The relationship between motivation and job performance of employees in the Department of Education and the Department of Economy & Enterprise development in the North West Province

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between motivation and job performance of employees within the North-West Provincial Departments. The topic of motivation and job performance is one that is sensitive to most people, because motivation is the main reason why people seek employment, change jobs, or choose to stay in a particular job. Effective managers know that they must understand their employees and what motivates them. In order to understand what motives an employee, a manager must find out what that employee's needs are and what goals they have set for themselves. A descriptive measure was utilized with a random sample (N=161). The questionnaire was administered to investigate what motivates the participants to perform well within the Departments. An exploratory factor analysis was used to determine the underlying factor of the variables. The results suggests that most of the employees felt that they were motivated in terms of different motivators in the North-West provincial departments that were the research sites and that helped improve their performance as well in the workplace, However, other employees felt unmotivated as a result of dissatisfaction with remuneration, opportunities for growth and promotional opportunities . It is highly important for a manager to understand how to motivate his or her employees because it is known that high levels of motivation are very important contributors to performance. The findings in this study increase the body of knowledge in the field of motivation and job performance of employees working in a provincial departments. This research generates new information regarding different motivational theories and how they affect their performance within the workplace. The results of the study were analysed using statistical analysis (SPSS), the version used was version 22 as it was the latest version and the University made it readily available to use.