Abstract
M. Com. (Business Management)
Managers are increasingly expressing their anxiety about their future security, and are more concerned than ever about their job security and a stable set of rewards. This concern has been triggered by the employers who are having to make increasingly difficult decisions about their workforce compensation and its relationship to performance. There is a general perception that organisations use ‘one size fits all’, type of rewards to motivate their managers. There is also a perception that managers are only motivated by financial rewards as compared to non-financial rewards in order for them to stay with the company.
The aim of the study: The aim of this study was to determine whether rewards are perceived as a motivator by managers at a furniture retail company.
Motivation for the study: The rationale for this study was to find out the perception of managers with regards to rewards as a motivator.
Research design, approach and method: This survey study used quantitative methods to determine the perceptions of rewards amongst managers at a furniture retail company. The target population of the study was 172 junior and middle-level managers working for a furniture retail company. In this study the target population included women and men of different age groups, race groups, and so forth. Non-
probability sampling (purposive sampling) was employed as the intent was to survey junior and middle managers only. SPSS Version 15 was used to analyse the data to ensure that a quantitative analysis for the study could be conducted. The completed questionnaires by the respondents were coded and analysed to calculate frequency distribution to analyse personal data, central tendency and percentage distribution. These statistics were presented in the form of computer graphics with the help of STATKON for data analysis. The Mann-Whitney U test was used for this study to distinguish between two groups of samples in the population in order to decide whether there was a statistically significant difference.
Main findings: The results for this study showed that there were statistically significant relationships between age and compensation. The results revealed that there was a significant difference in the level of importance attributed to compensation from management between female managers and their male counterparts.
For gender and compensation, the results revealed that there was a significant difference between female and male managers in the level of importance attributed to compensation from management.. Regarding salary earned and compensation, there was a significant difference between higher earning and lower earning managers in the level of importance attributed to compensation from management
Conclusion, limitations and recommendations: The respondents showed general satisfaction when it came to the rewards offered in the organisation. The results of the study revealed that rewards do motivate employees, especially in making decisions whether to stay with the company or not. The employees were very satisfied with the rewards that they received in the organisation. A major limitation of this study is that the research was only conducted in one organisation and therefore, given the diversity of companies in the retail industry, the results cannot be generalised to all organisations and other industries. In future, research should be conducted on a larger scale including more organisations within the same sector as well as across sectors so that comparisons can be made which can also be used for benchmarking.
Contribution/value-add: This study has attempted to add to the body of knowledge in terms of understanding the role that rewards play in motivating managers and how these can change their behaviour in the course of achieving company objectives. The study also examined the relevant rewards perceived to be motivators by both junior and middle managers in a company.