Effect of Motivation on Employee Performance

feeling of pauperization on Employee actChapter 1 mental institution1.1 Background of the compositionIn todays competitive aidman, employee is an valuable asset to individu all in ally brass instrument. An shaping fire non communicate with surface employees. However, the victor of an composition depends on how the worry give their run forers capabilities in achieving cheek inclinations and objectives. Employees demand to be inspired as hale as prompt to shoot closely and per coordinate efficiently. harmonize to metal spurter (n.d.), employees who alike where they civilise leave al match little helper of process the compevery make more than than than than money. Sears conducted an 800-store survey that showed the force of employee posts on the hind end line. When employee attitudes improved by 5%, customer delightjumped 1.3%, whence increasing revenue by one-half a sh atomic number 18age point. lust slip centering to motivate and build establisher esprit de corps pays dividends to any occupation or organization. The motivate happen upon shapeer is more act to the cable and to the customer. This shows that beaming employees finished well which change magnitudes the smell and quantity of their go bad.Long victoryion ago, employees were considered as just an input to the production of salutary and piece of work. However as time goes by, this air of thinking has changed as many studies has been through on the employees behaviour and mull over implementation. An employees deed whitethorn strike the production of the caller- bulge, from the step to the quantity of the products and services. This is why the anxiety must identify the grammatical constituents chance uponing their workers writ of execution. A gamey operation hands is the or so outstanding putation for governings victor no count how big or how sm each(prenominal) the institution is. affair deed is the talent and skill t hat an employee possesses in commiting the conjecture mandatory by the employer. The aim of mathematical operation by the employee is going to run into the cheeks polish and productiveness. in addition, employees implementation whitethorn alike be affected by the charge of the company, the hypothecate itself or even the employees confess behaviour. Good argumentation concern military operation shows great strikement to the makeup, harmony in the work discover out and in any case employees self-accomplishment. Thus, to concur a ripe(p) work great mortalnel and better employee writ of execution, giving medication must commencement exercisely identify and say the computes which affect the employees production line cognitive operation in achieving companys goal.1.2 enquiry ProblemFor centuries, respective(prenominal)s eat up questioned and per ruleed question on the factors affecting employees bank line operation and yet the services may var y from one an separate. Some enquiryer verbalize that employees consummation is influenced by their pay and almost give tongue to they be non. Employees atomic tot up 18 an organisations important asset which is why good work by the employees is subjective in producing good trading quality and productivity. Employees be the ones who atomic turn 18 path the organisation on behalf of the company. They break the responsibilities to realize well for the company in post to chance upon organisation goal and contest with separate organisations in the alike(p) industry.Employees be the one who plan, manage, organise and run the melodic phrase activities of an organisation. This style that poor employees traffic carrying into action may subvert the quality of services and productivity which pull up s craps eventually slow down the operation of the organisation and wind instrument to wastage of resources very much(prenominal) as money and time. Organisations may squ atomic number 18 up ways to solve the line of work by terminating poorly performed employees or even involve to ignore it which may lead to un succeederful business or bankruptcy. By choosing to terminate underperformed employee could non solve the line of work as time is suck up to hire impertinently employee and extra cost depart be incurred for fosterage new employee. counsel should find ways that inspires their workers to perform well in order to accomplish organisations goal and in order to fully engage their resources. Management entrusts that by paying employees more ( affix of wages), employees provide tilt to perform better. Perhaps it efficacy be professedly according to virtually searcher. However, on that point argon as well recent studies that welcome shown that employees wants atomic number 18 not entirely affected by pay. Thus, this interrogation is carried out to examine the factors that affect employees procedure. This research allow adjudicate to evaluate the effect of four almost variables which are penury, commerce inscription, tune heading and work surround.1.3 Research ObjectivesThe reason for this research isTo investigate if demand has the strong affect on employees personal line of credit performance.To investigate if ponder committedness has the substantial affect on employees hypothesise performance.To investigate if meditate aim has the strong affect on employees personal credit line performance.To investigate if work surroundings has the square affect on employees undertaking performance. byplay see is techniques that are rehearse in the origin intention exercise are much(prenominal) as channel enlargement, profession enrichment, contemplate rotation and rail line simplification.The work purlieu or working(a)(a) place which an employee performs in, washbowl affect his or her performance. figure surround sack up be divided into deuce categories which are phy siologic environment and social environment. The physical environment complicates practiced working place with ample resources and equipment such(prenominal)(prenominal) as comfortable chair, discharge and etc.whereas the social environment accepts throng that the employees are working with in the organisation such as working colleagues or subordinates, supervisors and etc.1.4 Scope of the m con tellptionThis empirical guinea pig consists of low- take aim and supreme variables. The dependent variable is employees theorize performance whereas the independent variables consist of factors that affect employees cable performance such as motivation (pay, pull aheads, final payments, etc), byplay committal, line of reasoning design and work environment. The universe of discourse for this study take into account the employees working in the manufacturing companies in Penang and is randomly selected by exploitation convenience sampling method. Questionnaires volition b e distri exactlyed to cl employees. Questionnaires pull up stakes thence be collected back and data allow for be analysed exploitation the regression testing that is put on to test the effectuate of the independent variables onto the dependent variables.1.5 Significance of StudyIt is definite that every organisation no take how big or small in size of it the company is in the whole wide conception necessarily tribe or employees to knead and manage their company. The significance of this study is to investigate the four factors descent with employees job performance, as employees job performance is important in producing good job quality and maximum productivity. This study is also congenital to find out the influences of the four factors to the organisations.An organisation is considered dead and cannot operate without workers. nearly performed employees may lead the organisation to success and induce competitive utility over competitors musical composition poor pe rformed employees may lead company to trial and even bankruptcy. besides poorly performed workers causes insufficiency in productivity which in strikely waste company resources. It might also cause company to be defeated by its rival. Therefore this study give serve managers and employees to actualize better the problem affecting their performance and reduce the