Employee Motivation and Job Performance: Empirical Evidence from Nigeria

This study aims to establish whether there exists a link between employee motivation experiences and job performance. A descriptive research survey was adopted as 206 senior cadre employees of First Bank of Nigeria were sampled using cross-sectional data from a semi-structured questionnaire. The result revealed that both monetary (competitive salary, salary raise, allowances, bonuses, and percentage profit sharing) and non-monetary (job security, job training, career advancement opportunities, flexible working hours, and retirement benefits) motivational incentives have a significant positive correlation with employee job performance in study organization. Specifically, it was revealed that competitive salary (R= 0.809) is the leading monetary motivational factor as job security (R=0.835) tops the ranking for non-monetary motivational factors. It was recommended that study organization will have to employ a mix of both monetary and non-monetary incentives in driving higher performance. Findings also showed that female employees are more motivated by non-monetary incentives (58%) while male employees are more motivated by monetary incentives (61%). Therefore, management should be more strategic in implementing its yearly financial reward contest and public recognition as this will induce the employees to engage in work behaviour that drives higher-level performance.