2 Chapter 1 The Problem and It`s Background

1.1 Introduction

Attitudes are the feelings and beliefs that largely determine how employees will perceive their environment, commit themselves to intended actions and ultimately behave. Attitudes form a mental set that affects how we view something else. It has an impact on how we view and judge our surroundings at work. Managers of organizational behavior are vitally interested in the nature of the attitudes of their employees toward their jobs, toward their careers, and toward the organization itself. Work attitudes of the employees are most important to achieve the individual and organizational objectives through their performance. All organizations are concerned with what should be done to achieve sustained high levels of performance through people. (Armstrong, 2001, p.155) Hence the present study is intended on work attitudes, motivation, and its relationship to job and employee performance. Attitude towards works are the feelings we have toward different aspects of the work environment (Carpeteret al, 2009). According to him, there are some element which influencing the attitude towards works, namely personality, person-environment fit, job characteristics, psychological contract, organizational justice, work relationship, and stress. Arguments that support attitude towards works cause performance usually refer to the functions of attitudes as guidelines and facilitators of behavior.

3 Rollinson (2005, pp.189) defines that: Motivation is a state arising in processes that are internal and external to the individual, in which the person perceives that it is appropriate to pursue a certain course of actions directed at achieving a specified outcomes and in which the person chooses to pursue those outcomes with a degree of vigor and persistence. Similarly, it is also defined as a predisposition to behave in a purposive manner to achieve specific, unmet needs (Buford, Bedeian, & Lindner, 1995). In psychology, motivation is usually employed to explain peoples behaviors(Rollinson, 2005), for instance, why a person behaves this way or that way? Generally speaking, direction of behavior mainly refers to what a person most desires to do and what their objectives are when doing something. Then, intensity of behaviors equates to how much efforts they would like to make or how hard they are going to try in that direction. Last but not the least, persistence of behaviors refers to peoples abilities to bear difficulties and the extent to which people could keep doing in that direction.

1.2 Theoretical framework Accomplishing respective tasks is the management requires for employees to perform where motivation, as one of the managerial processes plays an important role. Because of motivations role in influencing workplace behavior and performance, its key for organizations to understand and to structure the work environment to encourage productive behaviors and discourage those that are unproductive. Motivation is not simply something that prompts a person to act it is more than that, which is being interpreted by modern managers, in the sense of creating a work of environment that can elicit the best effort from the employees. This present study will treat motivation as an object lesson.

4 Frederick Herzbergs principle of motivators and hygiene factors can provide insights into employee performance- in this case the office workers may serve as an eye opener for the management- specifically for a better understanding on how to motivate and equally important how not to motivate employees. Uris supplies the rationale needed in the study that in recent years, behavioral scientists have learned more about the attitudes of people at work, and their findings have led to what maybe called the internal incentive approach. Herzberg developed the idea that two sets of conditions affect a man at work. He calls a one set as Motivators, the other as Hygiene factors. The first group as positive has the power to satisfy an employee. The second group is negative, can dissatisfy, or demotivate. The motivators refer to the work itself, achievement, recognition, responsibility, advancement. On the other hand, the hygiene factor consists of company policy and administration, supervision, salary, interpersonal relationship, and working conditions. In other words, the motivators denote a worker does while hygiene factors describe in which she does the job. Whether or not this motivators and hygiene factors directly contribute to job performance, the present study intends to find out. For the purpose of the study, the (3) general levels of performance by Kohn are as follows: The first is average performance, which maybe below the individuals capabilities is acceptable to management. This is the well-known concept of a fair days work for a fair days pay.

5 The second level is poor performance, which occurs when the hygiene factors are inadequate. The worker feels he is not being paid a wage that consummated with his abilities and reduce his performance to a level he thinks is sufficient in terms of his own standard of justice fairness. The third level is good performance, which can only be achieved by providing opportunities to experience the motivators and not by increasing the amount or degree of maintenance factors. The perception of what is being observed are categorized into a choice of: strongly agree (SA), agree (A), disagree (D), and strongly disagree (DA) with some questions about their attitudes toward work. Those are equivalents to SA=1, A=2, D=3 and SD=4. Those are computed to determine the levels of the agreement and disagreement. Davis and Newstrom point out that employees attitude toward work are important to monitor, understand and manage. They developed as consequence of feelings of equity or inequity and the reward system as well as from the management treatment. Those work attitudes involve and consider three types: job satisfaction, employee involvement and organizational commitment.

