Correlation Between Motivation and Job Satisfaction: A Case Study of the Anti-Corruption Commission of Zambia

Correlation Between Motivation and Job Satisfaction: A Case Study of The Anti-Corruption Commission of Zambia

By: Musiwa Saasa.

In partial-fulfillment of BUS651 – Work, Organisation and Management Unit assessment.

Abstract

Employees form the heart of any company or organisation. For organizations to run efficiently without industrial disruption, employee cooperation and motivation is inevitable and irreplaceable. Employees need to have a cordial work relation with not only the organisation’s top management, but equally with their co-workers. This cases study uses secondary data to discuss the problem of employee motivation in the Anti-Corruption Corruption Commission of Zambia (ACC). Despite being among the best paying public institutions in Zambia, ACC has unusual high employee turnover, signalling that compensation in terms of remuneration is not the quick-fix to employee motivation and retention. The case study argues that high employee compensation is insufficient motivation to achieve job satisfaction and retention of employees.

Background

There is no agreed upon definition of Job satisfaction. According to Cranny, Smith and Stone (1992, p.1), job-satisfaction is the emotional state of employees concerning their job – a comparison between was expected out of the job and the reality. Employees with less expectations tend to be more satisfied with a particular job compared to those with high expectations. The definition of job satisfaction by Bateman and Organ (2017) is similar to that Cranny, Smith and Stone, but they bring in the dimension of not only comparing expectations earlier held to reality of the job, but also comparing the expectation mismatch to alternative jobs. Citing Locke (1969), Weiss (2002, p. 174) defined job-satisfaction as contentment feelings arising from evaluation of one's job, appreciating the job’s contribution in accomplishing one's goals. According to Locke (1969, p. 316) there are three factors in all job appraisals: these being the held perception about the job’s facets, the employee’s value system, and an appraisal of the correlation between the perception and held value system.

Motivation of an employee to go-an-extra-mile in provision of an exceptional service is achieved by multiple factors operating within the employee and demands a combination of approaches by employers to harnessed that motivation. Bratton (2015, p. 159) defines motivation as “a choice about where to direct your energy, how persistently and how much effort to put in to achieving a goal.”

Understanding what motivates people to work is critical if any organisation is to achieve its set mission and goals. Properly designed jobs or role profiles and having a good institutional work environment and culture is, therefore, expected to not only ensure job satisfaction by employees, but equally important, retaining those employees for institutional memory and expertise gained through experience. Bratton (2015, p.41) defines work as “physical and mental activity that is carried out to achieve something of value at a particular place and time; it involves a degree of obligation and explicit instructions in return for pay or reward.” This definition is, however, deemed inadequate as it ignores or fails to acknowledge other forms of work. For instance, a prisoner on parole who involuntarily wakes up every morning to go and sweep streets is not rewarded or remunerated for work done, but that work is a substitute punishment in lieu of custodial serving of his sentenced time. Voluntary work and parenting is also not covered in Bratton’s definition of work, among other omitted forms of work.

The Anti-Corruption Commission of Zambia (ACC) is charged with mandate to spearhead the fight against corruption under Chapter 91 of the Zambian Constitution of 1996, as amended by Constitution of Zambia (Amendment) Act No. 2 of 2016. To operationalise this constitutional mandate, ACC was established under Part II Section 4 of the Anti-Corruption Act No. 3 of 2012, CAP 91 of the Laws of Zambia. According to Anti-Corruption Act No. 3 of 2012, ACC has three functions that include Community Education, Corruption prevention and Investigations and Prosecution of offenders. In order to effectively execute this mandate, ACC employs the qualified staff that is further trained (inducted) in-house and externally upon being employed at great cost. ACC further remunerates its employees relatively well compared to the rest of the public service.

Identification of the Problems

Despite ACC remunerating its employees relatively well, retention of that staff has been a major setback to operations as employee turnover is high. The main reasons most employees resign for not-so-greener pastures are two-fold: Firstly, there are low opportunities for promotion within ACC due to the way ACC is structured, making it an abnormal common phenomenon for employees to remain in the same position for more than fifteen (15) years despite being performers. Secondly, limited staff rotation both in terms of horizontal equivalent positions and from one station to the other again resulting in employees over-staying in one station for more than ten (10) years in most cases, contrary to Recruitment and Retention Policy that provides for staff to be considered for transfer after two years of working at a given station. This is undesirable due to the nature of the work done. The usual reason advanced by Management for staff over-staying in stations is the huge cost involved to transfer an officer; most of which being Settling-in Allowance.

Analysis and Relevant Theory Application

According to McGregor and Doshi, (2015), University of Rochester professors Edward Deci and Richard Ryan differentiated six major reasons why people work, which include “play, purpose, potential, emotional pressure, economic pressure, and inertia.” Researchers have established that motives one to three tend to improve performance and that the latter three lower employee performance. Therefore, companies acclaimed for their good organisational cultures maximize play, purpose and potential and minimizing emotional/economic pressure and inertia. In emphasising on remuneration, which according to McGregor and Doshi (2015) falls under economic pressure and therefore considered an extrinsic motivator that impends employees’ productivity, ACC fails to appreciate why its employees work.