negative set up to the company.Chapter 2 books RREVIEW2.1 IntroductionThese days, the business world is becoming more challenging than ever. This increases the cares awareness that good job performance is the get a line success to the organisation. To take in well-performed employees, conf employ ways or techniques should be conducted to manipulate valet nature and postulate to call forth coveted behaviours and well performance. For that reason, the first matter the oversight should do is to understand valet de chambre (employees) postulate and wants.Employee job performance is the ability of employees to perform in effect in their job affectd and they select to shed perceptiveness of complete and up-to-date job translation for their position. as well that, they also deficiency to be aware of the job performance requirements and trite that they are anticipate to meet. Supervisors or the management of the organisation should then freshen their employees job description and performance requirements. trade performance can be re gained in alkali of overall efficiency in the job or in term of specific components that the job compromises. The purpose of performance standards is to move on expectations. Some supervisors cull to make them as specific as possible, and many prefer to use them as talking points with the specificity defined in the discussion (University Human resourcefulness Services, 2005).In general employees and supervisors use the performance judging annually to sum up an overall re gaze of how the job has been done over the former 12 months, to identif y whether organisational goals have been met, to identify areas which require additional trys, and in the end to identify the action and development goals for the forthcoming year. mathematical operation reviews typically take place annually, just can be plan more frequently. Performance review processes vary depending on whether your appointment is as degreeified or professional staff. For classified staff covered by a aim contract, the contract establishes the performance review process requirements (University of Washington, 2007). passel who are association the workplace today are not unless when looking for jobs that earn money, but are also looking for more opportunities such as self-development. They are entrusting to put more military campaign on their job when their own unavoidably, goals, expectation and desires are met. For that reason, the management of the organisation have to find out the factors affecting the employees performance and come up with techni ques to improve employees job performance. Management must also make accepted that employees goals are in line with organisations objectives. As the world become more competitive, organisations close to the world are also alerted by the need to compete effectively a crystallisest each other. In order to do so, organisations need to put together themselves by qualification sure the people in their organisation are able to perform well and compete competently. hire out performance will be the key success for organisation as it enables employees to work at their best and increase their contribution to the organisation.2.2 History of Research on chew over Performance match to Hersen (2004), job performance is a daedal, multidimensional induce that can be defined and assessed in varying ways. Job performance can be defined (and assessed) in cost of quantifiable outcomes of work behaviours (e.g., amount of sales measured in dollars, productivity aim, number of pedantic journa l publications, number of lines of computer code written) and in term of behavioural dimensions (work- associate communication, decision making, assist to detail) that are less quantifiable.Employees job performance also stands for the take aim ability of every employee to work efficiently (in harm of quantity and quality) in their job as required or anticipate by their employers. The employees job performance is then evaluated by the employer, supervisors or the people in charge. The job performance can be evaluated in hurt of effectiveness all together in the job and in terms of particular components that the job compromises. The employees performances will show the individualalities, know takege and experiences of themselves. Each employees performance level is unalike as each individual has different skill and behaviour. Employees poor level of performance may be affected by many factors which include motivation, job freight, job design and the work environment of the organisation.Historically, many researchers have attempted to study the factors affecting job performance but it is not as simple as one may think and the answer may vary from one some other. Buchanan (n.d.), who has done a study on the relation of job merriment and performance, pointed out in her study that the kind surrounded by job joy and performance is an give up of continuing see and controversy. One view, associated with the early human relations approach, is that bliss leads to performance. An alternative view is that performance leads to merriment.She also mentioned that many researchers tend to relate job satisfaction and job performance in a specific fashion, which is a happy worker, is a good worker. Job satisfaction is defined as the extent to which people like (satisfaction) or hate (dissatisfaction) their jobs (Spector, 1997). This definition suggests job satisfaction is a general or orbiculate affective response that individuals hold about their job (Will iams, 2004). Job satisfaction is normally relate with motivation, but the nature of this blood is not top. propitiation is not the same as motivation.Several numbers of studies has put together that there is notwithstanding a curb amount of kind mingled with employees satisfaction and their job performance. For example, it was found by Brayfield and Crockett (1955) that there is still a stripped relationship between job performance and job satisfaction (Judge et al., 2001). The change magnitude of job satisfaction does not necessarily mean change magnitude of employees job performance. If the goals of the organisation are not aligned with the goals of employees, then employees are not effectively working towards the mission of the organisation.Therefore, Buchanan concluded in her study that each employees performance is commonly determined by motivation, ability, and the work environment. The motivation factor is the desire of the employee to do the job ability is the capability of the employee to do the job and lastly the work environment which is the as well asls, materials and information that is unavoidable by the employee to do the job required.2.3 then(prenominal) tense Research on Motivation change Job PerformanceIn the outgoing, employees job performance are traditionally been looked at in terms of motivation. Many researchers have come out with a conclusion that employees levels of performance are influenced by the motivation factor. Examples of researchers are like Maslow (1954), who developed the pecking order of inescapably or Hezberg (1966), who developed the idea of hygiene factors, such as pay and conditions which, if not right in the look of the employee, act as de- inducements. There is also the work of McClelland who argued that people struggled to run into ask of power or influence and social interaction, amongst others. All these ideas have uses in the management of the poor performer. Sometimes, however they see m to be too complex to use on a day-to-day basis and are more worthy to heavy(a) the manager a theoretical dread rather than a useful tool (Proud, n.d.).From the theory of motivation such as Maslows power structure of require,modern leaders, executive managers or supervisors findmeans of motivation for the purposesof employees performance and workforce management. Motivation is unendingly view as an important issue in the business world. This is because motivation is vital in every organisation as it will affect the productivity of the organisation. When the employees in an organisation are un actuate, the