Impact of Employee Motivation on Job Performance in Al Arab Al Yawm Newspaper Company

Introduction

Employee motivation defines an employee’s intrinsic interest or enthusiasm and encourages accomplishment of work. Every worker is encouraged about something individually (Lin, 2007). Motivating workers about work is the blending between satisfying the employee's expectations and needs and the workplace issues that facilitate employee motivation (Boatright, 2012). In a free project system oriented on private chattels and the profit and loss arrangement, earning a nice living often translates into proficiently performing a duty or producing merchandise that others highly regard and are enthusiastic about to buy (Brooks and Dunn, 2012). New businesses begin with a person motivated by self-interest being aware of some predicament that others countenance. Al Arab Al Yawm Newspaper Company based in Jordan Amman is not an exception if it needs its overall performance to remain high. This dissertation paper focuses on the impact of employee motivation to improved job performance in Al Arab Al Yawm Newspaper Company.

Background of the Study

Al Arab Al Yawm Company

Al Arab Al Yawm is a privately owned company that deals with the publication and circulation of daily newspapers in Arabic language in Jordan. The company was established by Rajaei Lemasher in 1996 and is headquartered in Amman, Jordan. Since its establishment, the newspaper firm has changed ownership and editorial leadership several times and by 2003, the company published and circulated 30,000 copies daily. By 2010, the online version of the paper emerged the 49th most visited website in the MENA region. However, this growth was cut short in March 2012 when the firm was ordered by Jordanian Royal Court to delete the article that the government has crackdown on corruption. The company was later suspended for 90 days in July 2013 because of financial difficulties and resumed publishing and distribution on December 8, 2013 (Malkawi, 2013). These challenges substantially reduced the morale of employees, thus there is need to investigate the resultant effect of employee motivation on the firm’s performance levels.

Motivational Instruments at Work Place

Managers should be conscious that their work entails getting tasks done through their workers. Thus, managers must be able to encourage and motivate their workers to attain high productivity and this canbe achieved through rewards and punishments. Rewards are categorized into two; (1) extrinsic rewards and (2) intrinsic rewards. Intrinsic rewards consist of recognition, praise, self-competence, and esteem (Eshun & Duah, 2011). Shanks (2007) recognizes that extrinsic rewards comprise a host of exterior effects that managers can offer incentives for workers to augment productivity. These comprise benefits, money, promotions, bonuses, flexible schedules, and others. Rewards are projected to encourage employees to execute effectively and competently towards attaining organizational objectives (Tremblay et al., 2009). The rationale for the application of rewards is to inspire or entice certain conducts among workers. These conducts are perceived as beneficial for improved performance while encouraging other conducts that they observe as detrimental to organizational development and performance (Eshun & Duah, 2011).

Rewarding good deeds and punishing problematical or undesired conducts are basic elements of motivation. However, corporations over time have discovered that rewards frequently reinforce positive conduct and motivate repetition. On the other hand, punishment may momentarily encourage compliance, but it frequently results to lower self-esteem and less output in the long run. Punishments in the employment can comprise tangible and intangible tenants. Nagging a worker to complete job, making intimidation, and hovering are instances of intangible punishments. Oral or written warnings, demotions, suspensions, and pay cuts are considered tangible punishments. When managers employ one of these methods to encourage behavior, they are attempting to encourage by fear (Ferrell, Fraedrich & Ferrell, 2013). The anticipation is that a worker will want to implement what is anticipated to avoid the unwanted outcome, the punishment. The idea of punishment deals with the delivery of a number of aversive events to a staff or employee’s concerning behavior. In other cases, the withdrawal of some valued job outcomes as a consequence of conduct, which interrupts organizational regulations, practices, and policies. Rewarding is for encouraging employees obedience (Shaw, Barry & Sansbury, 2013). Self-interest factors comprise tangible rewards like peer recognition or generating an optimistic reputation, which have been demonstrated to motivate involvement in the company (Brooks & Dunn, 2012).

This concept is further supported by Warren (2011) who notes that there is a significant role motivation plays on the satisfaction of employees. He notes that motivation in the workplace is derived from the satisfaction that one receives; hence, there is need for employers to motivate employees. According to Warren (2011), the achievement of motivation in the organization also depends on the employers’ ability to sustain factors such as taking money off the table. It is for the reason that cognitive thinking defines that money through bonuses cannot be used as a motivator to increasing employee performance. Therefore, the only motivator is to pay employees well to satisfy their monetary needs to the extent that their focus is laid on the success of the company.

