1.0 General Introduction
It has been asserted over the years that motivation is important to workers just as water is important to sustain human life. Motivation creates condition that encourages workers to satisfy their needs while at the same time accomplishing organizational goals and objectives.
1.1 Background Of The Study
In motivating employee in an organization, it requires the management to create real and imagined needs for the employee to aspire to. These needs could be increase in wages/salaries, the desire to achieve through promotions, recognitions etc. So many experiences have portrayed that the Nigerian workers in both public and private sectors have been frustrated out of their jobs for reasons arising from the dissatisfaction of their job, lack of good training policies and training facilities, absence of adequate incentives etc. As a result, low morale in working behavior comes into play.
The keys to the viability, survival and growth of an organization in the public and private sector is the effective acquisition, utilization and maintenance of the organization’s most valued asset – human resources. No matter how vast or huge the financial and materials resources may be, somebody who is a human element will have to put them together and make them useful to the accomplishment of goals and objectives.
The capacity of an organization to adopt, maintain itself, survive and grow in the face of changing condition depends largely in how effective and efficient the human resource can be managed and utilized.
Lots of organizations are confronted with broad range of problems in dealing with the life wire of the organization, which is the human resource. This is obvious because, the human resources of an organization which consists of all individual, irrespective of their roles, status and duties who are engaged in any of the organizations activities and its important, versatile, and valuable assets, it is the only resources that is blessed with the capabilities of thinking, planning, executing and achieving organizational goals.
Furthermore, with these central roles played by human resource in an organization, it becomes evidently clear that their motivation should be given a top priority.
The expectation of management of every organization is for employee to put in their best to achieve the goals of that said organization. This is the reason why management practitioners and most people tend to pay attention to motivation to boost employee morale at work.
1.2 Statements Of The Problem
Many contemporary authors have argued that motivation is a concept that cannot be ignored when talking of workers morale. Yet lack of motivation has made a whole lot of organization to collapse or at must run below their target. Motivated employees are needed in our rapidly changing workplace, motivated employee are more productive and help organizations to survive.
One of the key problems that usually confront the management is how to motivate workers to perform the assigned task and duties, so that the predetermined goals and objectives can be achieved.
Also, many organizations are more concerned with having high returns on investment which they have neglected workers to the background in their scale of priority.
Furthermore, most workers and management of organizations see motivation as just the addition to the take home of the workers, or promotion to another level in the hierarchy of the organization. They fail to realize that incentives, promotion and so on are what surrounds a job and it cannot lead to job satisfaction. That is the more reason why most organization that believe in this concept are still finding it difficult to satisfy their workers in the long-run.
Moreover, the fact cannot be eluded that most organizations see motivation of workers as unnecessary or a waste of resources that will yield a lot of profit when applied in other factors of production of the organization.
It is from this view that this study examines the extent to which motivation has impacted on the employee’s morale in Kaduna refining and Petrochemical company.
1.3 Objectives Of The Study
The main objective of this study is to examine the effect of motivation on employee morale in Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company. Other sub-objectives are as follows:
- To help solve the motivational problems faced by most organizations especially Kaduna refining and petro-chemical company Kaduna (KRPC)
- To help the management appreciate the crucial importance of people in achievement of organizational objectives.
- To investigating the role played by motivational factors in spurring the employee to perform effectively on the job.
- To identify the motivational variables used by management in ensuring effectiveness and efficiency in the performance of the workers.
1.4 Statement Of Hypothesis
For the purpose of the study, the following hypothesis is formulated:
H0: Motivational tools have no significant effect on employees morale and job performance in KRPC
H1: Motivational tools has significant effect on employees, Morale and job performance in KRPC.
1.5 Significance Of The Study
- The study is significant because it relates to human capital, the most important resources of any organization.
- It tends to review different motivational techniques and theories that can be applied or employed in motivating employers
- It will also be useful to the management of the organization (KRPC Kaduna), the case study to identify their weak point in employees motivation and how to salvage the problems.
- The study is one of the pre-requisite for the award of Higher National Diploma in Kaduna Polytechnic Kaduna.
- It will also serve as a point of references to other students that might undergo a similar research in the subject matter.
1.6 Scope Of The Study
This write-up covers motivation in Kaduna Refining Petro-chemical Company (KRPC), that is to say the study is restricted to the effect of motivational tool on employees morale specifically, Kaduna Refining and Petro-Chemical Company Kaduna Plant.
It also focuses on the tools that can be employed to see the effective motivation of workers and the role it plays n the achievement of organization goals.
Furthermore, the focus periods of this research work is 2010. All data collected and references made are related to the period of interest.
1.7 Limitations Of The Study
During the course of the study, several limitation were faced. These consists of the following:
- Some of the respondents were skeptical about answering questions presented to them. However, a lot of persuasion was made to those who would be persuaded to respond.
- In some cases, the respondents responses were highly inconsistent. At least one would expect a certain level of correlation among responses to the same questions even from different respondents. This pointed to the fact that some responses were inaccurate.
- The research population consist of workers in Kaduna Refining and Petro-Chemical Company (KRPC) and this warranted a great deal of need for transport from home to school and to the organization repeatedly. Considering the cost of transportation, this was a great set back. In as much as mobility require a lot financially, the researcher nevertheless had to be on the move so as to make progress with the research work.
1.8 Historical Background Of Kaduna Refining And Petrol Company Kaduna (KRPC)
Approximately four decades ago there was a very acute shortage of petroleum products all over the country. This situation was so serious that the government and the Nigerian National Petroleum Cooperation (NNPC have to put heads together and strategically decided to set up new refineries at Kaduna and Warri. The vision then was to make Kaduna refinery produce enough petroleum products so that the problem of storage in the northern state and some of the southern states can be salvaged.
The contract of the huge project was signed in 1976 with a Japan Company called Chiyoda engineering and Construction Company. 1980 marked the completion and commissioning of the project.
This refinery (KRPC) was build then with the most modern technology of time and the plants were operating at full capacity of 100% throughout.
The initial operations and maintenance were carried out mostly by Nigerian staff with a complement of expatriate personnel as technical back up. By 1985, Nigerian staff had virtually taken over almost all the operation and maintenance of the refinery, including most of the functions originally performed by the technical backup. The efficient and effectiveness of the plant were maintained at level and most of the time the refinery operated at one hundred percent (100%) capacity utilization.
Between 1980 and 1988, the founding vision of continuous availability was not only achieved but also maintained.
However, as the years passed, the efficiency and effectiveness of the operations of these plants deteriorated, reaching a very low capacity utilization by 1992, numerous reasons can be given for this unfortunate trend. However, the consequence of the low capacity utilization were several hardship for the customers and very serious economic losses.
The trend continued until 1991 when it began to be reversed by collective action of the staff. By 1996 almost all the plant were back on stream. The majority of the products were being provided.
Kaduna Refinery and Petro-Chemical Company (KRPC) was established to efficiently and profitably process crude oil into petroleum products and to manufacture linear Alkyl Benzene (LAB) and in the drum for domestic consumption and export. The objectives of this company a re to be able to optimize the capacity of the existing plants, reduce the plants operating cost and develop new product from existing facilities for use in downstream industries and also to extend refining services to the west African sub-region. This company is owned one hundred percent (100%) by Nigerian National Petroleum Cooperation (NNPC).
