An analysis of motivation within the postal sector from the perspective of management and employees

Abstract

The topic of work motivation has stimulated quite a substantial amount of research. The ultimate aim of understanding employee’s work motivation is to equip leaders with the ability to motivate their employees. Thus, it is imperative that in any organisation, managers/supervisors have the understanding of how to motivate others. The focus of this study was primarily the understanding of the differences between what managers perceive as being important motivating factors, and what the employees believe to be so, but also on the differences applicable to gender and employees’ age. The aim of this study was to propose a better understanding of the employees’ motivation in a medium sized organisation. This study, which was carried out in MaltaPost p.l.c. a fully privatised service organisation, adopted Kovach’s (1987) ten job reward factors. According to Kovach, the importance ascribed to them differs according to the individual. The utilised survey collected quantitative data from amongst all company employees. All the gathered results did not yield any statistical difference thus the three main hypotheses; (1) there is a significant difference in perception between management/supervisory levels and other employees regarding the relative importance of motivating factors, (2) there is a significant difference in work motivation priorities based on employees’ age, and (3) significant differences exist in motivational preferences based on the employees’ gender, were rejected. However, significant differences in the preferred motivational factors according to gender and age were identified. The findings illustrate that motivation varies amongst different individuals and thus managers/supervisors have a hard time in motivating their employees. This study further demonstrated that employees are more motivated by extrinsic factors, rather than intrinsic factors. Therefore, as Kanfer (2012) puts it, there needs to be a better focus of how extrinsic rewards can be applied to promote and sustain intrinsic rewards. Consequently, this means that both factors cannot be overlooked by managers.