6 1.3 Conceptual Framework

Independent

Dependent

Attitudes Towards Work

Motivating Factors
Sense of responsibility Feeling of achievement The job itself Expectation for recognition Need for advancement

JOB PERFORMANCE

Hygiene Factors
Interpersonal relationships Working condition Policy and administration Supervision

7 1.4 Statement of the problem The study has for its objective to analyze the attitudes towards work and its relationship to job performance of office workers in

Specifically, answers are sought based on the following queries:

1. What is the profile of the respondents in terms of the following circumstances:

a) Age; c) Civil Status; e) School Graduated from; g) Salary Range.

b) Gender; d) Highest Educational Attainment; f) Years of experience;

2. How do the respondents perceive their attitude towards work based on:

a) Motivating factors.

b) Hygiene factors.

3. What is the level of the respondents Job Performance based on their performance during 2013?

4. Is there a significant relationship between the respondents Job Performance & their Attitude towards work based on:

a) Motivating factors;

b) Hygiene factors

8 1.5 Null Hypotheses The following statements are formulated as hypotheses to direct the problems towards the objective of the research. 1. There is no significant relationship in terms of personnel circumstances in the profile of office workers at Mead Johnson Nutrition. 2. The levels of agreement and disagreement of Mead Johnson Nutritions office workers do not significantly differ along: a. Motivators, and b. Hygiene factors 3. The attitudes toward work of office workers at Mead Johnson do not have significant relationship on their performance.

1.6 Scope and Limitation The purpose of this study is to explore and figure out what are the most important motivation factors and to analyze the relationship of attitudes towards work and how will it affect the employees performance.

9 1.7 Significance of the study

The performance of a worker depends on a number of factors, there are, however, conditions that affect favorably or adversely any job performance, one of the factor in producing a work situations contributing to a level of performance is Attitudes towards work. This factor relates to the individuals performance on the job, and the satisfaction he or she derives both from his or her performance and the recognition he/she obtains from others when he/she performs well. However, the motivators and Hygiene factors developed by Herzberg are adapted to work performance of office workers of a private institution in Paranaque City, i.e.MyPhone Corp. Hopefully, this study could offer a number of well-meaning contributions to different sectors. Employees and executives who employs and planning to hire office workers would be provided more insight into how to motivate as well as when not to motivate them with the objective of drawing good performance their employees or subordinates as well. Office workers and other employees could learn more in details what are the factors that really motivates and the elements that serves to demotivate In their performance

10 1.8 Definition of Terms

Motivation- it is the innate drive by which employees are inspired to work effectively and achieve the goals of the organization Motivational Factors- conditions that tend to motivate workers when they exist, but their absence rarely is strongly dissatisfying Performance- contributions that employees make to the goals of the organization Hygiene Factors- this applies to a set of job conditions which operates primarily to dissatisfy employees when the conditions are absent, but their presence does not motivate employees in a strong way. Many of these factors are traditionally perceived by management as motivators, but the factors are rarely more potent as dissatisfiers. Job Satisfaction- the pleasurable or positive emotional reaction to a persons job experiences Behavior- functions of the person and their environment. At times, one or the other predominates, but most behavior is influence by both. Fringe benefits- these refer to the supplemental benefits which employees receive, aside from their direct wages or incentive pay. These included Christmas bonus, SSS, Medicare, GSIS, vacation leave, sick leave, emergency loan, 13th month pay, security for old age, accident, and sickness benefits. Work attitudes- according to Newstrom and Davis (1997), work attitude are feelings and beliefs that largely determine how employees will perceive their environment, commit themselves to intended actions and ultimately behave.