Wages and salaries as a motivational tool for enhancing organizational performance: A survey of selected Nigerian workplace

Abstract

This study examined how the organisation’s human capital was compensated and see whether the compensation even serves as a motivational tool to enhance organisational performance. Seven research questions and two hypotheses were postulated to find solutions to the problems of the study. One hundred and twenty personnel formed the sample size from six organisations. A self-designed instrument labeled Wages and Salaries as a Motivational Tool Questionnaire 2 (WASAMOTOQ2) containing seven sections was used in the collection of data. The findings of the study revealed those factors that militate against adequate compensation to include labour market conditions, the ability of the organisation to pay adequate compensation and the existing country/nation’s present cost of living; what makes up good and adequate compensation include recognition of individual performance and taking care of individual incentives and it shows the relationship between compensation and motivation. It further established the consequential effect of inadequate compensation and motivation on the organisational development. Based on the findings, the following recommendations were proffered that there should be wages/salaries scale and schedule; such should be based on identified indices in the study; that disparity between two identical workers should not be based purely on ‘paper’ qualification but the ability to ‘deliver’; and that wages/salaries should display equality, no ‘sacred cow’.