Job Motivation and Job Satisfaction - Research Paper Example

Performance Appraisals A process of assessing staffs behaviours and performance by comparing them with pre-set standards.

Accountability The willingness to accept responsibility

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background

Job motivation and job satisfaction have become universally accepted goals for organizations to improve employees individual performance. However, it remains unclear how the generalized findings apply to specific countries such as Afghanistan, where country-specific studies are limited, shallow, and out-dated. At the global front, researchers seem to agree in unison that job motivation leads to better employees performance since the motivation leads to job satisfaction (Springer, 2011, 29; Lan and Jian, 2016, 14; Stringer, Didham, and Theivananthampillai, 2011, 161). However, these studies represent the views of employees from different parts of the world. Therefore, they do not necessarily share a similar attitude towards monetary or non-monetary motivation schemes. In Afghanistan, efforts to rebuild the economy are on-going in the wake of tough economic and volatile security situation. As the international community seeks an exit strategy and allows Afghans to revive the ruined economy, the question of how well employees are motivated is of great importance. Therefore, there is a need for country-specific or sector-specific studies to determine the most applicable motivation schemes.

1.2 Afghanistan Microfinance Sector BackgroundThis study focuses on Afghanistans banking sector; specifically, the microfinance sector. Afghanistan banking and microfinance market volatile due to security situation deterioration, discontinuation of international donation/funds and outflow of investment from Afghanistan. Therefore, all the banks and microfinance institutions MFs want to be the leading banks or organization in this competitive market. To sustain in the market the MFIs regardless of size, technology and market focus the employee performance and productivity is the key for success and growth of any organization. In order to have constant progress and performance improvement, the organization must focus on staff motivation and satisfaction. On the other hand, different organizations consider developing and applying a diverse motivational system to motivate, attract and retain their top performing employees.

Specifically, the study focuses on the First Microfinance Bank Afghanistan (FMFB-A). The FMFB-A is a leading microfinance bank in Afghanistan serving more than 144,805 active customers (lending and depositor) in 39 branches, according to a recent report (MISFA, 2017, 11). The focus of this study is to understand what is the current motivational system used by FMFB-A as well as other microfinance institutions in Afghanistan and understand what would be the best staff motivator factor from employee and employer perspective in the microfinance industry.

FMFB-Afghanistan position in Afghanistans microfinance sector can be explained by comparing it with its competitors. For instance, FINCA-Afghanistan, Mutahid DFI, OXUS-Afghanistan serve 25,200, 17,556, and 22,262 customers respectively (MISFA, 2017, 11). Evidently, FMFB-A commands a far much larger customer base compared to its local competitors. A report by the Afghanistan Micro-finance Association (2017, 2) shows that FMFB-A ties with IIFC Group as the bank with the highest number provinces covered (14 provinces). In terms of branches, the bank enjoys the largest number of branches at 39. FMFB-A is the leading employer accommodating 1,088 micro-finance officers and 498 loan officers (Afghanistan Micro-finance Association, 2017, 2). It is worth noting that FMFB-As competitors such as FINCA Afghanistan, IIFC Group, and Mutahid operate as a group; therefore, their large staff numbers does not mean that they are ahead of FMFB-A. Regarding the performance, FMFB-A is the top lender, where its gross portfolio was AFN 5.648 billion.

In brief, FMFB-A is an excellent example of a microfinance institution that has succeed...