productivity of that organisation will be decreased whereas compared to an organisation which have motivated employees the labour disorder will be lower and production will be high up. consort to Dev (n.d.), A Gallup organisation study indicated that companies with official employee attitudes are 50 percent more likely to achieve customer loyalty, and 44 percent more li kely to achieve above-average profits. Additionally, the study finds firms that measure in the top quartile with conceive to employee engagement averaged 24 percent higher(prenominal) profitability, 29 percent greater revenue and 10 percent less employee overturn than businesses in the goat quartile. The evidence is clear. Better people management practices produce better business results.harmonize to Bartol Martin (1998), motivation is defined as the force that energises behaviour, gives direction to behaviour, and underlies the magnetic inclination to persist. This definition recognises that in order to achieve goals, individual must be sufficiently stimulated and energetic , must have a clear commission on what is to be achieved, and must be willing to commit their energy for a long enough expiration of time to run across their aim.Thus, motivated behaviours are performed and insureled voluntarily by the employees themselves whereas supervisors or managers only act as th e inducing to encourage employees to increase their level of job performance. Many people who are not motivated keep their performance to an acceptable level by expending only 20% to 30% of their ability whereas managers who know how to motivate their employees can achieve 80% to 90% ability levels and consequently higher levels of performance (Geoff, n.d.).Motivation comes in many different forms. It can be in a simple form like praise by the supervisors or managers, in the form of monetary (increase in pay), yields, procession, job certificate and etc. These factors are important because it will affect the employees level of job performance. Hence it is sincerely yours essential that managers and supervisors of an organisation knows how to motivate its employees in performing well and achieving organisation goals.According to Wagner (n.d.), Abraham Maslow first introduced his c oncept of a hierarchy of postulate in his 1943 paper, A opening of Human Motivation. This hiera rchy suggests that people are motivated to fulfil basal needs before moving on to other needs. Maslows hierarchy of needs is most ofttimes displayed as a profit, with last-place levels of the pyramid made up of the most prefatory needs and more complex needs are at the top of the pyramid. The basis of Maslows theory is that human bes are motivated by unsatisfied needs, and that authentic lower needs need to be satisfied before higher needs can be satisfied. A satisfied need is not a bonus as the most influential employee need is the one that has not been satisfied.From the Maslows hierarchy of needs, management should understand and identify what their employees need and then satisfy them from the lowest to the highest level. Physiological needs are needs which are at the bottom of the pyramid, are the most essential needs to human living. In the workforce, organisation helps employees to satisfy their needs by giving them basic salary.Safety needs are protection needs that in clude the needs for shelter from the environment and health insurance. In the organization context, employees express their security needs as a desire for job security with blast benefits. The management should provide employees with safe working environment with ample tools and resources. These will be the factor that helps employees to perform well.Social needs are needs related to the need for friendship, love and sense of belonging. At the workplace, these needs include having good relationship with colleagues, superiors or etc. When employees enjoy working well with each other, it may result in positive behaviour at work which will also result in better employee performances. The management can also help to satisfy employees social needs by showing direct concern for them.Esteem needs are the needs of self-respect, respect or recognition from others and a sense of someoneal achievement. When these needs are satisfied, the person feels self-confident and valuable as a person in the world (Simons et al., 1987). In the organisation, the management can fulfil employees toy with needs by showing their detainment through progress, rewards, recognition and etc.Self-actualisation needs are place at the highest level of the pyramid. These needs are associated to personal advanceth, self-fulfilment and the actualisation of ones full potential. In this stage, the management can help the employees by giving them tasks that challenges their own intelligence. All the elements in the Maslows hierarchy of needs are the motivator for employees to perform well in their job. A motivated employee is usually someone with clearly defined goals who takes action which he or she expects to achieve. Besides that, motivated employees will be likely to put in more effort towards the organisation objectives and goals.A leader that recognises employee efforts and helps employees achieve and grow can help improve motivation which therefore increases job performance. According to Hong et al. (1995), Vroom maintained in his expectation theory that everyone works in expectation of some rewards (both spiritual and material), and welfare is one of them. In other words, the degree of reward influences the quality and quantity of work, and in turn productivity. So it is important for management to explore how to give the stimulus (welfare) in order to promote work motivation and performance.Image. Relationship between the type of employee benefit and impact on job performanceHowever, there are some researchers that found out that motivation has limited relationship with employees job performance. They do not believe that money (salary and subventiones) is a good motivator. McNamara (n.d.), who did a research on employee motivation, said that certain things like money, a nice power and job security can help people from becoming less motivated, but they usually dont help people to become more motivated. A key goal for the company is to understand the motivation s of each of their employees. other researcher, Urichuck (n.d.), express that organisations could provide employee motivation through a bonus in the form of money at the end of a period. For sure they will be glad and grateful. They may even perform better, but what are their expectations at the end of the future(a) period will be more money. foreign employee motivation is atypical and it is never lasting. Money is an external employee motivator. Its an incentive that once acquired, leads to expectations for more, bigger or better. Nevertheless the employees will not even build that the company is approach a crisis. They will want a bonus at to the lowest degree equal to what they got last year, but preferably more, not less.According to him, there is a survey on thousands of workers around the world that uses compared rankings by supervisors and employees on employee motivating factors. The typical supervisory assembly ranked the factors in the espouseing order high wages, job security, promotion in the organisation, good working conditions, interesting work, personal loyalty of supervisor, considerate discipline, full appreciation of work done, help on personal problems, and tactile property of being in on things. However, when employees were given the same exercise and asked what affects their esprit de corps and employee motivation the most, their answers followed this class full appreciation of work done, feeling of being in on things, help on personal problems, job security, high wages, interesting work, promotion in the organization, personal loyalty of supervisor, good working conditions, and tactful discipline. position that the top three employee motivating factors marked by the employees are the last three felt to be important for them by their supervisors (Urichuck, n.d.). As a result, this research shows that motivation through the form of money, has limited amount of relationship with employees job performance while recognition is the most influential motivator that affects employees job performance.2.4 Past Research on Job Commitment Affecting Job PerformanceJob trueness is the willingness of the employees to be devoted in completing the job assigned to them at token(prenominal) level of loyalty or exceeding the amount that is required. The level of employee inscription to their job is often the key determinant of whether the employee performs as expected or exceeding the expectations. The level of employee consignment may affect employees job performance. connected employees often performed well and results in companys success and increase of productivity level. Besides job load includes the level of employee contact and employee loyalty to the organisation.Simpson (n.d.), who did a research on build employee inscription for business success, stated that the indication of inadequacy of employee commitment could be an indication of a company on the way to becoming another business failure. The workp lace is changing dramatically and demands for the highest quality of product and service is increasing. To lodge competitive in the face of these pressures, employee commitment is crucial. The 2 keys to success in todays environment of increasing competition and fast change are an absolute passion for, and dedication to, excellence in customer service and the effective and enlightened management of our workforce. The employees commitment will lead to achieving desired standards in customer service and high job performance. Without employee commitment, there can be no improvement in any area of business activity. In the absence of good management, employees will hardly treat their work as a job a 9am to 5pm mathematical function without any desire to accomplish any more than is necessary to uphold employed. It does not take many uncommitted employees to prevent a business from prospering and thereby ceding a big advantage to its competitors.Another researcher, Fink (1992), ass everate that although there are many factors that affect employees performance, the key factor of employees performance is affected by employees job commitment. He defines commitment as an attitude that develops from a process called identification, which occurs when one experiences something, someone, or some idea as an extension of oneself. While all research on commitment treats it only in terms of identification with organisation, that is, its goals, determine, and mission, on the other hand, he focuses on three-dimensional concept including identification with the work itself and with co-workers. He is sure that these are equally important because they can have right effects upon employee performance. As basis of his research he makes an interactive exercise that proposes good management practices result in an effective reward ashes and employee commitment, an effective reward system results in deepen employee commitment and employee performance, and employee commitment re sults in enhanced employee performance.As a result of his research in two companies, who has 418 and 430 employees, respectively, he found that there was square coefficient of correlation between employee performance ratings and commitment score in all categories, and also the correlation between performance and commitment for managers and operational employees free radicaled separately were strong in all categories. The higher the level of employee commitment to work co-worker, and organisation, the higher the level of the performance will be.Based on Sutantos (1999) determinations, quite of concluding that job commitment only has significant affect on job performance, he has found that there is also a positive and significant relationship between commitment to supervisors and performance. He also stated that employees commitment to supervisors have become a good predictor to performance rather than commitment to organisations.After conducting a larger project to all 1,803 me mbers of May 1993 graduating class of large north-western university, Becker (1992), has found that commitment to supervisors was positively related to performance. Further, internalization of supervisors and organizations values was associated with performance but identification with these foci (targets) was not. A number of theorists and researchers have begun to view employee commitment as having multiple foci and bases. Foci commitments are the individuals and group to whom an employee is attached. Thus, in order to increase employees performance, the study suggest that managers should focus on creating employees commitment to supervisors rather than creating employees commitment to the organisation.On the other hand, Cohens (1999) research supported the important status of job involvement as an condition to organisational commitment. Specifically, Cohen argued that those individuals with high levels of job involvement, which stem from positive experiences on-the-job (Witt, 199 3), make attributions for these experiences to the organisation. Thus, having antecedently received benefits from the organisation and being obligated by the norm of reciprocity (Gouldner, 1960) to repay them, high job involvement employees feel compelled to reciprocate in some form. This change magnitude affective commitment (i.e. where employees adopt the companys goals as their own and, therefore, desire to remain with the organisation to help it achieve its goals Meyer and Allen, 1984 Mowday et al., 1979) and later was found to reduce derangement intentions, absence behaviour, and/or turnover, as well as increased job performance.Tough many researchers have confirmed that employees commitment result in high job performance, nevertheless some past researchers have also found that job commitment or involvement has limited affect on employees job performance. According to Rotenberry and Moberg (2007), research finding a significant impact of job involvement on employee performan ce has met limited success (e.g. Brown, 1996 Brown and Leigh, 1996 Diefendorff et al., 2006 and Vroom, 1962).Diefendorff et al. (2002) stated that research has been limited for two reasons. Specifically, they asserted that past studies had predominantly used inferior measures of job involvement, which led to their insignificant findings. In addition, Diefendorff et al. (2002) argued that the performance domain assessed in those previous studies needed to be grow in order to ascertain job involvements true impact on performance at work. The researchers tested the validity of these propositions, but called for additional research in the area paying particular trouble to theory development regarding the job involvement-performance relationship.2.5 Past Research on Job initiation Affecting Job PerformanceJob design is the method of position various work elements in forming a job that suit the employees. Job design identifies what work must be performed to be precise, the content of the job, how it will be performed, where it is to be performed and the competencies required by the person who will perform it. Job design also facilitates the achievement of organizational goals and performance of the work the job was established to accomplish (Sharon, 1998). Job design is also important to avoid employees dissatisfaction. The design of the job must follow the organisations and employees requirement including the health and safety requirement. Besides, job design implementation includes methods such as job enlargement, job rotation, job enrichment and job simplification.The first, job enlargement, can be used to increase motivation by giving employees more and varied tasks. Tasks that reduce the amount of specialization required by the employee, as well as, extending the aloofness of time he or she has to complete them. The second, job rotation, allows an employee to work in different departments or jobs in an organization to gain better keenness