Standard Bank of Angola Work Motivation

An worldwide financial organization called the Standard Bank Angola offers small and medium-sized businesses, as well as both people and private individuals, banking and other financial services and products. Savings accounts, transactional services, offshore funds, term deposits, asset management, and fiduciary financial services are among the personal banking offerings. These accounts, transactional services, and products aren't just available to individuals; corporations and corporate enterprises can also use them.
The recent exchange and tax reforms that Angola has undergone can be credited for the country's economic growth, which is among the fastest at more than three percent. Moreover, the economy is believed to be an emerging market for investment as a result of improved financial management, enhanced fiscal policy, and conducive business environment (Standard Bank - Angola, 2017).
Standard Bank also involves itself in providing businesses with insurance solutions in the fields of corporate finance, liquidity management, international trade, and public liability or goods on transit. The bank discharges its role as a financier by providing long-term debt equity financing to enterprises, corporates, and other forms of businesses. Among the other innovative services and products, the company has offered project finance, management of money, and capital markets on behalf of their clients, trade and risk management services, project and asset finance products, and corporate advisory.
In addition, the Standard Bank since its formation in 1905, in Luanda, Angola has been part of the country's transformation agenda for obtaining better economy in the entire region. The inclusion contributes to the provision of investment advice, insurance cover, and debt capital to institutions and businesses with financial constraints (Standard Bank - Angola, 2017).
Just as any other entity, it has contributed to quite many employment opportunities in the country and the entire globe because it is an international corporation. Therefore, the human resources form the critical component and ingredient for the success of this bank. As such, the performance of employees directly gets related to the motivation level they have (Rama Devi & Nagini, 2014).
The highly motivated workforce will unleash their full potential hence become more productive in the long-run. Standard Bank has involved itself in several programs and activities that aim at ensuring that its staff is positively empowered and motivated to perform its duties as required to see the company achieves its objectives.
This assignment will hence lay the serious emphasis on the application of motivation theories in the Standard Bank of Angola. Throughout the paper, Herzberg's two-factor theory, transactional leadership, and Maslow's theory of needs shall be referred to make informed conclusions regarding the motivation situation at the bank. Interviews and surveys will form the basis for collecting data as several members of the staff and management will have to fill some questionnaires.
Literature Review
Analysis of Employee Motivation in Banking Sector
No organization can survive in the stringent competition in the markets in different sectors of the economy minus factoring in the inputs of employees. Therefore, the workforce forms a crucial component and asset for success. However, they can play the significant part in the failures of the company. The motivation of the workers hence serves a critical role in increasing job satisfaction among the employees. Research has proven that the staff will precipitate the satisfaction by helping improve the productivity and performance of the enterprise. The banking sector cannot get ignored when it comes to the conversation regarding the motivation factors making the workforce register positive results annually. According to Shalini Tomer, promotions, equal pay, working environment, and health benefits such as insurance primarily contribute to higher motivation levels in the sector (Lazaroiu, 2015).
Currently, banks across the entire globe have come up with innovative and creative ways of retaining top performing employees, for instance, both the private and public banks attract and retain employees through promising higher salaries, flexible working schedules, health benefits, and promotions on merit. On the same note, the Herzberg's two-factor motivational theory identifies two crucial factors: motivators and hygiene issues. The motivators include achievement, recognition, challenging work, opportunity or chance to advance, and a potential for personal growth and development. On the other hand, the hygiene factors deal with the things as procedures and processes, working conditions, administration, and pay (Ferris et.al, 2013).
With today's increased competition in the industry from the entry of new banks and other financial institutions offering almost similar products and services, the motivation of employees has emerged to be the best tool for enhancing workforce retention and attraction. Moreover, a motivated employee will extend quality services to the customers, and as much as the clients get satisfactory service, they will remain loyal to the bank. The bank's profitability will go up as a result of referrals by current consumers primarily because they believe their friends and family will get the same level of attention. Motivation is intrinsic, and, therefore, is regarded as a perception. Employees need to feel or perceive appreciated to give their best in entirely every process or engagement with the organization. That is why the Human Resource Management department comes up with plans which should ensure that an exceptional worker is identified, recognized and rewarded accordingly to feel motivated to continue with the best behavior (Parker, 2014).
