A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF TRADITIONAL AND NONTRADITIONAL MOTIVATIONAL METHODS IN BANKS

Abstract

Reward management is one of the integral parts of the whole management process in organisations. Within reward management there are thousands of ways to reward employees. One employer is not supposed to follow all types of reward methods. Managers should therefore be knowledgeable enough to identify the most suitable set of reward systems within their own business context. This is a challenge for most human resource practitioners as innovative and creative formulation of strategies help keep companies at the cutting edge of the market. That in turn makes the organisation the employer of choice. The ways and means of rewarding employees are thought to be decided in accordance with the economy of the organisation, organisational culture, attitudes of the employees, type of the products or services, the market dealt with, industry standards and many more factors. All these variables have to be scrutinised in order to determine the best-suited set of rewards in a particular organisation. This research aims to investigate a small area out of this broad context. It is an exploration of attitudes of human beings employed in banks towards traditional and non-traditional rewards. The principle idea was to identify the type of reward, traditional or non-traditional, that perpetuates employee motivation,especially in the banking industry. Findings from the research may be of interest for human resources strategy formulation by practitioners in the banking sector. Primary research was carried out in two banks in Kurunegala District. This research was primarily based on raw data directly collected from relevant fields conducting a questionnaire survey. Secondary data were utilised to frame major findings. Survey results revealed three interesting findings. Every banker subjected to the study was fully satisfied with their present job. Secondly, non-traditional motivational methods are more effective than traditional rewards on retention of employees in banks. Finally, non-traditional rewards have the most effect on retention of employees’ satisfaction than traditional rewards in the same sector.