Introduction
1.1 Background of the Study
In contemporary organizations the yearning for satisfaction is the most important issue on the part of the employees. Need and environment playa pivotal role in the determination of man’s behaviour (Ujo, 2004), and Maslow (1943) identified seven important needs of human beings rated in their order of priority; these include physiological, safety, love and affection, achievement, self esteem aesthetic and self actualization needs. Ascending of these needs summed up in one word, motivation involves needs, want and satisfaction, motivation refers specifically “to the drive and effort to satisfy an identified want or goal” satisfaction on the other hand refers to “a state of contentment experienced when a particular want is satisfied”. The issue of job satisfaction has been given much attention over the years. This is because the importance of such a concept cannot be over emphasized. When there came the emergence of large formal organizations which made management more complex followed by a shift in dependent variable, little attention was given to their impact upon job satisfaction. The door was let open to consider the place of motivation in relation to performance and production morale, group dynamics democratic supervision and personal relations because factors that are very important and have been shown in contemporary studies as being related to job satisfaction and increased productivity.
Ujo (2004) quoting Davis (1977) asserts; what employees do when joining an organization is to make an unwritten
psychological contract with it, this contract is In addition to the economic contract for wages and working conditions. Employees agree to give a certain amount of work and loyalty, but in return they demand more than economic rewards from the system. They seek security, treatment as human beings and rewarding relationship with people and support in fulfilling expectations. If the organization honours only the economic contract, employees will tend to loose interest in their jobs. Following this trend, there is an agreement that job satisfaction is the extent to which a job helps one attain his important job values. This agreement can be described as unity in diversity because the numerous definitions of job satisfaction all pointed to the same view.
Salawu (2008) defined job satisfaction” as the extent or degree a person is satisfied with the job he or she is doing, in terms of the salary, self actualization, prestige of the job, autonomy, control and condition of the job”. Locke (1976), defined job satisfaction ” as the appraisal one’s job as attaining or allowing the attainment of one’s important job values providing these values are congruent with or help fulfill one’s basic needs”. For Davis (1977) job satisfaction is “the favourableness or unfavourableness with which employees view their work, public servant like any other worker has a bundle of needs. They need food, shelter, self esteem and self actualization to mention but few. It is the urge to satisfy some of these needs that motivate people to accept these jobs. The
attempt to take a job therefore, may have a variety of motives which may essentially be complex and conflicting but the ultimate goal is satisfaction.
Although, a great deal of Nigeria workers consider their jobs as a means of providing them with the necessary money to cater for their needs, cloth them and perhaps save part of it or invest for their family members.
Job condition and employer, employee relationships are very important since they affect the performance of workers. Every organization, whether in private or public sector strives to effectively elicit the best from the professionals, unfortunately, it seems the desired goal has remained elusive. An in-depth study of job satisfaction has shown that there are people who do have job satisfaction in spite of their organization’s provisions of those conditions that are satisfactory. Studies have also shown that workers achieve different levels of job satisfaction at different period in their careers and at different occupational levels. Closely related to this is the fact that
despite the growing sophistication in technology a great percentage of Nigerian work-force seen dissatisfaction with their jobs, lack of commitment and are always willing to leave their’ jobs for more promising and satisfaction ones.
Incessant conflicts, disagreement, protest, tension, distrust, trade disputes, strikes etc. also characterized the actions of the worker in different unions in Nigeria. This implies that the various organizations are far from solving the workers problem. It also signifies frustrating, unchallenging, unsatisfying and bring job conditions.
1.2 Statement Of The Problem
Despite the ban on private practice by government, public servant still engage in very serious private businesses and sometimes use their official time for their personal business. They sell, hawk, and even scramble for contracts and supplies when they are supposed to be in their offices. The individuals whose goals and aspirations are thwarted by the organization becomes frustrated, develop feelings of low self-worth, become apathetic, disinterested and tend to withdraw self commitment in their work. Personal business outside the organization becomes more important.
The unsatisfied worker may be physically present at their place of work, but his mind and thought are off the job. The increased death rates in our hospitals, poor performance of students in school certificate, examination and low
productivity in the civil service are testimonies of poor performance of public servants. There is no doubt that if
public servants have job satisfaction, they will perform better in their job, the research will therefore examine the impacts of job satisfaction on employees performance.
1.3 Research Questions
This study asks the following questions:
- Is there any relationship between job satisfaction and employees performance?
- Can good incentive scheme bring about employee job satisfaction for enhanced performance?
- Is the working environment of any relevance in ensuring employees job satisfaction?
- Is recognition and reward factors that can bring
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