Effect of Motivation on Employee Performance: A Case Study of Government Agency

The overarching focus of this study was to establish the effect of motivation on employee performance at a Government Agency responsible for the collection, enforcement and administration of various taxes in Zambia. The study objectives were to establish the types of motivation the company provided to its employees, examine the employees’ expectations of motivation and assess the effect of motivation on employee performance. A quantitative approach to which a descriptive case study was adopted for this study. Stratified random sampling of participants was employed to select respondents from Lusaka Headquarters and a questionnaire with Likert scale statements was used for data collection. Questionnaires were administered via email and 183 respondents returned fully answered questionnaires. The findings revealed that 65% of motivation were motivated. The study also revealed that employees had expectations on the type of motivation to be provided to them by their management. Regarding the effect of motivation on employee performance, it was revealed that motivation influenced individual hard work, reinforcement of morals and integrity, rejection of under hand bribes by clients and many other effects. The findings of the hypothesis showed that the mean values were skewed towards the Likert responses ‘agree’ with 80% of employees agreeing to motivation variables. This confirmed that motivation affected employee performance by 100%. The study concluded that, motivation played a pivotal role where productivity through human effort was concerned. The study made three recommendations: The management and Board should understand human nature and their employees’ needs at workplace as this determined the direction on the correct motivation to provide to them. The Government Agency should create a committee of incentives provision comprising ordinary employees and management personnel in order to have inclusive suggestions of incentives that have a bearing on the needs of the employees. Lastly employees should be informed and oriented on the role of motivation as it influences their daily work efforts.


INTRODUCTION
Motivation has a myriad of contexts.Various scholars (Neuman, 2014; Salem, 2016 and Nabukeera, Ali & Raja, 2018) consider motivation to be, the psychological process that gives behavior a purpose and direction.In the modern competitive world, business organizations are facing ever-growing challenges regarding employee commitment (Development Dimensions International, 2019).This problem strikes through poor, developing and developed countries (Nabukeera, Ali & Raja, 2018).There are a number of factors that affect employee performance, however, motivation is the significant factor which affects productivity and organizational performance as a whole to a large extent (Kaitemba, 2020).The human nature is such that it requires motivation in its entirety to perform to its maximum.Wage earning employees find salary as their main motivating factor, followed by the work environment, work relations and extra allowance incentives (Heneman and Schwab, 2018).When all these are absent, serious nagging, work boycott as well as unrests take center stage.The aforementioned aspects act as needs and they have to be met (Muogbo, 2013).The Zambian Labour Laws are clear and reprimand employers who are abusive and use employees beyond the employment terms and conditions as well as against the Labour regulations.Well-paying institutions in Zambia such as the Government Agency seem to suffer brain drain due to employees moving to other institutions.To this regard, there is need to conduct a study to ascertain the effect of motivation on employee performance.

Types of Motivation
There may not be one-size-fits-all kind of the nature of motivation but an expectation of a myriad of factors.However, Meija et al. (2004) highlight that managers should have a clear understanding of work motivation because employees with higher motivation tools produce a superior quality product or service than employees who lack in motivation.Yusuf and Gichinga (2016) assert that if employees expect to be rewarded for performing a task well, their motivation will increase to perform it well.However, Mayo (as cited in Riley, 2012) states that meeting employees' needs should be a holistic approach ranging from social, economic, political and psychological needs in order to get them motivated.Njeri (2013) conducted a study which sought to investigate factors that motivate employees in the workplace, the results of the study described factors that motivated employees as hygiene based as they appeared to be responsive to the environment and welfare.In Zambia, Mweshi & Mubanga (2019) conducted a study whose general objective was to identify ways of motivating public service employees at TEVETA.The findings indicated that in addition to financial rewards, non-financial rewards were equally important and played a major role in motivating public service employees of TEVETA.

Motivational Factors and Employee Performance
Many studies have identified the factors that motivate employees to perform positively (Tanveer, et al. 2012;Theobald, 2006;Nubi, 2017 andMcGregor, 2017).These factors include money, job enrichment, quality of working life and participation.Prendi (2021) found that in Albenia institutions that motivated employees increase their productivity by 35%.Nubi (2017) in her study found that employee performance was doubled from 40% to 80% when presented with both motivation in form of money and job enrichment.Nubi et al (2017) argues that the appropriate motivational factors improve both employee effectiveness and efficiency drastically for achieving organizational goals.Thus, according to Adewunmi, Omotuyole and John (2011) employees' satisfaction and motivation are major determining factors that assist in channeling the employee's efforts towards the attainment of organizational goal.According to them, when these factors are provided there is 100% chance of performance attainment by employees.

