Employee Motivation and Sustainable Productivity Assessment in Automated Work Environment

Abstract

Motivating employees is vital to the sustainable growth and increased productivity of business concerns. The paradigmatic shift occasioned by the realities of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4.0), which enhanced the introduction of automated devices (robots and artificial intelligence) in the work environment, has made employee productivity assessment quite challenging. The focal point of this work evaluates employee inducement on sustainable productivity within the framework of an automated work environment. Motivation is a key driver of employee engagement and enthusiasm, leading to enhanced productivity for the attainment of set targets by organizations. Outstanding issues examined include employee skill gap, job design, and inclusiveness. The study was designed to investigate the significant relationship between employee intrinsic/extrinsic motivation and productivity in an automated workplace. A descriptive research design was adopted, in which questionnaires were administered to respondents who were skilled and unskilled personnel, managers, and directors selected from automated disc manufacturing firms in Nigeria. A structured systematic literature review was also adopted to outline each of the hypothetical propositions. Data were collected via email, while additional information was further obtained from respondents through phone calls and short message services on motivation and productivity assessment in their peculiar (automated) work environment. The null hypotheses were tested using Pearson’s correlation analysis technique. The results of the study showed that there is an interrelationship between employee motivation and productivity assessments. The findings of the study revealed that there is a significant relationship between employee motivation and sustainable productivity in an automated work environment. The study recommended the need for employees to be skillful in information and communications technology skills, management engagement of employees in an automated work design ecosystem, and addressing issues such as employee training/retraining, health, welfare, and inclusiveness. These will increase employee intrinsic/extrinsic motivation, firm productivity/profitability, and national economic development/industrialization.

Received: 31 August 2024 | Revised: 18 February 2025 | Accepted: 18 April 2025

Conflicts of Interest 

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to this work.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are not openly available but can be provided upon request on a case-by-case basis.

Author Contribution Statement

Idongesit Oto Eshiett: Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Investigation, Resources, Data curation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Visualization, Supervision, Project administration. Oto Eyamba Eshiett: Software, Validation, Formal analysis, Resources, Data curation, Writing – original draft, Visualization.