Employee Motivation and Job Satisfaction in a Bank

Introduction

This research is on the effects of employee motivation and job satisfaction to CIMB Bank Berhdad. CIMB Group is the second largest in terms of providing financial services in Malaysia, and is one of the leading banking groups in Southeast Asia today. Listed in the Malysian stock exchange since 1987 the company was formerly known as Bumiputra-Commerce Holdings Berhad.

The CIMB Group became the third largest company listed on the Malaysian stock exchange on November 20, 2009. During this time its market capitalisation was listed at about a RM46.6 billion, and it also has substantial investments in Indonesia and Thailand with its Bank CIMB Niaga and the CIMB Thai.

The CIMB group gives financial products and services which spans different areas in the banking industry. The company does business through its three corporate entities which are the CIMB bank, its investment arm CIMB Investment and an Islamic bank CIMB Islamic.

The company provides services to a very diverse customer base. It actually serves everyone from large corporations in the region, local companies, small entrepreneurs, individuals with high profitability, and it even has savings programs concerning pensions for old people and savings accounts for children.

CIMB group is a big company that employs 36,000 banking staff and employees. As an indicator of success CIMB group’s earnings amounts to 80% of the gross domestic product of the whole ASEAN region and its operations services about 58% of the population in the region. Its retail banking operations have expanded to 1,150 branches making it the largest banking company operating in the region.

Problem Statement

This research on CIMB BANK BERHAD will identify the factors that affect the motivation and job satisfaction of employees in CIMB BANK BERHAD. This research also seeks to identify the strategies use to ensure employee motivation and job satisfaction and what is its effects.

Objectives of the research

These objectives pay attention to the problems and objectives that are selected to clarify the intended information and also be able to derive specific information that are not limited by the previous questions.

This study intended to get the suitable data to help in building the proper assessment. This includes:

1. To determine methods that CIMB BANK BERHAD practice to inspire or motivate their employees.
2. To determine the accomplished strategies by CIMB BANK BERHAD in giving job satisfaction to their employees.
3. To create an appropriate solution for CIMB BANK BERHAD problems.

Scope of the Study

The scope of the study is relied on the employees of CIMB BANK BERHAD. This focuses on determine which factors create desirable influence to their employees towards satisfaction. And to know what factors of independent variables that could have the greatest impact on employees satisfaction.-studying the factors that lead to employees loyal with CIMB BANK

Significance of the Study

This research was created to comprehend the significant factors of employees’ fulfillment to enable efficiency, quality, service, and loyalty to CIMB BANK.

Definition of Terms

Job Satisfaction

Employee Motivation

Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

Research Hypothesis

Hypothesis 1

H1: This study shows that adequate salary or monetary income plays a major role in allowing employees to be satisfied in their jobs.

H0: There is no significant relationship between salary and job satisfaction

Hypothesis 2

H1: This study shows that work recognition plays a role to have a sense of importance and motivates employees to work diligently.

H0: There is no significant relationship between work recognition and job satisfaction.

Hypothesis 3

H1: This study shows giving professional growth to employees such as trainings, seminars, etc. allows employees to have mental growth which they apply to their daily duties as employees.

H0: There is no significant relationship between professional growth to employee’s creativity and development.

Literary Review

Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory

Frederick Herzberg’s two factor motivation hygiene theory categorizes incentives as being either hygiene factors or motivators. Hygiene factors are potentially dissatisfiers’”factors associated with the job itself but not intrinsic to it. These factors such as salary, job security, administration, interpersonal relations, if not adequate could operate to dissatisfy someone but would not necessarily motivate someone when adequate. On the other hand, motivator-factors are directly intrinsic to the job itself and critical in the process of doing the job, including sense of achievement and recognition by colleagues, level of felt responsibility and empowerment are keys to real motivation (Herzberg, 1959).