Transactional Leadership Theories
A transactional leader is one who believes in the motivation of the staff through reward and punishment in the sense that good deeds and obedience gets prize. The workers ought to strictly obey the leader's or manager's instructions without questioning, and the manager uses his power and authority to instill discipline and influence performance within the company.
The exchange between managers and subjects in most instances can assume four dimensions, laissez-faire, passive and active management by exception, and contingent reward system. In most cases, transactional leadership style can be effective when the organization wants the employees to follow certain directives to ensure they achieve efficiency. The manager provides all the requisite conditions and resources for the completion of a particular task (Belias & Koustelios, 2014; Mitchell, 2013).
Employees and companies set goals and objectives that they need to achieve and therefore, they ought to be measurable, specific, relevant and timely (SMART). Typically, when the staff meets or performs according to the expectations of the leader or management, the leader does not only reward the doings but recognizes the particular employee (Lazaroiu, 2015).
Besides, the reward offered to the workers gives him or her extra motivation to adjust his behavior towards better performance to continue getting the rewards. The punishment and reward system influences the employee performance so that he or she can help the entity arrive at its goals (Lazaroiu, 2015).
For instance, the sanctions compel the workers to perform or work within the set guidelines to accomplish tasks assigned to them. The rewards earned by staff accrue from them conforming to certain sanctions set aside. Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory provides a practical example how transactional leaders get more concerned with procedures than creative ideas. According to this theory, employees who do not meet targets often get suspended or expelled (Yusoff, Kian, & Idris, 2013).
The banking sector gets characterized with stringent targets or objectives that have to be achieved by the staff. And when performance falls below the set limit, the management has the option of critically looking at individual employee behavior and recommending contingent punishment to get necessary corrections (Ferris et al., 2013).
Herzberg's Two-Factor Motivational Theory
According to Herzberg, there are two major factors at the workplace that can encourage or discourage employees from displaying the best of behavior. The theory came to be known as the two-factor because it suggested that motivation got nurtured by the provision of both hygiene and motivation factors. In fact, Herzberg based his argument of better performance through the satisfaction of the job by the workers. Employers are encouraged by their responsibility to give the workers the best environment to perform (Yusoff, Kian, & Idris, 2013).
The organizations cannot ignore the input of employees because without them the various businesses will not register those successful and high profitability margins from financial year to another. Such individuals in the workplace expect the employers to facilitate the achievement of greater physiological needs such as better working conditions, recognition and rewarding of good performance, advancement, and responsibility. Herzberg is in agreement with what Maslow has proposed regarding the encouragement of organizational staff in the workplace. The theorists suggest that some factors lead to higher motivation while others result in the dissatisfaction of the workers in the job place. Motivation is intrinsic and therefore, regarded as a perception. Employees need to feel or perceive appreciated to give their best in entirely every process or engagement with the organization (Mitchell, 2013).
Accordingly, Herzberg grouped those traits that lead a motivated or satisfied behavior as motivational while those dissatisfactory hygiene factors. Dissatisfaction and satisfaction neither supersede each other nor occur in a relationship whereby one increases as the other diminishes but take an entirely independent association. Therefore, an organization that needs to improve productivity has to take care of both factors and should never assume that increasing satisfaction will eventually lead to diminished dissatisfaction (Alshmemri, Shahwan-Akl, & Maude, 2017).
The motivators that top management needs to develop and capitalize on include things as designing challenging work, responsibility, the chance to perform useful contribution, recognition, and personal growth. The businesses should not create or assign to employees tasks that are too challenging to accomplish because they can as well demotivate them from attaining their targets.