Employees' Expectations of Motivation
It takes an engagement with the employees by the employer in order to know the expectations of the employees with regards to motivation.Government workers are commonly reported to have a preference for specific workplace attributes which can affect their job satisfaction.Compared to their private sector counterparts, government workers are reported to be motivated more by the intrinsic aspects of their work, such as an interesting job, and less by the extrinsic features, such as high pay (Rainey 1982; Buelens and van den Broeck 2007).Individuals who see government employment as a calling and respond to this calling usually want their efforts to make the world a better place.Ali, Abrar & Haider, (2012) argues that such employees have high levels of public service motivation (PSM).People seek public sector employment for various reasons; some intrinsic, some extrinsic, and some by chance (Meyer & Allen, 2014).

Conceptual Framework
The conceptual framework comprises the three key variables: independent, intervening and dependent.The pertinent purpose is to show the relationship between the independent and dependent variables as well as how the intensity of the intervening variables affects the relationship of the independent and dependent variables.

Independent Variable
Intervening Variable Dependent Variable Therefore, based on the above conceptual framework, the following hypotheses were developed to investigate the effect of motivation on employee performance.

Hypothesis 1:
There is no effect of motivation on employee performance at the Government Agency.Hypothesis 2: There is an effect of motivation on employee performance at the Government Agency.

III. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This study was quantitative in nature.It sought to establish effect of motivation on employee performance in a revenue institution.Perception of employees were studied pertaining the frequencies of employees regarding their regard for motivation in influencing their attitude towards work.Probabilistic methods were used for sampling of respondents.In particular stratified sampling was employed to sample respondents from two departments of the same institution.The population was 370 comprising employees from the Government Agency.The employees were members of the customs and excise departments.Out of which a total of 192 were selected.For data collection, Likert scale questionnaires were utilized to measure employee perception towards motivation.

IV. RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY
The reliability and validity of the results of this study were guaranteed in two ways, by conducting a pilot study and refining the questions of the study.A pilot study of a smaller sample was conducted at the Government Agency in Lusaka district.After a successful pilot, some questions, especially the ones to do with types of motivation and employee expected motivation were refined to being more specific in order to guarantee validity of results.

Types of Motivation
The 183 employees were asked a question: How are you motivated by management of the Government Agency?The question had a number of parameters of motivation which respondents needed to tick against as a motivation variable which they received from the Government Agency.The options included: Money, participation, quality of work life, medical insurance, being promoted, I don't see the company making efforts towards motivating employees and all of the above.After ticking and computing the data, results showed as below.Figure 2 indicates that 56.8% of respondents ticked the option "All of the above" implying that of all the cited questionnaire parameters of motivation variables were provided to its employees.Then the second common response that was considered was Money.23% of respondents indicated Money.Then Job enrichment was the third most popular motivation variable that was considered which stood at 9% alongside Quality of work which had 8.5% responses.The rest of the variables were below 5% of responses.This generally showed that, the Government Agency provided adequate motivation across all aspects of employee welfare.

Motivation Factors and Employee Performance 5.2.1 Correlation Coefficients for Motivation Factors
Correlation coefficient analysis of the motivation variables are presented below in Table 1.A non-parametric measure of the strength and direction of a relationship between four variables, Pearson's Product Moment Correlation, was used.The correlation analysis reveals a substantial positive association between money, quality of work life, participation, job enrichment and the effect on performance.The variables are positively correlated with each other, and there was no negative relationship between the variables and effect on performance.The results of the Correlation Coefficients for Motivation Factors in relation to the hypothesis test, proved that there was effect of motivation on employee performance at the Government Agency considering that the mean score was skewed towards strongly agree as the majority of the respondents agreed to the motivation variables of the study.Therefore, the results confirm that motivation contributed to the overall performance of employees at the Government Agency.

ANOVA for Motivation Variables
To determine whether the data used in the study was statistically significant, the study further used analysis of variance.The significance level for the population parameters was determined to be 0.00.Because the p-value (0.00) was less than the chosen significance level, the data was deemed suitable for inferring population parameters (0.05) as can be seen in table 2.