Usually, four key factors determine the efficiency of punishment. The first factor is immediacy, which states that the use of punishment to discourage behavior is the most effective when followed with the consequence of the behavior immediately it occurs (Miltenberger, 2004). For instance, if staff makes an unsuitable comment and gets an angry stare from a manager or a co-worker, the employee acknowledges the glare was for the comment. Secondly, contingency acts as a large responsibility in the accomplishment of punishment measures. A punisher must pursue a conduct every time in a reliable manner or he risk diminishing the consequence of the punishment scheme (Trevin & Nelson, 2011). For example, if an employee reprimanded only one out of every ten times he comes late, he is not as probable to discontinue that conduct as he would if the punishment were implemented every time. The third is establishing operation (Velasquez, 2012). An establishing procedure is an occurrence that transforms the worth of an incentive as a reinforcement implementer or a punisher. The final element for effective retribution is the disparity in individuals and the extent of the punishments being implemented. Some intended punishments may not impact some employees since the selected stimulus or the degree of the punishment itself (Miltenberger, 2004).

Rationale/Significance of the Study

According to Ajang (2007), motivation plays a crucial role in enhancing the performance of employees in the workplace. Quantitatively, he assesses the factors affecting job satisfaction and relates the same to Agency theory. The concern for the Agency theory is to understand the issues of firm ownership in which the separation is made for the day-to-day running of the organization. Similar to the objective in Ajang’s study, this study shall seek to determine the impact of motivation in the enhancement of performance among the employees of Al Arab Al Yawm Newspaper Company. It will be possible through the analysis of the information that shall be collected from employees during the data collection process. The findings of this study will be significant to the management of Al Arab Al Yawm to understand whether there is a link between employee motivation levels and performance in order to plan either to motivate or not to motivate the employees. This will be attained through the conduct of a survey involving the employees as the respondents, considering that Al Arab Al Yawm is just recovering from the setback when the company’s publication and circulations were suspended in 2013.

Aim of the Study

The aim for this study is to assess the impact of motivation on the performance of employees in Al Arab Al Yawm. The study will present to managers the role of motivation as an aspect of ensuring improved performance in the workplace. Furthermore, the study seeks to provide an expansion into the already existent coverage of how employee satisfaction and work motivation help in the transformation of people performance of their jobs, function as a team, and achieve organizational goals.

Objective of the Study

1. To determine the impact of employee motivation on job performance in Al Arab Al Yawm Newspaper Company.
2. To identify the motivational instruments that can be employed in Al Arab Al Yawm Company.

Research Questions

Research question 1: What are the impacts of employee motivation on job performance in Al Arab Al Yawm newspaper Company in Jordan Amman? This question will help the researcher understand the effects of motivation on the performance of the employees and the company in general, considering that the employees are demoralized when the company was forced to withdraw publication and when the company operations were suspended for 90 days in July 2013.

Research question 2: What are the employee motivation and engagement instruments available for the management of Al Arab Al Yawm newspaper Company? This question will help the researcher identify the instruments that can be used to effectively motivate employees within the firm in order to improve their performance.

Hypothesis 1: There is a direct relationship between employee motivation levels and job performance in Al Arab Al Yawm newspaper publishing company.

Null hypothesis: There is no direct relationship between employee motivation and job performance in Al Arab Al Yawm newspaper publishing company.

Research Methodology and Analysis

This study plans to adopt quantitative research design. Quantitative design is preferred based on their ability to analyse measurements and help in drawing conclusions based on quantitative data (Creswell, 2009). The data used in this case will involve primary data collected using questionnaire responses from the respondents drawn from Al Arab Al Yawm newspaper Company. The quantitative design is ideal in this situation because the hypothesis can be determined mathematically and statistically. Similarly, the design also allows other researchers to be able to repeat the same process to determine the validity of the findings (Creswell, 2003). In this research, data involving the employee individual performance and the overall company performance will be viewed against the motivation levels of the employees. Analysis and interpretation of the statistical data will be done effectively using descriptive statistics, and presented using charts and graphs.

In the study, the independent variable will be employee motivation and dependent variables will be employee performance and job satisfaction.

Conclusion

This research proposal will concentrate in understanding the impact of employee motivation on job performance in Al Arab Al Yawm newspaper publishing company based in Jordan Amman. The proposal gave the background, significance and aim of the study and outlined the research study design to be adopted. Having that Al Arab Al Yawm experienced double setback in their operations in 2013, there is the need to understand whether their current performance is influenced by the motivational levels of the employees.

References

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