ABSTRACT
Organizations need the service of men (employees) to achieve their objectives.
The extents to which these objectives are achieved depend largely on the
willingness of employees to put in their best. Ugbaja (1992: 24)as sited in Tsua
(1988:37), states that for the employees to put in their best towards achievement
of organizational goals and objectives, they must be adequately motivated. Thus,
this research work was carried out to determine the impact of incentive as a
motivational tool in enhancing organizational performance in the banking sector
of the Nigerian economy. To be able to carry out the above task effectively, three
research questions and three hypotheses were raised and formulated
respectively. The aim was to find out the sequential impact of incentive in
motivating workers to achieving greater result in performance, productivity and
profitability.
As data were required to test the formulated hypotheses and
answer research questions, knowledgeable personnel of some selected banks
were issued with questionnaire. As well, oral interview was conducted too. Their
responses were collected and analyzed using simple pie chart and statistical tool
of chi-square (l2). The analyses revealed that incentive as a motivational tool has
a positive relationship with organizational performance. Following from the
above analysis, the under-listed recommendations were given: (1) Adequate
incentive should be used to motivate and engender employees to perform to the
best of their ability. (2) In designing incentive scheme, organizations should not
necessarily focus only on monetary base but have some other non-monetary
incentives like good working environment, guaranteed safety of job, good
management, employee relationship, good medical attention, employee focused
rather than result oriented etc. (3) Implementation of incentive scheme should be
well monitored to check the excesses of the staffs charged with the duty of
administering it. Since this study focused on the banking industry, it was
suggested that a study of the impact of incentive on motivating employees on the
civil service (Federal, State and Local Government) be made. Thus, we concluded
that incentive is very vital in motivating employees towards achieving greater
result.