Decision-making can be considered as insignificant, but it can play a huge role in engaging the employees in the processes and operations of the company. When the workers get involved in deciding what affect them, making policies, and regulations, it gives the sense of shared responsibility. Moreover, the management can hold such individuals accountable for every action they take hence moving towards productivity and profitability (Aryee, Walumbwa, Mondejar, & Chu, 2015).
Multinationals and several other corporations realize the essence of recognizing and rewarding good performance. In fact, through getting to recognize the work done by a particular member of the staff and congratulating he or she is enough to encourage him or her continuing to work exceptionally harder next. Even those who do not receive a price in current periods will be inspired to adjust and improve on their weaknesses to become productive. Additionally, the perception of positive personal growth on the staff members to contributes to better achievement (Ganta, 2014).
On the other hand, hygiene factors according to Herzberg encompass those traits that contribute to dissatisfaction in the workplace. Such features include: paid benefits, for instance, insurance, better pay, improved work conditions, attractive salaries, job security, and status. These factors do not contribute to the higher level of satisfaction, but their absence results in the highest level of dissatisfaction to the concerned workers. It has become evident that more organizations in various sectors of the economy have taken the issue of bettering hygiene factors seriously (Ganta, 2014).
The characteristics are called hygiene because they complement motivators in improving employee motivation, in a nutshell, referred to as maintenance. In fact, the factors emanate from the policies put in place by the company administration, practices of supervisors and managers, and sometimes payment. Already many employers have embarked on decreasing dissatisfaction in the job place giving reasonable salary and wages. More importantly, the workers need an assurance of continued service, job security, as commonly referred (Ganta, 2014).
However, there are several ways in which companies guarantee the safety of the staff members. For instance, they can offer scholarships and sponsorships for the further studies to improve skills and knowledge. The extra skills garnered help the human resources remain relevant within the work environment (Alshmemri et al., 2017).
Apart from job security, the employees also need a promise from the management about the betterment of the working conditions, safety, and health issues. In the past, companies have not been providing insurance cover to members of their staff leaving injured persons to find own means to get medical care. However, it has changed in the sense that several firms across the globe have entered into insurance contracts to ensure their employees get the best treatment. Such measures have increased the rates of attraction and retention of top talents in big corporations. The management does not need to do so much to demonstrate attempts to motivate workers but can as little as removing health hazards from the workplace, for instance, the case of the construction industry (Ganta, 2014).
The employees also deserve a calm state of mind free from stress and emotional challenges. Weak emotional strength has the potential to affect judgements hence contributing to the commission of errors which can cost the organization negatively. By ensuring that the members of the staff are in the right mental, the physical and emotional state is a step towards achieving higher levels of productivity. Indeed, some institutions have taken an extra step of forming counselling departments which take identify and advice depressed and distressed employees and help them regain stability (Alshmemri et al., 2017).
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Theory
According to the theory, people strive to meet primary wants because they have to satisfy higher requirements in the form of hierarchy successfully. Additionally, motivation gets directed at attaining more challenging goals. However, according to Abraham, a particular action can lead to the satisfaction of more than one need along the hierarchy.
When an employee gets rewarded, he feels confident, respected, appreciated and achieved his goals (Cao et al., 2013). On the other hand, self-actualization entails having the potential to problem-solving, creativity, innovation, and morality of which contribute to the recognition of a given employee (Aryee et.al, 2015).

Figure 1. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
The diagram represents the five needs identified by Maslow in the pyramid form. It begins with the primary ones at the bottom and includes physiological, safety, belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. Failure to fulfil the first four needs contributes to low motivation in the individual hence reduced productivity and profitability for the overall organization.
However, none of the goals can become considered less important because each plays a role in every condition or situation. For instance, in the workplace, safety and health become predominant when there are emergencies, and therefore when the employees feel this level has not been met, they may go to streets demanding for balance. Therefore, motivation is a result or a consequence of unbiased satisfaction of the ranked wants (Niemela & Kim, 2014).