What is essential to understanding this concept is the distinction made between a motivator and a satisfier. A satisfier is that factor which, when fulfilled, is enough to get the employee to come to work at all. On the upper end, a motivator is that which actively drives the employee to go beyond the minimum standard of simply showing up. Herzberg promoted such concepts as Job Enrichment, Job Enlargement, and Job Rotation as potential motivators that worked well for those operating at the higher levels of Maslow’s need hierarchy. It is important to keep in mind that once an individual has thoroughly pursued a motivator, it is likely to become a hygiene factor, and the search for motivating factors continues.

Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory According to Herzberg, factors causing work satisfaction (motivators) are rather in connection with the content of work, while those causing dissatisfaction (hygiene) are in connection with work environment. Good examples of the first factors are taking responsibility, career advancement, recognition and the possibility to develop (achievement), while salary, status, inter-personal relations, company policy and administration as well as work conditions are examples of factors of dissatisfaction

Hull and Read confirm that quality relationships, that key factor in excellence, are dependent on high levels of trust. Yet building trust is a major challenge for many Australian organisations. Research suggests that a ‘trust deficit’ has emerged. A loss of trust can be devastating to organisational performance. When people no longer have confidence in management, productivity falls, turnover rises, gossip spreads, cynicism sets in, and initiative evaporates. But trust is a long term proposition, the result of countless management decisions made over a long period that help employees feel secure about their own and the organisation’s future.

Like confidence in the quality of our graduates it can be lost in an instant yet take years to regain. Hull and Read suggest that workplace trust has two dimensions ‘“ our views of ourselves (self worth) and our views of others. Hull and Read believe these were sustained in their research. Hull and Read interviewed hundreds of employees at all levels of the selected organizations. From this one central factor emerged ‘“ the quality of relationships at work, which concretely manifests itself in the bond between co-workers, friends and colleagues.

They note that there is a relationship between excellent workplaces and how this is shaped by the trust and respect among the employees. But building and maintaining a good working relationship is not easy and it requires cultivating a long lasting connection between the one supervising the group and the group’s members. In examining research from the Australian Quality Agency the authors noted that Australian workplace cultures, in their focus on people, differed from other cultures.

High quality workplace relationships were, in turn, supported by a number of other factors. Four factors were particularly important. The first was the quality of leadership. In excellent workplaces leaders “at all levels were aware of the impact that their behaviour has on the way people feel about the workplace and their job.” They recognise that their behaviour sets the example. Leaders who behaved as a captain/coach were particularly valued. These leaders were available — providing support when needed but ‘not getting in the way’ when they were not. Good leaders choose their approach to suit the different needs of their staff, helping out when there was a crisis and allowing trial and learning when there was not.

This is in keeping with Australia’s egalitarian ethos “supervisors in excellent workplaces often choose not to display the trappings of their position.” Most importantly they inspired trust. The research demonstrated, too, that essential to quality leadership is the communication of clear values that become intrinsic to the way business is done. They “influenced the way people related to each other thereby in turn helping to generate the quality working relationships”. In this environment the inevitable dilemmas, conflicts and competing priorities can be immediately and openly discussed.

In excellent workplaces managers “really do practice what they preach”. Excellent workplaces, too, are marked by a sense of common goals and objectives where workers support each other and show respect for one another. People have the skills to do their jobs and seek to develop these skills further.

They have the confidence to have a say about how the work is done. They are encouraged by a management style that is open to new and different ways of working and values diversity. This is not seen as a way to exercise power but rather to ‘add value’. People are encouraged to operate with some autonomy. Of course some managers feel uncomfortable with giving their employees a high degree of independence but it is a feature of excellent workplaces. Excellent workplaces are also safe workplaces, where people care for the well being of their colleagues and are committed to safe practices ‘“ not just formal policies and manuals.

In such environments a culture of safety, including the psychological safety of a respectful workplace, develops that all staff are able to share. None of these factors operates in isolation. Together they build a culture that further enhances the quality of working relationships. The research suggests that excellent workplaces must have all fifteen ‘drivers’ present although they combine in unique ways. There is a form of hierarchy with one set of factors building upon.

