the manager cannot do their job alone, he ought to know what motivates the people. So it is the duty of the manager to recognize motivating factors in designing an environment for performance.

It can be referred to the way urges, aspirations, drives and needs at humans direct or control or explain their behaviour. The public service in Nigeria traces its roots to British colonial administration. At the time of independence there was no major change in the structures of the service. Replacing the departing expatriates with the indigenous Nigerians under a policy referred to as Nigerianization. Over the years the public service has continued to render poor quality services to the people due to poor work performance by the employees. The source of the problems of poor work performance and service delivery in the public sector, began at the time of independence in 1960, and emanated particularly from Nigerianization policy (1999) (DPM, 2002). Ajulor (2002).

The main policy resulted in creation of direct employment of Nigerians, which eventually led to rapid expansion of the civil service and a high wage bill. Over the years the government has not been able to offer competitive remuneration to its employees because of this high wage bill. Although the cost of living continues to rise, the remuneration of the public sector workers has stagnated. To cope with the increasing cost of living, the public servants engage themselves in other economic activities to supplement their income. Most of the economic activities are undertaken during official working hours, leading to poor service delivery in the public sector (Aseka, 2002)

To curb the problems, in 1993 the government introduced reform programmes aimed at improving work performance and service delivery in the public sector. The first phase of the reform programme focused on staff reduction. During this phase the size of the civil service was significantly reduced by 37% through the following measures:

1. Voluntary Early Retirement Scheme (VERS);
2. Abolition of posts that had remained vacant for too long;
3. Freezing of recruitment into the public service except in critical areas;
4. Withdrawal of guaranteed employment to pre-trainees and graduates of tertiary educational institutions;
5. Removal of 4500 “ghost” workers from the payroll as result of head count exercise;
6. Strict enforcement of the mandatory retirement age of 55 years

The second phase of the reform programme focused on rationalization of the civil service to improve performance and productivity. During this phase the government introduced performance management strategies to enhance work performance in the public service. The strategies focused on improving service delivery in ministries/departments and creating a customer and results-oriented culture in the public service.

The third phase of the government reforms involved deepening ministerial/departmental rationalization initiatives in which government institutions reviewed their functions, structures and staffing with the aim of enhancing efficiency and productivity. As a result, the number of employees declined from 272,000 in 1991 to 193,000 in 2002. Ministry of Planning and National Development. Ani (2007)

The reform programmes were also aimed at eliminating corruption that had penetrated into the public sector, resulting in misappropriation of government resources and poor service delivery. To fight corruption and restore integrity in the service, the government of Nigeria in 2002 launched the Public Service Integrity Programme. The integrity programme was based on the fact that the Nigerian government recognized the importance of an efficient public sector as a means of enhancing economic growth and prosperity to the nation and to meet the challenges of improving the well being of its people (Directorate of Personnel Management/Anti Corruption Police Unit. Part of the government move to fight corruption targeted government departments including the Judiciary, where staff suspected to have been unproductive and involved in professional misconduct were suspended from duty. Ruto, (2003) notes that six of the total of the nine of the Court of Appeal judges, 17 of the 34 High Court judges and 82 of 254 magistrates were suspended, and acting judges appointed to take their positions.

The civil service in Nigeria has suffered setbacks which are largely attributed to ineffective and inefficient management. Performance management is a tool which focuses on managing the individual and work environment in such a manner that an individual/team can achieve set organizational goals. It is a relatively new concept in human resource management. The paper gives a perspective of the public sector in Nigeria and presents the performance management system as one such tool that can enhance the performance of the public executing agencies.

1.2 Statement Of Problem

This research will analyze the problem and series of difficulties affecting every organization both private and public.

Some of the problems this project will address at the end of completion are:-

1. Lack of adequate provision for employees efforts,
2. Inadequate welfare of the employees,
3. Lack of workshop training to motivate employees productivity,
4. Inadequate income that will absorbs the rising cost of living standard, and
5. More leisure time in which to enjoy motivation.

1.3 Objectives Of Study

The objective of this project is to analyze the effect of motivation in the public sector most especially at Lagos State Ministry of Education:

1. To assess the motivation of employees performance in low moral and high labour turnover
2. To determine the extent which civil service performance affect motivational performance of ministry of education?
3. To examine good job commendation in the ministry of education
4. To identify employees motivation and the success of their service.

1.4 Research Questions

The following research questions are drawn to guide the study

1. To what extent motivation of employees has no effect in low moral and high labour turnover?
2. How does civil service performance affect motivational performance of ministry of education?
3. Does job commendation serves as an incentive for good job performance in the ministry of education?
4. To what extent are the employees appreciated in the success of their service?

1.5 Statement Of Hypothesis

This is a preposition, which can be put to test to determine its validity, it should be stated relate to problem under investigation.

Examples are these:-

After series of hypothesis, the result are stated as below:-

1. H0: Lack of motivation of employees has no effect in low morale and high labour turnover.
   H0: Lack of motivation of employees has effect in low morale and high labour turnover.
2. Ho: Performance of civil service has no significance relationship with the motivational performance.
   Hi: Performance of civil service has significance relationship with the motivational performance.

1.6 Significance Of The Study

This project will be useful for whoever wants to know much about how to motivate employees for higher performance. It will also provide the opportunity for the development of skill of report writing, facts, finding and presentation of data with recommendations for others to read and understand. It will also help to know more facts about the historical background on the project topic and its relevance in operations of the organization and also provides the opportunity to see into problems encountered in the organization as it affects the employees performance due to lack of motivation of employees which can hinder the successfulness of an organization in achieving their set objectives. Dutton (2001)

1.7 Scope And Limitation Of Study

Attention will be focused on the impact of motivation on employees’ job performance. This project is a work that requires a wide scope of research that is to cover various organizations both private and public in order to determine its validity as a pre- determined of employees performance but this is limited to Lagos State Ministry of Education manly because of limited time and money.

1.8 Definition Of Terms

(a) Motivation

For the purpose of this study, motivation would be looked at from managerial viewpoint. The managerial definition of motivation is a statement of the application of general motivation theory in an organizational setting and managerial context. Motivation, in the traditional sense among management writers, means stimulating people to action to accomplish desired goals.

The managerial motivational job really is one of aligning organizational and individual objectives in order for them to be mutually reinforcing.

(b) Morale:

Inspite of difference of opinion, there is consideration support for the position that the term “morale” is an attitude of satisfaction with, desire to continue in, and willingness to strive for the goals of a particular organization.