Job performance of the employees in an organizational set up is determined by the type of motivation adopted by the management. This study, which was conducted in selected general hospitals in Kwara State, was non-experimental descriptive survey.Through simple random sampling, 114 respondents were selected from three government hospitals. Structured questionnaire and oral interview were used to elicit information from respondents and data was analyzed with statistical package for social scientists. A total of 104 questionnaires were returned and 4 out of this, 4 were rejected because the respondents did not give the full information required, leaving 100 questionnaire available for analysis.Demographic data of the respondents revealed that respondents’ ages ranged from 30 – 57 with a mean 43 ± 5.6. Male respondents were 46, female 54 and all were married. Among the respondents 72% were registered nurses/midwives, 17% medical doctors and 11% pharmacists. Majority (70%) were within grade level 13 -15 in the service, 12% were within 10 – 12 while the rest 18% were within grade level 7 - 9. Years of experience of the respondents ranged from 1 -25 with a mean 21 ± 3.4. When asked about those things that motivate them to perform better in their work, various incentives put in place were mentioned. 42% mentioned sponsorship for further training, 52% were motivated by adequacy of health personnel in their respective workplaces while prompt payment of salary were mentioned by 32%. Other motivations mentioned include: better salary and emolument (23%), better opportunity for career development (56%), availability of enough equipment and material to work with, job security (84%), and increase in salary based on possession of additional certificate (333%).three hypotheses were tested. In the first hypothesis, age of respondents was discovered not have any significant motivational effect on the respondents’ performance of their job. Likewise in the second hypothesis, gender of employees did not have significant motivation about their jobs performance. Lastly, respondents’ years of experience did not have significantmotivational effect on their job. The study was concluded by recommending motivation of health workers by instituting the practice of accelerated promotion for staff members that perform well in their jobs