Adult learners are often characterized as learning-oriented and goal-oriented. Based on the results of this study, these characteristics seemed to be related to the satisfaction-dissatisfaction profiles of e-learners. The most frequently stated satisfying factors were learning-oriented factors such as interesting and relevant learning content, effective teaching methods, instructor’s expertise, and effective learning activities; and the most frequently stated dissatisfying factors were goal-related factors such as unclear directions or expectations that caused confusion or frustration while trying to accomplish their goals.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Current risk organization theory and standards have the same opinion that risk and taking risk are not necessarily negative for development. Alongside the threat that a risk might entail more often than not this risk situation also provides opportunities.

Managing chance through the risk procedure is often seen either as an not obligatory extra, or as only for advanced practitioners, or as just plain wrong. Why is this? This paper draws on human motivation theory (Maslow) and the latest ideas in information science (memetics) to explain the discrepancy. It also proposes practical solutions to promote management of opportunity within the risk process.

Maslow’s ‘hierarchy of needs’? seeks to explain human motivation, and proposes a layered series of motivators ranging from survival to self-actualisation. Applying this framework to risk management reveals why individuals and organisations think first about threats, and why they see opportunities as optional extras to be addressed later if at all.

Memetics suggests that ideas (or ‘memes’?) can be seen as packets of information which self-replicate like genes. According to this theory, the ‘risk is bad’? meme appears to be better adapted to the current environment

maslow’s hierarchy of needs diagramthan the ‘risk includes both threat and opportunity’? meme. The paper describes how to motivate project teams and organisations to address opportunity based on Maslow’s theory, and how to enhance the competitiveness of the threat-plus-opportunity meme through memetic engineering.

Over ten years ago, a debate arose within the project risk management community concerning the nature of the types of risk to be managed within the scope of the project risk management process (summarised in Hulett etal, 2002). Until then project risk had been seen as exclusively negative, defined in terms of uncertain events which could result in loss, harm, delay, additional cost etc, with ‘risk’? being synonymous with ‘threat’?.

This definition reflected the secular definitions found in non-technical dictionaries (for example Collins, 1979). From the late 1990’s project management professionals began to realise that there were other types of uncertainty that mattered. Sometimes good things might occur on a project which would result in saved time or reduced cost, or which would enhance productivity or performance. Such ‘opportunities’? could be brought under the existing definition of risk by simply expanding the types of impact to include positive as well as negative effects. This resulted in a change in approach by a number of organisations, including the Project Management Institute (PMI®).

The Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK® Guide, 2000 Edition) adopted a definition of project risk as ‘an uncertain event or condition that, if it occurs, has a positive or negative effect on a project objective.’? (Project Management Institute, 2000). This broader definition has been retained in the current PMBoK Guide and PMI’s Combined Standards Glossary (Project Management Institute, 2004, 2005). It is also reflected in a number of other leading standards, both in the project management area (for example Association for Project Management, 2004, 2006) as well as in more general risk standards (Australian/New Zealand Standard, 2004; Institution of Civil Engineers et al, 2005; Institute of Risk Management et al, 2002; Office of Government Commerce, 2007).

The forthcoming ISO risk management standard is also expected to adopt a similar position. The use of the project risk process to manage both upside and downside risk is not only embodied in a wide range of standards, but it has been described in textbooks as ‘good practice’? (for example Chapman & Ward, 2003; Hillson, 2004; Cooper et al., 2004; Hillson & Simon, 2007). There are a number of benefits available to those who include opportunities in the risk process (see figure 1).

The first potential explanatory framework for why organisations might find it hard to address opportunities as part of their risk management process comes from the work of Abraham Maslow on human motivation, as encapsulated in his ‘hierarchy of needs’? (Maslow, 1943, 1987). He postulated that humans are motivated by the drive to satisfy needs, of which there are a variety of different types. However not all needs are equal, and

Maslow arranged the various needs in order of their ‘pre-potence’? or influence over people. This ordering is usually represented as a pyramid, with the ‘higher needs’? at the top and ‘base needs’? at the bottom. There are several alternative versions of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, one of which is shown in figure1.

