Effect of Workplace Environment on Employees’ Performance Productivity

Effect of Workplace Environment on Employees’ Performance Productivity

CHAPTER ONE

Objective of the Study

The main objective of this study is to investigate and identify the effect of work environment on employees’ performance in Nestle Nigerial Plc. The specific objectives are as follows;

To ascertain whether inadequacy of the various conditional factors can affect productivity of employee.
To ascertain whether the unconducive nature of work environment lead to low productivity, absenteeism and lateness among employees.
To investigate the level of productivity of workers under healthy environment in Nestle Nigeria Plc.
To examine the extent at which good working environment increases employees morale in Nestle Nigeria Plc

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

Introduction

This chapter gives an opportunity to examine the contributions of experts in the field of management who contributed immensely to the concept of worki g environment and employees productivity. The review of related literature is based under these sub-sections; conceptual framework, theoretical framework and empirical review.

Conceptual Framework

Concept of the Workplace Environment

Work environment is not just where individual perform related tasks, (Laure, 2005). It also includes job, fellow employees, the local, state and federal regulation that apply to the industry, the relationship with competitors, the relationship with the public, the managerial philosophy, the leadership styles and the organizational structure. Any one of the above maybe considered the most important element by different people.

According to Billings and Moos (2002), work environment preferences can be measured using three dimensions of work environment settings; systematic maintenance, goal orientation, and relationship dimension. System maintenance refers to how orderly and organized the work setting is, how clear it is in its expectations and how much control it maintains, goal orientation assesses the degree to which an environment encourages or stifles growth through providing for participation in decision making and autonomy, maintaining a task and providing job challenge and expectations for success and accomplishment. The relationship dimension measures the degrees of interpersonal interaction in a work environment, such as the social communication exchanges and cohesion among workers, and management. The workplace environment is a concept, which has been operationalized by analyzing the exent to which employees perceive the immediate surroundings as fulfilling their intrinsic, extrinsic and social needs and their reason of staying with the organization (Haynes, 2008). He further adds that environment is a key determinant of the quality of their work and their level of performance, thus making high profits.

Examination of work environment preferences can help to identify organizational factors that may be problematic, and can guide interventions aimed at reducing employee stress in a variety of work settings. To understand the critical importance of workplace environment in the organization is to recognize that the human factor and the organization are synonymous (McGuire, 2009). Changing environments provide organization with opportunities as well as a myriad of challenges. One aspect of the competitive challenges faced by organizations lies in the management and integration of physical and psychological environments (Altman, 2000). Most organizations are beginning to reconsider how their work environment is designed and what facilities they offer to staff has far reaching effects on their general performance. An enabling workplace environment must thus be the key feature to improving performance and subsequently sustained returns (Abdullahi, 2010). Improving working environment results in decrease in the number of error rates, complaints, absenteeism and hence increases performance. Govindarajulu (2004) also highlighted that in twenty-first century, businesses are moving towards more strategic approach of environmental management to enhance their performance through improving and managing performance level of employees. The modern physical environment is distinguished by technology, computers, machines, general furniture and furnishings which continually affects the brain and health of employees, (Stoessel, 2001). Organizations must ensure that the physical layout is covering all the needs of employees such as communication and privacy, formality and informality, functionality and cross-disciplinarily (white, 2001).

Determinant of Work Environment

Working environment could be described as conducive or hostile depending on any or a combination of the following factors; leadership style, motivation, cash flow position and government policy. Each of these factors will be briefly described in the subsequent paragraphs under appropriate headings;

Leadership/Management Style

Leadership is said to be a function of the leader, the followers and the situation. This means that a leadership that works for ‘A’ may not necessarily work for ‘B’ because of differences in situation. Usually, there are three main types of leaders and the effects of each style have a direct relationship with staff confidence in carrying out responsibilities and output. Let us briefly examine the three types;

The Autocratic Leader: in an autocratic leader set-up, the force is the order of the day. ‘Do it as I have said’ is the predominant slogan. Staff is always threatened with sack or suspension for any short coming. The autocratic leader believes that the worker must be coerced into doing an assigned job. Workers are always tense up and decisions are taking against them without giving them the opportunity to defend their actions. Laure (2009) describes the autocratic leader as “ He that decide what action to take and imposes his decision upon his subordinates without discussion”. If the management adopts an autocratic posture, then the staff may not have a conducive working environment.
Democratic Leader in an organization headed by a truly democratic leader, workers are persuaded not coerced. Problems are tabled and discussed freely, giving everybody an opportunity to contribute. Victimization of staff is greatly reduced because a democratic management allows workers to join union and press for better pay and other conditions, unlike an autocratic management where a “stubborn” worker faces sack without due explanation. To a large extent, this type of leader represents the conducive working environment which workers want.

CHAPTER THREE

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Introduction

The essence of the this chapter is majorly to explain how the data for this study was gathered, methods and tools that were used in the process of data collection and analysis. The subsections under this chapter includes; restatement of research questions and hypotheses, research design, characteristics of the study, population of the study, method of data collection, sample and sampling techniques, research instrument, administration of data collection instrument and method of data analysis.

Restatement of Research Questions and Hypotheses

Research Questions

Does inadequacy of the various conditional factors affects productivity of employee?
Does the nature of work environment lead to low productivity, absenteeism and lateness among employees?
Does work environment have any effect on employees performance in Nestle Nigeria Plc?
Does good working environment increases employees morale in Nestle Nigeria Plc?

Research Hypotheses

Ho₁: The nature of work environment has no positive effect on workers’ productivity in Nestle Nigeria Plc

Ha₁: The nature of work environment has positive effect on workers’ productivity in Nestle Nigeria Plc

Ho₂: Conducive environment has no positive effect on employees’ performance in Nestle Nigeria Plc

Ha₂: Conducive environment has positive effect on employees’ performance in Nestle Nigeria Plc

Ho₃: Good working environment does not increase employees’ morale in Nestle Nigeria Plc

Ha₃: Good working environment does not increases employees’ morale in Nestle Nigeria Plc

Research Design

To provide answers to the questions raised in the study and to find out the solution to the solution to the problems of low performance of employees in relation to the condition of the working environment, survey research design was used, data were gathered through the use of research instrument and were analyzed using appropriate statistical tools.

CHAPTER FOUR

DATA PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

Introduction

This chapter covers the analysis of the questionnaire. It attempts to analyze the responses from the need to answer the research questions and to test the hypotheses developed in the chapter one of this study. The data collected from the respondents through the questionnaire were analyzed using simple percentage and frequency table and the chi-square methods. 125 respondents were given questionnaire but only 110 (88%) were duly filled and returned.

The table above shows that 40 (36.36%) has ND, 60 (54.55%) of the respondents has HND/Bsc, while 10 (09.09%) obtained other qualifications. This implies that most of the responses obtained in the field from respondents are well educated formally making this research work more reliable.

References

Akpomi, M. and Ordu, P. (2009). Modern office technology and the secretary’s productivity in private business organizations. African Journal of Business Management. Vol. 3 (8), pp. 333-339.
Alpa. L and Kim’s, W. (1991). The Impact of IT Investments on Economic Development in Egypt. The Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries, Vol 36.
Appah, I. and Emeh, E. (2012). Computer applications to office management; Kenya Institute of Administration.
Armah (2015) Effects of Modern Office Technology as Perceived by secretaries Business Education Journal.iv (1),161-169
Asemah (2011) Interpersonal facilitation and Job Dedication as separate facets of contextual performance. Journal of Applied Psychology 81(5) 525-5318
Azuka, E.B. (2000) Challenges of a professional Secretary: Need for Curriculum revision in Nigerian.

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