Expectancy Theory
The theory was put forward by Vroom who further argued that behaviorwas the direct consequence of making choices whose primary intention was to optimize pleasure and benefits. It can, therefore, become assumed that the performance a particular worker comes out of personal characteristics such as abilities, experience, knowledge, skills and personality. Motivation within the person links performance and effort he or she puts to realize certain targets (Yeheyis, Reza, Hewage, Ruwanpura., & Sadiq, 2016).
However, there is one critical component of the theory; expectancy is defined as the perception that hard work will always inspire better results. Well, expectancy is influenced by the possession of essential resources including raw materials and time, proper skills, and support to perform an assigned task. And this can explain why most institutions have invested a lot in improving competence and knowledge levels of their personnel (Yeheyis et.al, 2016).
Additionally, at least every organization applies modern technology in entirely every aspect of its operations. For example, the use of computers in the office has revolutionized how employees pass around information hence increasing efficiency in the workplace (Yeheyis et.al, 2016).
Further, performance gets inspired by the expectation of receiving a reward in return for such a good show. Ideally, one outcome should lead to the attainment of the other. To a broader sense, employees believe and understand the rules of reward, as in, an exemplary performance gets an award while poor behavior gets rebuked or punished. The managers put much trust on their subordinates and presume the former will not question their judgement but follow. However, structures are developed to ensure that the process of determining who wins a price is transparent and more importantly fair (Hameed, Ramzan, & Zubair, 2014).
Job Satisfaction
Job satisfaction is another significant determinant of motivation in the sense that it measures the level of contentment an employee perceives to receive from performing a certain task. Satisfaction can thus come in several forms including having the feeling of security on the employment opportunity, and also when the organization undertakes to take care of the spiritual needs of the employees (Guillén, Ferrero & Hoffman, 2015). For instance, if the worker can get an assurance of staying longer in the organization without a threat of firing any sooner, he or she will get satisfied. Through the satisfaction, the employee will give his or her best in serving customer needs.
People have associated job satisfaction with salary increment, empowerment, personal growth, company administration, and even the general working conditions (Parker, 2014). To some extent, it can be true in the case of offering salary increments to attract and retain talent within the organization. Other employees have to feel secure from the provision of better working conditions. The variations on which factors give the best motivation explain why job satisfaction is considered as an emotional behavior (Wojtaszek, 2016).
It begins with the perception of the various forms and features of an employee's work and even the environment. In a broader sense, employment satisfaction can provide greater effect on the lives of most workers including the social, mental, and physical health. Job satisfaction can further get connected with life satisfaction in that one who has achieved a balance between the demands of his job will tend to be happier (Parker, 2014).
Displeased workforce will have a lower retention rate and are likely to cause labor unrests as well as being less productive. However, profoundly happy staff will become more productive, have a greater retention rate, hence the recommendation for organizations to emphasize methods that empower the employees to become significantly satisfied with their work (Khan, Shahid, Nawab & Wali, 2013).
The Role of Leaders in Employee Motivation
The leader usually plays a significant part in ensuring that workers perform at the highest level and remain motivated as they deliver service to the organization. The managers should become a source of positive energy for their subjects for a simple reason: these same people have stood with them in difficult and happy times to make sure that the company remains on course. There is no need of scolding and taking out the passion and desire to continue working hard from the staff members (Khan et al., 2013).
Great leaders always would want to take time to reflect on situations, exercise, eat healthy food to maintain their physical, mental and emotional strength. It is through a clear mind that a leader can argue out, think and come up with the best solutions for every problem that may arise in the organization. The leader is a symbol of direction for every entity, and therefore, each member of the team expects them to make decisions that focus on achieving greater heights as far as organizational goals are concerned. As a consequence, an efficient leader should always help employees resolve their problems in a peaceful way because conflicts affect the productivity of the same workers and can lead to low profitability (Maruping & Magni, 2015; Niemela & Kim, 2014).