A key feature of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is his contention that people are driven to satisfy lower needs before higher needs exert any influence. So for example, the most basic needs of air, water, sleep and food must be met first, and are the over-riding concern of each individual, even more important than being safe or feeling self-esteem.

Once these are satisfied a person is free to be concerned about other things. As each level of ‘hunger’? is met (with literal physical hunger at the lowest level), higher needs emerge which require satisfying. Maslow divided his hierarchy of needs into two groups, with ‘deficiency needs’? towards the base, and ‘growth needs’? (or ‘being needs’?) at the top.

Deficiency needs are those which must be satisfied, and without which a person might be said to be deficient or ‘needy’?. The individual does not necessarily feel anything positive if these needs are met, but feels anxious if they are not. When these needs are met, they are removed as active drivers of behaviour.

Deficiency needs are mostly physical and emotional. Growth needs by contrast are those which add to a person, which are not necessarily required for a healthy existence, but which make a person more fully rounded and complete. This type of need is psychological and spiritual, and they form more enduring and permanent motivators. How is this relevant to the question of why individuals and organisations might find it difficult to implement opportunity management as part of an integrated risk process? Assuming that Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is as valid for organisational motivation as it is for individuals, this framework would predict a strong preference for actions which satisfy ‘deficiency needs’?, and that these would take precedence over actions which target ‘growth needs’?. Translating this to the risk domain requires an understanding of which risks relate to the different types of needs.

Deficiency needs are about survival, ensuring that the essentials are available to maintain life. In the organisational risk context, this naturally leads to a focus on threats. A threat is any uncertain event or condition that, if it occurs, will have an effect on objectives which is negative, unwelcome, harmful, adverse etc.

According to Maslow, both individuals and organisations will be motivated to address these risks as the highest priority. For individuals, the concern is to avoid problems, save face, protect one’s reputation etc. At the organisational level, this is the realm of business continuity and disaster recovery, which aim to protect the business and ensure corporate survival. Deficiency needs are also addressed by operational risk management and health & safety, since these are also about feeding and protecting the corporate organism. At project and tactical levels, the need to tackle deficiency needs is also likely to be strongly influential, with a focus on dealing with threats to achievement of project objectives.

By contrast, opportunities would appear in Maslow’s hierarchy as growth needs, being those uncertainties that, if they occurred, would have a positive, welcome, helpful effect on achievement of objectives. Such growth needs exist in such areas as marketing and business development, as well as strategic decision-making, and they also exist at project level in the form of project opportunities. While these are undoubtedly good things, and in themselves they are clearly worth pursuing, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs predicts that there is likely to be less motivation to satisfy these higher needs than there is to address more basic deficiencies. In other words, given a limited amount of time, effort or resources (which is the normal situation in most projects), an organisation will be driven to address threats before opportunities. If the environment is perceived as threatening, then the need to remove or minimise threats will always take precedence over the option of exploiting opportunities, since the drive to survive is stronger than the attraction of growth.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs seems to explain why both individuals and organisations are motivated to deal with threats before opportunities, since threats operate at the lower levels of the hierarchy and threaten deficiency needs, whereas opportunities exist at the higher levels and are seen as lower priority.

A second useful framework for understanding the current reluctance to adopt an inclusive approach to risk management is the recently-developed hypothesis of memetics (Brodie, 1996; Blackmore, 2000). This wasintroduced by Richard Dawkins as a development of the ‘selfish gene’? approach to biology (Dawkins, 1989).

Dawkins proposed an extension of this idea, applying it to information theory, postulating the existence of a hypothetical ‘meme’? as a self-replicating unit of information, analogous to a gene, which drives human behaviour and culture. From this initial innovation, the ideas of memetics mirror genetics, with such principles as survival of the fittest, competitive adaptation, mutation, replication, propagation etc.