into operations . This, in itself, does not modify or redesigns the employees job, but allows the opportunity to increase his/her skills and knowledge about other jobs. Job enrichment, the trinity method, allows the employee to take on some responsibilities normally delegated to management. The risk here is that the employee would be transferred too much responsibility and autonomy in the planning and control aspects of the job. Done right, however, the newfound control would invigorate the employee to work more effectively and thus increased itEffect of Motivation on Employee PerformanceEffect of Motivation on Employee PerformanceChapter 1INTRODUCTION1.1 Background of the StudyIn todays competitive world, employee is an important asset to every organisation. An organisation cannot progress without employees. However, the success of an organisation depends on how the management utilise their workers capabilities in achieving organisation goals and objectives. Employees need to be inspired as well as motivated to perform well and perform efficiently. According to Smith (n.d.), employees who like where they work will help the company make more money. Sears conducted an 800-store survey that showed the impact of employee attitudes on the bottom line. When employee attitudes improved by 5%, customer satisfactionjumped 1.3%, consequently increasing revenue by one-half a percentage point. Seeking ways to motivate and build worker morale pays dividends to any business or organization. The motivated worker is more committed to the job and to the customer. This shows that happy employees performed well which increases the quality and quantity of their work.Long time ago, employees were considered as merely an input to the production of good and services. However as time goes by, this way of thinking has changed as many studies has been done on the employees behaviour and job performance. An employees performance may affect the production of the company, from the quality to the quanti ty of the products and services. This is why the management must identify the factors affecting their workers performance. A high performance workforce is the most important foundation for organisations success no matter how big or how small the organisation is.Job performance is the ability and skill that an employee possesses in performing the job required by the employer. The level of performance by the employee is going to affect the organisations goal and productivity. Besides, employees performance may also be affected by the management of the company, the job itself or even the employees own behaviour. Good job performance provides great achievement to the organisation, harmony in the workplace and also employees self-accomplishment. Thus, to have a good workforce and good employee performance, organisation must firstly identify and understand the factors which affect the employees job performance in achieving companys goal.1.2 Research ProblemFor centuries, individuals have questioned and performed research on the factors affecting employees job performance and yet the answers may vary from one another. Some researcher said that employees performance is influenced by their pay and some said they are not. Employees are an organisations important asset which is why good performance by the employees is essential in producing good job quality and productivity. Employees are the ones who are running the organisation on behalf of the company. They have the responsibilities to perform well for the company in order to achieve organisation goal and compete with other organisations in the same industry.Employees are the one who plan, manage, organise and run the business activities of an organisation. This means that poor employees job performance may reduce the quality of services and productivity which will eventually slow down the operation of the organisation and lead to wastage of resources such as money and time. Organisations may find ways to solve the pr oblem by terminating poorly performed employees or even choose to ignore it which may lead to unsuccessful business or bankruptcy. By choosing to terminate underperformed employee could not solve the problem as time is needed to hire new employee and extra cost will be incurred for training new employee.Management should find ways that inspires their workers to perform well in order to achieve organisations goal and in order to fully utilise their resources. Management believes that by paying employees more (increase of wages), employees will tend to perform better. Perhaps it might be true according to some researcher. However, there are also recent studies that have shown that employees motivations are not solely affected by pay. Thus, this research is carried out to investigate the factors that affect employees performance. This research will attempt to evaluate the effect of four variables which are motivation, job commitment, job design and work environment.1.3 Research Objecti vesThe reason for this research isTo investigate if motivation has the significant affect on employees job performance.To investigate if job commitment has the significant affect on employees job performance.To investigate if job design has the significant affect on employees job performance.To investigate if work environment has the significant affect on employees job performance. Job design is techniques that are use in the job design exercise are such as job enlargement, job enrichment, job rotation and job simplification.The work environment or working place which an employee performs in, can affect his or her performance. Work environment can be divided into two categories which are physical environment and social environment. The physical environment includes safe working place with ample resources and equipment such as comfortable chair, lighting and etc whereas the social environment includes people that the employees are working with in the organisation such as working coll eagues or subordinates, supervisors and etc.1.4 Scope of the StudyThis empirical study consists of dependent and independent variables. The dependent variable is employees job performance whereas the independent variables consist of factors that affect employees job performance such as motivation (pay, benefits, rewards, etc), job commitment, job design and work environment. The population for this study take into account the employees working in the manufacturing companies in Penang and is randomly selected by using convenience sampling method. Questionnaires will be distributed to 150 employees. Questionnaires will then be collected back and data will be analysed using the regression testing that is use to test the effects of the independent variables onto the dependent variables.1.5 Significance of StudyIt is definite that every organisation no matter how big or small in size the company is in the whole wide world needs people or employees to operate and manage their company. The significance of this study is to investigate the four factors relationship with employees job performance, as employees job performance is important in producing good job quality and maximum productivity. This study is also essential to find out the influences of the four factors to the organisations.An organisation is considered dead and cannot operate without workers. Well performed employees may lead the organisation to success and earn competitive advantage over competitors while poor performed employees may lead company to failure and even bankruptcy. Besides poorly performed workers causes insufficiency in productivity which indirectly waste company resources. It might also cause company to be defeated by its rival. Therefore this study will help managers and employees to understand better the problem affecting their performance and reduce the negative effects to the company.Chapter 2LITERATURE RREVIEW2.1 IntroductionThese days, the business world is becoming more challenging than ever. This increases the managements awareness that good job performance is the key success to the organisation. To