The influence of compensation on public construction workers’ motivation in Jigawa state of Nigeria

Compensation is the remuneration workers receive for their services or contributions to an organisation. Extant literature points to the fact that compensation packages have relationships with job motivation. A study established a theoretical framework based on the equity theory and used it to examine how compensation influences workers’ attraction, retention, motivation and job satisfaction. This paper concentrates on the connection between compensation and workers’ motivation. The Positivist paradigm guided this empirical research. A questionnaire was developed, pilot-tested and administered to gather data on workers’ motivation regarding four compensable aspects, namely: salary, allowances, gratuity and pension. A total of 265 questionnaires were administered and 260 were collected, representing a response rate of 98%. The respondents were selected using the stratified random sampling technique. The data collected was analysed using both descriptive statistics and Structural Equation Modelling SEM. The Structural Equation Modelling established that allowance and gratuity do positively and significantly influence public construction workers’ motivation in Jigawa state, Nigeria. The study focused on the public construction sector of Jigawa State, Nigeria. Therefore, the findings cannot be extended to the whole country. A) Introduction With reference to motivation theories, the purpose of this paper was to discuss what could motivate people in their work performance and the extent to which money could be a motivating agent. In order to do so, this section will first focus on defining what motivation is and it will try to explain “why people behave the way they do”. Compensation schemes are very vital in this modern era. In private and public sectors, remunerations are the main tools for workers’ motivation(Ajmalet al., 2015). Despite the fact that there is a difference between public and private workers with regards to job features or factors that motivate them, there exists uniformity in terms of compensation (Chatzopoulouet al., 2015). The compensation scheme is a technique used to motivate workers so as to change work attitude for the benefit of an organisation (Nagabhaskar, 2015). Compensation is the most effective factor for motivating workers. In addition, carefully designed compensation schemes can be used to motivate workers (Safiullah, 2015). B) Theoretical framework There is need to explain the two constructs/ variables used in this study, before measuring the impact of compensation on workers’ motivation. These two constructs are compensation and motivation of public construction workers in Jigawa State of Nigeria. The compensation packages The research employed seniority reward being the most applicable in Jigawa state of Nigeria. Workers’ compensation involved pay and benefits packages (White, 2000). Hence, this study focused on salary, allowances, gratuity and pension. Salary is a fixed amount paid to workers The Business and Management Review, Volume 7 Number 3 April 2016 5th International conference on Business & Economic Development (ICBED), April 2016, NY, USA 307 for the services or work done (monthly salary, yearly salary and promotional salary increase). Salary is calculated on weekly, monthly or annual basis. The salary is designated to pay “white-collar” workers, administrative, professional and executive employees (DeNisi and Griffin, 2008). Thus, salary is also called basic pay and its components. Allowances are monetary benefits other than salary offered to workers for the achievement of a predetermined task (Madhani, 2012). Benefits are supplementary compensation given to workers apart from the basic salary as a result of some certain circumstances like retirement, health, and transfer (Ciarniene and Vienazindiene, 2010). Therefore, this study only focused on gratuity and pension. Gratuity is a lump sum amount paid to workers after retirement and Pension is a benefit paid to workers upon retirement monthly. For a worker to be entitled for gratuity and pension must have served for at least five and ten years respectively in Jigawa state public sector. The concept of Motivation The term motivation is derived from the Latin word ‘ movere’ which means ‘to move’. It is a generic term given to the whole set of needs, wishes, drives, desires and similar inducements that push individuals to a certain action or performance. Whenever managers motivate their employees, they anticipate that these needs and desires of employees will be satisfied and lead them to perform in the desired manner. In essence, workers’ motivation plays a vital role in the success of any organization (Greenberg, 2011). This is because the organizational and management activities required for job performance needs motivation of employees to enable the employees behave in desirable ways (Watson, 2006). Workers’ motivation has been defined in numerous ways by the extant literature (Smithers and Walker, 2000). Johnson and Gill (1993) defined workers’ motivation as the procedures by which individuals are enabled to, and encouraged to choose specific manners of behaviour. Similarly, Robbins and Decenzo (1995) defined motivation as the willingness to put more efforts in order to achieve organizational goals, which are subjected to the ability to satisfy a person’s need or way through which people choose a particular cause of action to achieve their goal. In the same vein, Bartol and Martin (1998) defined motivation as a force which drives behaviour, gives direction to behaviour and inspires the behaviour towards a particular aspect in an organisation. Considering the above definitions, motivation in this study tried to provide explanations about workers’ behaviour’s while at work (Lam and Tang, 2003). Hence, this study motivation defined as the driving force which inspires workers (physiologically and psychologically) to undertake one or more actions towards the accomplishment of desired organisational objectives. Essentially, people who are motivated put more efforts into activities being performed than those who are less motivated (Schermerhorn, 2010). Furthermore, Schermerhorn (2010) observed that well motivated individuals exert greater commitments at work than their unmotivated counterparts. Noteworthy, motivation is concerned with how individuals do a given task (Watson, 2006). Thus, the basic task of a manager is to motivate his or her subordinates towards accomplishing the organizational goals (Vroom and Jago, 2007). In order to achieve motivation, Deci and Ryan (2000), presented a multidimensional framework with two second-order–level forms of motivation. This includes: Autonomous motivation on one hand whichrefers to doing a particular action willingly by a worker. Thus, engaging in an activity out of interest and because it is enjoyable is a form of motivation in any setting. Autonomous motivation is also known as intrinsic motivation. On the other hand,Controlled motivation entails doing an activity due to external forces such as compensation (remuneration) and coercion (external regulation). This form of motivation may be regarded as internal motivation which allows workers to display ‘self-esteem’ in relation to the achievement of a given objective or goal (introjected regulation). Studies according to Gagne and Deci (2005) revealed that autonomous motivation yields more positive behavioural results than controlled motivation. Similarly, Gagne (2003) and Millette The Business and Management Review, Volume 7 Number 3 April 2016 5th International conference on Business & Economic Development (ICBED), April 2016, NY, USA 308 and Gagne (2008) argued that through motivation, performance and retention of voluntary workers is guaranteed, and autonomous motivation is better than controlled motivation. There are two types of motivation (Malka and Chatman, 2003; Latham and Pinder, 2005). First, intrinsic motivation involves the internal desires to engage in a given activity or develop a certain skill. Secondextrinsic motivation is defined as external forces which are not related to the job done, but give satisfaction which the job itself may not offer. An extrinsic factor typically refers to financial rewards often used by managers to compensate workers’ labour. Extrinsic motivation does not mean that workers will not attain any satisfaction or pleasure on the job, but it implies the satisfaction expected from an external remuneration will continue to serve as a motivator even when job to be undertaken holds little or no interest of workers (Jarkas and Radosavljevic, 2013). The psychological effect of motivation on workers satisfies their needs and this enhances performance. Contextually, need could be referred to as a means which boost internal desire that affect outcome positively. In contrast, unsatisfied need causes tension, which drives individuals towards searching a particular behaviour, which if achieved, will satisfy the need and subsequently result to tension reduction. Hence, workers would engage in certain activities or actions so as to reduce tension. The figure below illustrates a motivational process in an organisation. Motivational Theories In the past few decades, various theories of motivations have come in to existence.Bartol and Martin (1998) categorized motivational theories into three classes: Need theory, Cognitive Theory and Reinforcement theory. These theories are however classified as either content or process theories (wood et al., 2004). Categorically, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the Motivation-Hygiene theory of Herzberg, McGregor’s Theory X and Y, and Ouchi’s Theory Z, are called content or need-based approaches, because they focus mainly on the role of motivational administration in driving the workers to achieve a given task (Safiullah, 2015). Content theories are concerned with how workers seek to satisfy their various needs in their working environment (Wood et al., 2004). These theories