Work Environment and Employees’ Performance in Transportation Company, Delta State
Chapter One
OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
- To determine the contribution of performance feedback on employees’ performance
- To assess the use of job aid towards employees’ performance.
- To determine whether physical work environment has influence on employees’ performance
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Working environment
Kohun (1992), defines working environment as an entirely which comprises the totality of forces, actions and other influential factors that are currently and, or potentially contending with the employee’s activities and performance. Working environment is the sum of the interrelationship that exists within the employees and the environment in which the employees work. Brenner (2004) was of the opinion that “the ability to share knowledge throughout organizations depends on how the work environment is designed to enable 8 organizations to utilize work environment as if it were an asset. This helps organizations to improve effectiveness and allow employees to benefit from collective knowledge”. In addition, he argued that working environment designed to suit employee’s satisfaction and free flow of exchange of ideas is a better medium of motivating employees towards higher productivity. Opperman (2002) defines working environment is a composite of three major subenvironments: the technical environment, the human environment and the organizational environment. Technical environment refers to tools, equipment, technological infrastructure and other physical or technical elements. The technical environment creates elements that enable employees perform their respective responsibilities and activities. The human environment refers to peers, others with whom employees relates, team and work groups, interactional issues, the leadership and management. This environment is designed in such a way that encourages informal interaction in the work place so that the opportunity to share knowledge and exchange ideas could be enhanced. This is a basis to attain maximum productivity. Organizational environment include systems, procedures, practices, values and philosophies. Management has control over organizational environment. Measurement system where people are rewarded on quantity, hence workers will have little interest in helping those workers who are trying to improve quality. Thus, issues of organizational environment influence employee’s productivity.
Employee Performance
Sinha (2001) stated that employees’ performance is depending on the willingness and also the openness of the employees itself on doing their job. He also stated that by having this willingness and openness of the employees in doing their job, it could increase the employees’ productivity which also leads to the performance. Stup (2003) also explained that to have a standard performance, employers have to get the employees task to be done on track as to achieve the organization goal or target. By having the work or job done on track, employers could be able to monitor their employees and help them to improve their performance. Furthermore, a reward system should be implemented based on the performance of the employees. This is to motivate the employees in order to perform more on their task. There are several factors that being described by Stup (2003) towards the success of the employees’ performance. The factors are such as physical work environment, equipment, meaningful work, performance expectation, feedback on performance, reward for good or bad system, standard operating procedures, knowledge, skills and attitudes. Franco et al (2002) defined performance that relies on internal motivation but presence of internal factors such as necessary skills, intellectual capacity and resources to do the job clearly have an impact. As a consequence employers are supposed to provide appropriate working conditions in order to make sure the performance of employees meet the required standards
Theoretical Literature Review
Employees’ performance has been established to be directly related to employees’ motivation. This assertion was corroborated by different management theories since the works of Frederick Taylor on ‘The Principle of Scientific Management’ in 1911 and Henry Gantt on ‘Works, Wages and Profits’ in 1913. Modern employees’ motivation management methods have evolved over time which discredited Taylor’s” differential piece rate -work” and Gantt’s “task and bonus wage” systems. The modern employees’ motivation management methods are employees’ oriented and are more effective (Gardner and Lambert 1972). Maslow (1943) said that people work to survive and live through financial compensation, to make new friends, to have job security, for a sense of achievement and to feel important in the society, to have a sense of identity, and most especially to have job satisfaction. All employees that have job satisfaction are high performers in their respective workplaces. Taylor (1911) opined that the most important motivator of workers is salary and wages when he said that “non-incentive wage system encourages low productivity”. He said that if employees receive the same wage irrespective of their individual contribution to the goal, they will work less and that employees think working at a higher rate means fewer employees may be needed which discourages employees to work more (Gardner and Lambert 1972). Basing on those explanations, this study indicates that the success of any organization largely depends on the motivation of its employees.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research design
The researcher used descriptive research survey design in building up this project work the choice of this research design was considered appropriate because of its advantages of identifying attributes of a large population from a group of individuals. The design was suitable for the study as the study sought Work Environment and Employees’ Performance
Sources of data collection
Data were collected from two main sources namely:
(i)Primary source and
(ii)Secondary source
Primary source:
These are materials of statistical investigation which were collected by the research for a particular purpose. They can be obtained through a survey, observation questionnaire or as experiment; the researcher has adopted the questionnaire method for this study.
Secondary source:
These are data from textbook Journal handset etc. they arise as byproducts of the same other purposes. Example administration, various other unpublished works and write ups were also used.
Population of the study
Population of a study is a group of persons or aggregate items, things the researcher is interested in getting information on Work Environment and Employees’ Performance. 200 staffs of transport service of Delta state was selected randomly by the researcher as the population of the study.
CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION ANALYSIS INTERPRETATION OF DATA
Introduction
Efforts will be made at this stage to present, analyze and interpret the data collected during the field survey. This presentation will be based on the responses from the completed questionnaires. The result of this exercise will be summarized in tabular forms for easy references and analysis. It will also show answers to questions relating to the research questions for this research study. The researcher employed simple percentage in the analysis.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Introduction
It is important to ascertain that the objective of this study was on the Work Environment and Employees’ Performance. In the preceding chapter, the relevant data collected for this study were presented, critically analyzed and appropriate interpretation given. In this chapter, certain recommendations made which in the opinion of the researcher will be of benefits in addressing the challenges of Work environment and Employees’ Performance
Summary
This study was on Work Environment and Employees’ Performance. Three objectives were raised which included: To determine the contribution of performance feedback on employees’ performance, to assess the use of job aid towards employees’ performance and to determine whether physical work environment has influence on employees’ performance. In line with these objectives, two research hypotheses were formulated and two null hypotheses were posited. The total population for the study is 200 staffs of Delta transport company. The researcher used questionnaires as the instrument for the data collection. Descriptive Survey research design was adopted for this study. A total of 133 respondents made up directors, administrative staff, loaders and junior staff were used for the study. The data collected were presented in tables and analyzed using simple percentages and frequencies
Conclusion
Working environment plays a vital role in motivating employees to perform their assigned job. Since money is not a sufficient motivator in encouraging the workplace performance required in today’s competitive business environment. The ability to attract, keep and motivate high-performance is becoming increasingly important in today’s competitive organizational environments. The study also revealed that employee’s will improve their performance if the problems identified during the research are tackled by the management. At the end of the research, it was realized that the employee’s working environment find themselves in affect their productivity greatly. Therefore it is the responsibilities of the organization to provide friendly working environment which will influence employees to work comfortable and perform their job.
Recommendation
Periodic meetings with employees to air their grievances to management to serve as a motivating factor to the employees. Managers should also be counseled on their relationships with their subordinates. The organization should have a good program in place for their employees work life balance as this can be a great factor to motivate and retain them. Management should try as much as possible to build a work environment that attracts, retain and motivate its employees so that to help them work comfortable and increase organization productivity. Employers should make available adjustable and flexible furniture to all workers in order to make them more comfortable. This in the long run keeps the employees healthy. Employers should have in place a good working condition for their employees in order to boost their morale and made them more efficient. An example is making their benefit programs to suit employees.
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