Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to assess the role of motivation on employees’ job performance in some selected public sectors of Debre Birhan Town Administration, Ethiopia. The study utilized descriptive and correlational research design in order to assess the factors and strategies of employees motivation and finally to investigate the relationship between motivation and employee job performance. The target population of this study was 544 and sample size of 161 from 8 public sectors. The data was collected using self-prepared semi structured questionnaire as a research instrument with the help of Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS version 20).
From the findings of the study, 56.77% participants ranked development opportunities as the most important type of recognition and 36.84% of the respondents’ ranked beneficial loans as the most important type of reward while 29.11% participants ranked promotion and growth as the most important motivational factor for employees. According to the results of the study, training and development programs, employees recognition, monetary incentives mechanisms, employees reward systems and promotion to higher positions are some of the motivational systems employed in public organizations. However, quite large number of employees (69%) responded that the level of implementations of the available motivational strategies could be regarded as poor, and further complicated by lack of logistics. The outcome of the results in the case of the selected public sectors attested to the fact that, using the Pearson’s coefficient, motivation is positively correlated to work performance as indicated in the research findings. Therefore, it is recommended that public sector leaders have to take note of the various motivational strategies assessed in the study so as to improve employees’ job performance.