have well-performed employees, various ways or techniques should be conducted to manipulate humans nature and needs to produce desired behaviours and well performance. For that reason, the first thing the management should do is to understand human (employees) needs and wants.Employee job performance is the ability of employees to perform effectively in their job required and they need to have understanding of complete and up-to-date job description for their position. Besides that, they also need to be aware of the job performance requirements and standard that they are expected to meet. Supervisors or the management of the organisation should then review their employees job description and performance requirements. Job performance can be reviewed in terms of overall efficiency in the job or in terms of specific components that the job compromises. The purpose o f performance standards is to communicate expectations. Some supervisors prefer to make them as specific as possible, and some prefer to use them as talking points with the specificity defined in the discussion (University Human Resource Services, 2005).In general employees and supervisors use the performance assessment annually to sum up an overall review of how the job has been done over the previous 12 months, to identify whether organisational goals have been met, to identify areas which require additional efforts, and lastly to identify the achievement and development goals for the forthcoming year. Performance reviews typically take place annually, but can be scheduled more frequently. Performance review processes vary depending on whether your appointment is as classified or professional staff. For classified staff covered by a labour contract, the contract establishes the performance review process requirements (University of Washington, 2007).People who are joining the work place today are not only looking for jobs that earn money, but are also looking for more opportunities such as self-development. They are willing to put more effort on their job when their own needs, goals, expectation and desires are met. For that reason, the management of the organisation have to find out the factors affecting the employees performance and come up with techniques to improve employees job performance. Management must also make sure that employees goals are in line with organisations objectives. As the world become more competitive, organisations around the world are also alerted by the need to compete effectively against each other. In order to do so, organisations need to prepare themselves by making sure the people in their organisation are able to perform well and compete competently. Job performance will be the key success for organisation as it enables employees to work at their best and maximize their contribution to the organisation.2.2 History of Research o n Job PerformanceAccording to Hersen (2004), job performance is a complex, multidimensional construct that can be defined and assessed in varying ways. Job performance can be defined (and assessed) in terms of quantifiable outcomes of work behaviours (e.g., amount of sales measured in dollars, productivity level, number of academic journal publications, number of lines of computer code written) and in terms of behavioural dimensions (work-related communication, decision making, attention to detail) that are less quantifiable.Employees job performance also stands for the level ability of every employee to work efficiently (in terms of quantity and quality) in their job as required or expected by their employers. The employees job performance is then evaluated by the employer, supervisors or the people in charge. The job performance can be evaluated in terms of effectiveness all together in the job and in terms of particular components that the job compromises. The employees performan ces will show the personalities, knowledge and experiences of themselves. Each employees performance level is different as each individual has different capability and behaviour. Employees poor level of performance may be affected by many factors which include motivation, job commitment, job design and the work environment of the organisation.Historically, many researchers have attempted to study the factors affecting job performance but it is not as simple as one may think and the answer may vary from one another. Buchanan (n.d.), who has done a study on the relation of job satisfaction and performance, pointed out in her study that the relationship between job satisfaction and performance is an issue of continuing debate and controversy. One view, associated with the early human relations approach, is that satisfaction leads to performance. An alternative view is that performance leads to satisfaction.She also mentioned that many researchers tend to relate job satisfaction and job performance in a specific fashion, which is a happy worker, is a good worker. Job satisfaction is defined as the extent to which people like (satisfaction) or dislike (dissatisfaction) their jobs (Spector, 1997). This definition suggests job satisfaction is a general or global affective reaction that individuals hold about their job (Williams, 2004). Job satisfaction is usually linked with motivation, but the nature of this relationship is not clear. Satisfaction is not the same as motivation.Several numbers of studies has found that there is only a limited amount of relationship between employees satisfaction and their job performance. For example, it was found by Brayfield and Crockett (1955) that there is only a minimal relationship between job performance and job satisfaction (Judge et al., 2001). The increased of job satisfaction does not necessarily mean increased of employees job performance. If the goals of the organisation are not aligned with the goals of employees, then employees are not effectively working towards the mission of the organisation.Therefore, Buchanan concluded in her study that each employees performance is normally determined by motivation, ability, and the work environment. The motivation factor is the desire of the employee to do the job ability is the capability of the employee to do the job and lastly the work environment which is the tools, materials and information that is needed by the employee to do the job required.2.3 Past Research on Motivation Affecting Job PerformanceIn the past, employees job performance are traditionally been looked at in terms of motivation. Many researchers have come out with a conclusion that employees levels of performance are influenced by the motivation factor. Examples of researchers are like Maslow (1954), who developed the hierarchy of needs or Hezberg (1966), who developed the idea of hygiene factors, such as pay and conditions which, if not right in the eyes of the employee, act as de-moti vators. There is also the work of McClelland who argued that people struggled to fulfil needs of power or influence and social interaction, amongst others. All these ideas have uses in the management of the poor performer. Sometimes, however they seem to be too complex to use on a day-to-day basis and are more suited to giving the manager a theoretical understanding rather than a useful tool (Proud, n.d.).From the theory of motivation such as Maslows hierarchy of needs,modern leaders, executive managers or supervisors findmeans of motivation for the purposesof employees performance and workforce management. Motivation is always view as an important issue in the business world. This is because motivation is vital in every organisation as it will affect the productivity of the organisation. When the employees in an organisation are unmotivated, the productivity of that organisation will be decreased whereas compared to an organisation which have motivated employees the labour turnover will be lower and production will be higher.According to Dev (n.d.), A Gallup organisation study indicated that companies with positive employee attitudes are 50 percent more likely to achieve customer loyalty, and 44 percent more likely to achieve