Whitty has applied the memetic approach to project management and found it to be a useful paradigm to generate new insights (Whitty, 2005). A meme is defined as a package of informational content, approximating to an idea or concept, which exists in the human brain or mind, and which seeks to replicate by transfer to other brains or minds. It is the basic unit of cultural transmission, and culture can be seen as the sum total of all memes. Clearly there are very many memes currently in existence, all of which are competing for the limited resources of human attention and absorption into current culture.

The most successful memes are those which are best adapted to the environment in which they operate, which leads them to replicate and become dominant. Dawkins argues that dominant memes are not necessarily beneficial to human individuals or society, and that harmful memes can take root in the same way that viruses can cause pandemics. The important feature which determines the persistence of a particular memeis its competitive advantage when compared to the other memes against which it competes.

Having created this hypothetical framework, it is possible to develop an approach called ‘memetics’?, analogous to genetics, to describe how memes operate. The term ‘memetic engineering’? can be used to describe attempts to manipulate memes in order to produce a desired outcome. While the basis for memetics is challenged by many as entirely hypothetical and unproven, the memetic paradigm offers useful insights into many aspects of human behaviour and culture, including management of risk.

Solutions from Maslow

Taking Maslow’s model first, there are three ways in which an organisation might proceed if it wishes to adopt the broader risk approach including management of opportunities equally alongside threats.

• Ensure effective threat management. The first is simply to make sure that all the lower-level motivators are fully satisfied all the time, allowing the organisation to move on to the higher levels. In other words, a risk process which deals effectively with threats will result in an organisation which is confident and relaxed, and which feels secure in its ability to handle both foreseen and emergent negative events and circumstances. Once these more basic deficiency needs are met, the organisation will feel free to release energy and resources to address the growth needs represented by opportunities.
• Develop conscious opportunity management. A positive focus within the organisational culture on the benefits available from proactive management of opportunities will create a motivational force to counter that of the lower-level need to deal with threats. If management express a requirement for projects to identify and capture opportunities, and reward such behaviour visibly, then teams will respond appropriately. Making management of opportunities both explicit and required will maximise the chances of this approach being adopted. By emphasising the value of the higher growth needs, their motivational value can be increased, even if the lower-level deficiency needs are not all met.
• Practice emotional literacy. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is not universally accepted, and some researchers and practitioners believe the linear hierarchy oversimplifies human motivation (for example Wahba & Bridgewell, 1976). The reality of human motivation is like to be much more complex. Studies of disadvantaged communities where deficiency needs are clearly unmet often find unexpectedly high levels of contentment and fulfilment, indicative of the higher needs being met. For example the Kingdom of Bhutan is renowned for its high Gross National Happiness (GNH), introduced as a key national measure by King Jigme Singye Wangchuck in 1972 (Kinga et al., 1999), despite its low development status.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs seems to explain why both individuals and organisations are motivated to deal with threats before opportunities, since threats operate at the lower levels of the hierarchy and threaten deficiency needs, whereas opportunities exist at the higher levels and are seen as lower priority.

A second useful framework for understanding the current reluctance to adopt an inclusive approach to risk management is the recently-developed hypothesis of memetics (Brodie, 1996; Blackmore, 2000). This wasintroduced by Richard Dawkins as a development of the ‘selfish gene’? approach to biology (Dawkins, 1989).

Dawkins proposed an extension of this idea, applying it to information theory, postulating the existence of a hypothetical ‘meme’? as a self-replicating unit of information, analogous to a gene, which drives human behaviour and culture. From this initial innovation, the ideas of memetics mirror genetics, with such principles as survival of the fittest, competitive adaptation, mutation, replication, propagation etc.

Whitty has applied the memetic approach to project management and found it to be a useful paradigm to generate new insights (Whitty, 2005). A meme is defined as a package of informational content, approximating to an idea or concept, which exists in the human brain or mind, and which seeks to replicate by transfer to other brains or minds. It is the basic unit of cultural transmission, and culture can be seen as the sum total of all memes. Clearly there are very many memes currently in existence, all of which are competing for the limited resources of human attention and absorption into current culture.