As a matter of fact, there is no single business that can claim to be more important than the people associated with it, especially the customers and employees. The interests of these two groups of individuals should ever be at the forefront of the company and its leadership. Consumers use the services and products of the firm creating demand for them, and hence the enterprise exists to satisfy their demands. The workers are paid for running production activities to supply the clients with great merchandise that satisfies the insatiable human wants and needs. The leader is hence in best position to motivate his subordinates to adopt a positive behavior which eventually increases their productivity and the company's success as a whole. Again it is an issue of perception that the staff members will perceive the leaders value and care about them if the management prioritizes their problems (Lee, Lee, & Hwang, 2015).
Leadership is an institution that every employee identifies themselves with and therefore integrity is demanded for all leaders. Take, for instance, a case whereby a manager gets involved in scandalous endeavors such as corruption, fraud, theft, and even sexual harassment of their colleagues, a wrong image about the whole organization is painted. The effect such circumstances have on the employees is demotivation and shame. However, a leader who acts honestly and appropriately, no matter whether it is in a private or public institution, gives his juniors and subordinates a sense of pride and, hence, motivation. In most cases, staff members follow closely what their superiors do and how they behave thus every manager ought to act in a responsible manner (Maruping & Magni, 2015).
Given that leadership is always about influencing others to follow your lead, there is need for the leader to have proper communication skills. Obviously, excellent communication skills will set an exceptional leader apart from the rest. Such a person will always get their message delivered to the subordinates clearly and precisely. In most cases, workers fail to accomplish certain tasks due to poor communication channels used to pass that information around. Application of better techniques of communicating in the organization will ensure that audience receives the message as intended, hence a higher productivity will be achieved (Lee, Lee, & Hwang, 2015).
Many managers misinterpret the role of a leader in the organization to be that of being heard by employees. However, great listeners do make very effective leaders because they take their time to keenly give an ear to their members of the staff. Additionally, through listening, the manager will perceive what is affecting the performance of the troubled worker. In both bad and good times, the staff needs someone to talk to and share challenges affecting them that ought to be a figure of responsibility. Allowing oneself to attend to employees who would want to speak to their supervisor get some sense of friendship and hence motivated (Khan et al., 2013).
Good leaders fundamentally need to lead through experience and competence and never attach leadership to position or title. Such a leader will always provide mentorship to his subordinates, colleagues, and partners. Surely, the organization can benefit a lot from such kind of leadership including overcoming difficult challenges. A leader is always believed to know everything, and therefore, coming out clearly to demonstrate they can also accomplish certain tasks and activities which are generally considered to be challenging (Rama Devi & Nagini, 2014).
Impact of Motivation on Employees' Productivity in the Banking Industry
Provision of incentives, good pay, better working conditions, chances for training, and provision of modest accommodation work for the best interests of the employees and the company or bank. The workers benefit from job satisfaction which has way enormous positive implications in determining the health of their lives.
Additionally, when the employees have the highest level of satisfaction, they will be fit mentally, physically, and socially. On the other hand, motivating the workforce helps the organization reap optimally from the potentials of hardworking employees (Khan et al., 2013). It is tested and proven that satisfied human resources will exhibit and display their best in increasing organizational productivity and profitability. However, the magnitude of the impact depends on the extent to which the motivation meets the individual needs of every bank worker (Grigoroudis, Tsitsiridi, & Zopounidis, 2013).
The management often fails to recognize that motivation can be both positive and negative depending on whether it is directed at the right direction. Therefore, corporations should ensure where they are applying motivators is where they are needed much rather than subjecting them to any area because doing so will not give the expected results. In fact, studies can attest that employees require a better environment for them to advance educationally and better career skills.
Others expect the company to give them salary increments, recognition, promotion and retirement benefits so that they can feel well appreciated. In so speaking, the banks should continue to monitor the impact their approaches have been making on the staff and hence matching every motivational factor with employee expectations (Guillén, Ferrero & Hoffman, 2015; Lee, Lee, & Hwang, 2015).
