Revisiting incentives and job satisfaction of Nigerian bank employees

Abstract

Incentives are external factors which an employee perceives whether rightly or wrongly as possible satisfiers of his felt needs. Incentives tend to hold some value propositions to an employee which persuades him to allocate particular behaviours to different circumstances. The main aim of this study was to understand how the different incentive elements impact upon Nigerian bank employees. The significance of this cannot be underestimated given that the Nigerian banking sector has undergone a series of revamps. The utility of a quantitative approach was evident in this study given its capacity to analyse data from a large population and its closeness to studies pertaining to incentives and job satisfaction. A total of 200 subjects from four banks participated in this study. These subjects hold qualifications which range from honours to masters degree. They hold positions that range from customer service officers to senior managers. For ethical reasons, these banks will not be disclosed. To maintain non-disclosure, the banks are represented as Bank A, B, C and D. Out of the 200 participants, 90 of the subjects were females representing 45% of the total sample while 110 were males representing 55% of the total sample. An 18 item scale drawn from Ugwuegbu’s (1981) 25 item job satisfaction scale was utilised. The scale was divided into 2 main sections namely A and B. Section A contains demographic or personal data of the subjects while section B deals with job satisfaction variables. Utilising a series of testing methods, the study found significant differences in the levels of job satisfaction of bank employees amongst different banks and different demographics.