above-average profits. Additionally, the study finds firms that measure in the top quartile with regard to employee engagement averaged 24 percent higher profitability, 29 percent greater revenue and 10 percent less employee turnover than businesses in the bottom quartile. The evidence is clear. Better people management practices produce better business results.According to Bartol Martin (1998), motivation is defined as the force that energises behaviour, gives direction to behaviour, and underlies the tendency to persist. This definition recognises that in order to achieve goals, individual must be sufficiently stimulated and energetic , must have a clear focus on what is to be achieved, and must be willing to commit their energy for a long enough period of time to realise their aim.Thus, motivated behaviours are performed and controlled voluntarily by the employees themselves whereas supervisors or managers only act as the motivator to encourage employees to increase their level of job performance. Many people who are not motivated keep their performance to an acceptable level by expending only 20% to 30% of their ability whereas managers who know how to motivate their employees can achieve 80% to 90% ability levels and consequently higher levels of performance (Geoff, n.d.).Motivation comes in many different forms. It can be in a simple form like praise by the supervisors or managers, in the form of monetary (increase in pay), rewards, promotion, job security and etc. These factors are important because it will affect the employees level of job performance. Hence it is truly essential that managers and supervisors of an organisation knows how to motivate its employees in performing well and achieving organisati on goals.According to Wagner (n.d.), Abraham Maslow first introduced his concept of a hierarchy of needs in his 1943 paper, A Theory of Human Motivation. This hierarchy suggests that people are motivated to fulfil basic needs before moving on to other needs. Maslows hierarchy of needs is most often displayed as a pyramid, with lowest levels of the pyramid made up of the most basic needs and more complex needs are at the top of the pyramid. The basis of Maslows theory is that human beings are motivated by unsatisfied needs, and that certain lower needs need to be satisfied before higher needs can be satisfied. A satisfied need is not a motivator as the most influential employee need is the one that has not been satisfied.From the Maslows hierarchy of needs, management should understand and identify what their employees need and then satisfy them from the lowest to the highest level. Physiological needs are needs which are at the bottom of the pyramid, are the most essential needs to human living. In the workforce, organisation helps employees to satisfy their needs by giving them basic salary.Safety needs are security needs that include the needs for shelter from the environment and health insurance. In the organization context, employees express their security needs as a desire for job security with fringe benefits. The management should provide employees with safe working environment with ample tools and resources. These will be the factor that helps employees to perform well.Social needs are needs related to the need for friendship, love and sense of belonging. At the workplace, these needs include having good relationship with colleagues, superiors or etc. When employees enjoy working closely with each other, it may result in positive behaviour at work which will also result in better employee performances. The management can also help to satisfy employees social needs by showing direct concern for them.Esteem needs are the needs of self-respect, respect or recognition from others and a sense of personal achievement. When these needs are satisfied, the person feels self-confident and valuable as a person in the world (Simons et al., 1987). In the organisation, the management can fulfil employees esteem needs by showing their appreciation through promotion, rewards, recognition and etc.Self-actualisation needs are place at the highest level of the pyramid. These needs are associated to personal growth, self-fulfilment and the realisation of ones full potential. In this stage, the management can help the employees by giving them tasks that challenges their own intelligence. All the elements in the Maslows hierarchy of needs are the motivator for employees to perform well in their job. A motivated employee is usually someone with clearly defined goals who takes action which he or she expects to achieve. Besides that, motivated employees will be likely to put in more effort towards the organisation objectives and goals.A leader that recog nises employee efforts and helps employees achieve and grow can help improve motivation which therefore increases job performance. According to Hong et al. (1995), Vroom maintained in his expectation theory that everyone works in expectation of some rewards (both spiritual and material), and welfare is one of them. In other words, the degree of reward influences the quality and quantity of work, and in turn productivity. So it is important for management to explore how to give the stimulus (welfare) in order to promote work motivation and performance.Image. Relationship between the type of employee benefit and impact on job performanceHowever, there are some researchers that found out that motivation has limited relationship with employees job performance. They do not believe that money (salary and bonuses) is a good motivator. McNamara (n.d.), who did a research on employee motivation, said that certain things like money, a nice office and job security can help people from becoming less motivated, but they usually dont help people to become more motivated. A key goal for the company is to understand the motivations of each of their employees.Another researcher, Urichuck (n.d.), stated that organisations could provide employee motivation through a bonus in the form of money at the end of a period. For sure they will be glad and grateful. They may even perform better, but what are their expectations at the end of the next period will be more money. External employee motivation is temporary and it is never lasting. Money is an external employee motivator. Its an incentive that once acquired, leads to expectations for more, bigger or better. Nevertheless the employees will not even realise that the company is facing a crisis. They will want a bonus at least equal to what they got last year, but preferably more, not less.According to him, there is a survey on thousands of workers around the world that uses compared rankings by supervisors and employees on employee motivating factors. The typical supervisory group ranked the factors in the following order high wages, job security, promotion in the organisation, good working conditions, interesting work, personal loyalty of supervisor, tactful discipline, full appreciation of work done, help on personal problems, and feeling of being in on things. However, when employees were given the same exercise and asked what affects their morale and employee motivation the most, their answers followed this pattern full appreciation of work done, feeling of being in on things, help on personal problems, job security, high wages, interesting work, promotion in the organization, personal loyalty of supervisor, good working conditions, and tactful discipline.Note that the top three employee motivating factors marked by the employees are the last three felt to be important for them by their supervisors (Urichuck, n.d.). As a result, this research shows that motivation through the form of money, has limited am ount of relationship with employees job performance while recognition is the most influential motivator that affects employees job performance.2.4 Past Research on Job Commitment Affecting Job PerformanceJob commitment is the willingness of the employees to be devoted in completing the job assigned to them at minimum level of commitment or exceeding the amount that is required. The level of