Identification of the employee expectations and linking them with motivators alone cannot adequately motivate the workforce. It is also important to prepare a set of tools for driving each group of employees within the organization. For instance, the managers and executives can get impacted by the accordance of individual motivating factors such as promotions, share ownerships plans, and bonus compensation. However, the other ranks have a set of preferences hey regard motivators that have to become designed for example increased pay, recognition and reward for exemplary performance, insurance and retirement benefits, and scholarships to further educational studies (Grigoroudis et al., 2013).
In developing and developed economies, the techniques for motivating the employees vary due to differentials in the standards of living. And therefore, these techniques get divided into two primary categories namely, financial and non-financial (Jansen & Samuel, 2014). When referring to financial incentives, many people would define them in monetary terms and under this category, compensation-motivated benefits including remunerations, leave, and business allowances.
Moreover, financial motivation system is found to work better in developing economies as a result of reduced or even low quality of living standards. In most occasions, emerging economies get faced with the problem of high inflation rates, and therefore people demand higher compensation to be able to improve their purchasing power (Lazaroiu, 2015).
On the other hand, nonfinancial incentives contribute to personal satisfaction to the individual employee. The employees get an inner joy which cannot be quantified in financial metrics but very essential in helping the workers improve productivity and profitability. These motivators include job enrichment, prestige, praise, recognition, additional responsibility, and job security.
Moreover, ensuring that the employees get involved in most of the decision-making processes can be a motivator itself because they will feel part of the bigger group. Furthermore, they will respect the decisions made in the sense that they contributed in formulating them. Either monetary or non-monetary metrics have to be facilitated by the company especially by equipping the employees before they got assigned a contract (Grigoroudis et al., 2013).
Banks and other organizations realize that there should be an equitable balance between the worker's contribution to the entity and the entity's contribution to the employee. Therefore, rewarding the workers has become a popular means for companies maintain this balance. Moreover, rewarding can take the perspective of recognition of benefits and compensation for work performed.
The various research and studies that have been conducted reveal that despite the amount of compensation an employee gets, the performance is still down because of failure to realize the most important component of the system. The primary objective of recognition is to ensure that the staff feels valued and appreciated (Strauss & Parker, 2014).
Identification of employees who have performed perfectly well their self-esteem, willingness, and confidence will be boosted to face challenges that come on their way and hence register innovativeness. As a result, the reward system has the sole purpose of ensuring that the staff members get motivated to come to work every day and commit themselves towards the achievement of set goals and objectives.
There is also an important factor that we should take note of organizations expect more than following of regulations, rules, and ethics set forward by the management. Instead, the workers need to continue acquiring new skills and knowledge, manage themselves, and take the initiative to respond business needs (Wang & Hou, 2015).
Methodology
The research will employ the use of primary and secondary methods of the collection of adequate data that will be used to determine the level of motivation in the Standard Bank of Angola and the application of the theories of motivation to the same effect. Therefore, questionnaires and interviews have been majorly employed in the collection of required information to make conclusions. Both the employees and the managers have already gotten approached to fill the questionnaires and others got interviewed at a time of their convenience (Wang & Hou, 2015).

Research Design
The study will employ primary data collection techniques including interviews and filling of questionnaires. The choice of these two methods is primarily due to the number of benefits they give the researcher apart from getting the opportunity to verify the accuracy of the information provided by respondents. The study adopted the use of interviews because the method helps in gathering relevant data for the particular purpose of the survey. For instance, the project is about determining the role of motivation in the performance of employees in Standard Bank of Angola (Wang & Hou, 2015).
Questionnaires and interviews are relevant in this study in the sense that they possess the capacity to collect and obtain information which is up to date as possible as compared to secondary sources. Apart from the questionnaires and in interviews, the research will as well employ surveys. Secondary sources like the online resources will as well provide a rich source of information for the completion of the study (Wang & Hou, 2015).
Interviews are considered to be the most reliable primary data collection technique in the sense that the interviewer has greater autonomy and flexibility to observe the spontaneous reactions exhibited by the interviewee for objectivity purposes. The interview will also be tailored to the language of the respondents to avoid misinterpretations...