The most successful memes are those which are best adapted to the environment in which they operate, which leads them to replicate and become dominant. Dawkins argues that dominant memes are not necessarily beneficial to human individuals or society, and that harmful memes can take root in the same way that viruses can cause pandemics. The important feature which determines the persistence of a particular memeis its competitive advantage when compared to the other memes against which it competes.

Having created this hypothetical framework, it is possible to develop an approach called ‘memetics’?, analogous to genetics, to describe how memes operate. The term ‘memetic engineering’? can be used to describe attempts to manipulate memes in order to produce a desired outcome. While the basis for memetics is challenged by many as entirely hypothetical and unproven, the memetic paradigm offers useful insights into many aspects of human behaviour and culture, including management of risk. Solutions from Maslow

Theoretical framework, population & sample, data collection, data analysis

The researcher visited the different libraries for journals, articles and studies needed for the research. The researchers gathered time-series data from different Banking institutions to assure of its validity and consistency. The researchers would also gathered different news and articles regarding the past events that involves or has consistent customer interaction as its main issue. It would tackle evidences of how proper services, awareness serves as the means affect the profit and increase the margin for more clients. The researcher has also researched data of the banks that have similar situations with CIMD The researcher would gather data from 2007-2009 to be able to assure consistency and reliability.

This study will took place within CIMB BANK BERHAD in Malaysia. Participants will be selected according to their desire to participate in this study. Narrative data will be generated from all researched studies such as journals, articles, academic references, etc. The data analysis will Quantitative research enables the researcher to generate new theories from gathering descriptive data about the research topic. Quantitative research process involves the result of a certain procedure. The type of qualitative research studies undertaken are ethnographical, which refers to the description of a phenomenon from a cultural group or society, grounded theory, which focuses on real life settings and phenomenological which describes different experiences. Quantitative research is used to identify the specific effect which leads to using statistical evidence and appropriate statistical tools. It is also used for intervention studies and randomized control trials, which is the gold standard, observational and cohort studies. The quantitative approach is applicable to smaller sample group to generate rich data. Hopkins (2008) defined quantitative research method in the following words, ‘In quantitative research your aspire is to settle on the relationship flanked by one thing (an independent variable) and another (a dependent result variable) in a population. Isolated research design is either evocative (subjects usually measured once) or new (subject for assessment before and after a treatment). A evocative study establish only relations between variables.’?Hopkins (2008) defined quantitative research method in the following words, ‘In quantitative research your aspire is to settle on the relationship flanked by one thing (an independent variable) different (a dependent or outcome variable) in a population. Quantitative research design are either evocative (subjects usually measured once) or new evocative study establish only relations between variables.’?

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The research methodology used in the study is an analytical survey that measures consumer satisfaction of CIMB BANK BERHAD. The analytical survey through the use of statistics and data measures the correlation of consumer satisfaction with company measures that ensure employee satisfaction and delivers customer service.

This research explores the possible correlation of customer satisfaction with factors such as employee motivation, company values, services rendered, and policies affecting its efficiency. In order to carry out the analytical survey, a questionnaire was developed that measures the level of customer satisfaction for CIMB BANK BERHARD, how the company is perceived by costumers, and what factors affect its customer service. The interview recipients of the study were composed of a cross-sectional group that represents different consumers from different age groups, sexes and income level. Interview questions were also distributed among employees and managers of CIMB BANK BERHARD and their response was correlated with the responses culled from the customers of the company.

The survey also used open ended questions that is unstructured and which was administered personally by the researcher to ensure rapport, and elicit immediate responses from the interviewees. The data gathered was analyzed by determining the level of customer satisfaction, and what aspect of customer satisfaction cuts across different income and age groups. The survey also analyzed the response of CIMB BANK BERHARD employees and managers to questions pertaining to their role