employee commitment to their job is often the key determinant of whether the employee performs as expected or exceeding the expectations. The level of employee commitment may affect employees job performance. Committed employees often performed well and results in companys success and increase of productivity level. Besides job commitment includes the level of employee involvement and employee loyalty to the organisation.Simpson (n.d.), who did a research on building employee commitment for business success, stated that the indication of lack of employee commitment could be an indication of a com pany on the way to becoming another business failure. The workplace is changing dramatically and demands for the highest quality of product and service is increasing. To remain competitive in the face of these pressures, employee commitment is crucial. The two keys to success in todays environment of increasing competition and rapid change are an absolute passion for, and dedication to, excellence in customer service and the effective and enlightened management of our workforce. The employees commitment will lead to achieving desired standards in customer service and high job performance. Without employee commitment, there can be no improvement in any area of business activity. In the absence of good management, employees will simply treat their work as a job a 9am to 5pm routine without any desire to accomplish any more than is necessary to remain employed. It does not take many uncommitted employees to prevent a business from prospering and thereby ceding a big advantage to its co mpetitors.Another researcher, Fink (1992), asserted that although there are many factors that affect employees performance, the key factor of employees performance is affected by employees job commitment. He defines commitment as an attitude that develops from a process called identification, which occurs when one experiences something, someone, or some idea as an extension of oneself. While all research on commitment treats it only in terms of identification with organisation, that is, its goals, values, and mission, on the other hand, he focuses on three-dimensional concept including identification with the work itself and with co-workers. He is sure that these are equally important because they can have powerful effects upon employee performance. As basis of his research he makes an interactive model that proposes good management practices result in an effective reward system and employee commitment, an effective reward system results in enhanced employee commitment and employee performance, and employee commitment results in enhanced employee performance.As a result of his research in two companies, who has 418 and 430 employees, respectively, he found that there was significant correlation between employee performance ratings and commitment score in all categories, and also the correlation between performance and commitment for managers and operational employees grouped separately were significant in all categories. The higher the level of employee commitment to work co-worker, and organisation, the higher the level of the performance will be.Based on Sutantos (1999) findings, instead of concluding that job commitment only has significant affect on job performance, he has found that there is also a positive and significant relationship between commitment to supervisors and performance. He also stated that employees commitment to supervisors have become a good predictor to performance rather than commitment to organisations.After conducting a larger projec t to all 1,803 members of May 1993 graduating class of large north-western university, Becker (1992), has found that commitment to supervisors was positively related to performance. Further, internalization of supervisors and organizations values was associated with performance but identification with these foci (targets) was not. A number of theorists and researchers have begun to view employee commitment as having multiple foci and bases. Foci commitments are the individuals and group to whom an employee is attached. Thus, in order to increase employees performance, the study suggest that managers should focus on creating employees commitment to supervisors rather than creating employees commitment to the organisation.On the other hand, Cohens (1999) research supported the important status of job involvement as an antecedent to organisational commitment. Specifically, Cohen argued that those individuals with high levels of job involvement, which stem from positive experiences on-t he-job (Witt, 1993), make attributions for these experiences to the organisation. Thus, having previously received benefits from the organisation and being obligated by the norm of reciprocity (Gouldner, 1960) to repay them, high job involvement employees feel compelled to reciprocate in some form. This increased affective commitment (i.e. where employees adopt the companys goals as their own and, therefore, desire to remain with the organisation to help it achieve its goals Meyer and Allen, 1984 Mowday et al., 1979) and later was found to reduce turnover intentions, absence behaviour, and/or turnover, as well as increased job performance.Tough many researchers have confirmed that employees commitment result in high job performance, nevertheless some past researchers have also found that job commitment or involvement has limited affect on employees job performance. According to Rotenberry and Moberg (2007), research finding a significant impact of job involvement on employee perform ance has met limited success (e.g. Brown, 1996 Brown and Leigh, 1996 Diefendorff et al., 2006 and Vroom, 1962).Diefendorff et al. (2002) stated that research has been limited for two reasons. Specifically, they asserted that past studies had predominantly used inferior measures of job involvement, which led to their insignificant findings. In addition, Diefendorff et al. (2002) argued that the performance domain assessed in those previous studies needed to be expanded in order to ascertain job involvements true impact on performance at work. The researchers tested the validity of these propositions, but called for additional research in the area paying particular attention to theory development regarding the job involvement-performance relationship.2.5 Past Research on Job Design Affecting Job PerformanceJob design is the method of arranging various work elements in forming a job that suit the employees. Job design identifies what work must be performed to be precise, the content of the job, how it will be performed, where it is to be performed and the competencies required by the person who will perform it. Job design also facilitates the achievement of organizational goals and performance of the work the job was established to accomplish (Sharon, 1998). Job design is also important to avoid employees dissatisfaction. The design of the job must follow the organisations and employees requirement including the health and safety requirement. Besides, job design implementation includes methods such as job enlargement, job rotation, job enrichment and job simplification.The first, job enlargement, can be used to increase motivation by giving employees more and varied tasks. Tasks that reduce the amount of specialization required by the employee, as well as, extending the length of time he or she has to complete them. The second, job rotation, allows an employee to work in different departments or jobs in an organization to gain better insight into operations. This , in itself, does not modify or redesigns the employees job, but allows the opportunity to increase his/her skills and knowledge about other jobs. Job enrichment, the third method, allows the employee to take on some responsibilities normally delegated to management. The risk here is that the employee would be transferred too much responsibility and autonomy in the planning and control aspects of the job. Done right, however, the newfound control would invigorate the employee to work more effectively and thus increased it