Expectation of Upward Adjusted Salary
Employees were asked to rate their expectations regarding their upward salary adjustment at the Government Agency.They indicated by way of rating on a scale from 'strongly agree to strongly disagree' on a Five Point Likert Scale. Figure 3 below depicts employee expectations of an upward adjusted salary.Out of the 183 employees, 126 (68.5%) affirmed with 'strongly agree' that they would wish to have their salary upward adjusted.Then 51 (27.7%) affirmed with 'Agree'.There were 5 (2.7%) of employees who indicated 'Undecided' to the statement of expecting the upward adjustment of a salary.Then 2 employees representing 1.1% of responses indicated 'Disagree' to the statement.There was no employee who indicated 'Strongly Disagree.'

Expectation of Increased Housing Allowance
Employees were also subjected to scale their expectations regarding increasing their housing allowance from the present amount at that time.A Likert Five Point scale was used with scales ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree.Figure 4 below depicts the results.Out of 183 employees, 118 representing 65.6% strongly agreed that they expected the Government Agency to increase their housing allowance from the then amount.Then 58 (32.2%) merely agreed to the statement while 4 (2.2%) employees indicated undecided on whether they would want the Government Agency to increase their housing allowance or maintain it.

Expect Motivation in Form of Promotion
Promotion as a variable of motivation was tested on the employees of the Government Agency as to whether or no they expected it as a motivating element.183 respondents rated their expectations of the variable with varying ratings ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree.Figure 5 below depicts the results.

VI. DISCUSSION
The study established that the Government Agency provided its employees with different types of motivation.Some types of motivation provided include salary, clean environment, health scheme, employer support, annual bonuses and many other types.These results synergize with what was established by many scholars (Nubi, 2017and McGregor, 2017and Prendi, 2021).This demonstrated that the Government Agency management and Board were concerned and committed to providing incentives for motivation to employees.The study revealed that motivation had a number of effects (often positive) on the Government's Agency employees' performance.The study established among employees that there was a relationship between motivation and employee performance in terms of productivity.These results are confirmed by Prendi (2021) results.Lastly, a number of expectations among employees of the Government Agency regarding motivation were discovered in this study.Employees who were engaged in this study strongly agreed with all of the statements when asked if they expected the Government Agency to provide some aspects of motivation to them.Most of their responses were above 80% in affirmation.They expected increased wages, annual bonuses, per diem, health insurance and education allowance.These were similar findings in a study by McGregor (2019) who found even more than these employee expectations.However, the manner of employee affirmation demonstrated that even if the Government Agency provided motivation to its employees, it didn't provide to the expectation of each one of them.

VII. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATION
The study sought to find out the effect of motivation on employee performance.The study objectives include establishing the type of motivation the Government Agency provided to employees, examine the effect of motivation provided on employees' performance and establish employee expectations of motivation.The results showed that the Government Agency provided a number of motivating incentives to its employees as confirmed by the employees.Then the study also established the employee expectations of the nature of motivation that they looked forward to their employers to provide.Then finally, the study established the effects of motivation of employee performance being of a myriad facet.The study recommends that the Government Agency management and Board to provide a clear understanding of human nature and what actually motivates their employees in order to minimize their demands and silent protests regarding the incentives that are provided to them in ordinary form.

Figure 2 :
Figure 2: Types of motivation ZRA provided to its employee a. Predictors: (Constant), Job enrichment influences performance, Money influences employee performance, Participation influence employee performance, Quality of work life influence employee performance b.Dependent Variable: Motivation factors at Government Agency influence performance 5.3 Employees' Expectations of Motivation from the Government Agency 5.3.

Figure 3 :
Figure 3: Showing results for expectation of upward adjusted salary.

Figure 4 :
Figure 4: Showing results for expectation of Increased Housing Allowance

Figure 5 :
Figure 5: Showing results for expectation for motivation in form of promotion Figure 5 indicates that out of 183 employees 117 (63.9%) strongly agreed that they expected motivation in form of promotion.Then 58 (31.7%) indicated agree.5 employees representing 2.7% of respondents indicated undecided regarding the statement.Then 3 employees (1.6%) disagreed that they did not expect motivation in form of promotion from the Government Agency.None of the employees strongly disagreed to the statement.It was concluded that employees expected promotion as a form of motivation with 175 employees agreeing representing 96% statistically significant.

Table 1 :
Correlation Coefficients of Motivation Variables Table for Motivation Variables