THE IMPACT OF STAFF WELFARE ON THE PRODUCTIVITY OF WORKERS

1.0 Introduction

1.1 Background of the Study

According to the International Journal of Managerial Studies and Research (2014), today, the biggest challenge faced by the managers of different organizations is how to get the qualitative employees who will help the organization to achieve its goals and objectives. These are employees who are committed and put in their best towards the accomplishment of organization’s goals and objectives. A strong bond should be created and maintained between employees and organizations human resources to overcome these challenges between managers and employees.

All organizations are concerned with what should be done to achieve sustained high levels of performance through people. Therefore, the subject of adequate incentives for workers, as derived from the so many attempts made by management practitioners, is to look for the best way to manage so as to accomplish an objective or mission with the least inputs of materials and human resources available (Forson, 2012).

Robbins (2001) defines motivation as the forces that energizes, direct and sustains a person’s effort. Motivation is an important determination of human behaviour. It is the one which moves one towards the achievement of the goals and objectives. Motivation is an art targeted to getting people work willingly, and an art of inducing one to behave in a particular manner to achieve a task. Motivation is the reason why employees want to work hard and work effectively for the business. It is the desire to achieve a goal. Some people are self -motivated. This means that they have driven to achieve goals on their own. They do not need any encouragement. However, others need to be motivated. They need a push, a pressure, or incentives. The employee motivation is very important because, if a business has a well-motivated workforce, it will perform better. Labour productivity will be higher and therefore, profits are likely to be high. The main benefits of well-motivated employees are lower absenteeism, higher production, more innovation, pleasant working environment, more co-operations, lower staff turnover (Jones, 2011).

Bryans and Crouin, (2005) say that certain individuals have problems of inadequate motivation. These problems arise the concern of those individuals who come into the work situation with differences in expectation, behaviour and outlook. The problems of individual motivation inadequately may be classified into two groups: the first is the inability of certain individuals to be motivated may stem from the fact that there is a deficiency in their personality. For such people, the desire to avoid failure may be too strong while paradoxically, the motive to produce positive results may be too weak. This could produce a general resistance to achievement-oriented activity that should naturally be overcome by other extrinsic modes of motivation if there is to be any spur to achievement oriented activity at all. The second is when the achievement motive is relatively strong, the challenges before the individual worker may be proven to be inadequate or too difficult, and whichever of these that apply to the individual worker will usually manifest themselves in different ways such as lack of enthusiasm or premature surrender (Forson, 2012).

Motivation strategy should aim to increase the effective contribution of members of the organization in achieving its objective. Motivation strategy will refer to the performance of management and reward systems and in particular to the type and scale of financial incentives which are to be provided. But it will also be concerned with other process which should yield favorable attitudes including job design participation, joint objective setting career development and any other processes relating to the individual need to achieve and maintain a sense of personal wealth and importance. Motivation is also affected by the quality of leadership in an organization therefore the selection, training and development of effective leaders should be part of the strategy (Armstrong, 1997).
In an organization set up two situations are likely to happen as far as employees are concerned. The first situation is that some workers leave the organization because they are not motivated enough .The second situations is that some are not willing to leave because they are having some benefit in the organization such as promotion, which leads to increase in salaries and wages, bonus and some other incentives. The managers need to create and maintain an environment in which employees can work efficiently and realize the objectives of the organization.
This study will examine to what extent staff welfare such as achievement, job security, recognition, advancement, job enrichment or the job itself, responsibility, decisional participation and management style employed to raise the morale of the worker for high productivity. The study identifies elements that promote human dignity and thus raise the morale of the worker for higher productivity. The study further investigates the effect of non-financial incentive packages here referred to as ‘non-economic motivators’ on the workers and the consequent output.

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1.2 Statement of the Problem

According to Karen and Peter (2013) People work for a variety of reasons. The main reason why most people work is because they need to earn money to buy food and the basic necessities for life. But some work is voluntary and does not yield any money. One of the challenges faced by private universities and other private sectors is to maintain the employees. Individuals after being trained have a tendency to move to other organizations for better prospects. Lucrative salary, comfortable timings, better ambience, growth prospects are some of the factors which prompt an employee to look for a change. Employee Retention refers to the techniques employed by the management to help the employees stay with the organization for a longer period of time. Employee retention strategies go a long way in motivating the employees so that they stick to the organization for the maximum time and contribute effectively. Individuals work for money but they can switch off from one work to another for more money. At the same time people want recognition and also want to be proud of their company, they want very good relationships with co-workers.

Researchers have studied employee motivation at length; the biggest misconception was that good wages were always the primary motivational factor among employees regardless of the industry by which they are employed (TsangWong.1997. This generalization or supposed knowledge has misdirected frontline supervisors of industrial workers for years (Kovach, 1987). Effective employee motivation has long been one of management most difficult and important duties. Success in this Endeavour is becoming more challenging in light of organizational trends to downsize and in relation to the demands associated with managing a diverse workforce (Kreitner and Kinicki 1992). Employee motivation is a complex process as individuals are complex, diverse and often difficult to predict. No one theory of motivation can explain human motivation particularly across diverse cultures. The aim of this research therefore, is to determine the impact of staff welfare on the productivity of workers.

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1.3 Purpose of the study

The purpose of the study was to find out the impact of staff welfare on the productivity of workers. A case study of Madonna University Ouija, Anambra state.

The specific objectives are as follows

1. To establish the relationship between reward system and employees’ productivity
2. To identify the relationship between recognition and employees productivity
3. To determine the influence of leadership style on employees’ productivity
4. To determine the effect of communication on employees’ productivity

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1.4 Significance of the Study

This study on the effects of motivation on employees’ productivity in private universities will assist private universities to retain the employees for long time, which will lead them to the desired productivity. The research findings have the potentialities to enable the Universities’ managers and their policy makers to be aware of the role of motivation in their strategic plan. Furthermore, this study will be of immense benefit to policy makers in the human resources functions of the organizations and it will assist management in designing and putting in place together welfare incentives for the workforce, enables the organization identifies various types of needs and expectation of people at work, outline different approach to work motivation, explain the meaning and underlying concert of motivation.

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1.5 Scope of the Study

For this study to be successful, it was carried out in all departments of Madonna University Okija. The study population involved Management team, teaching and non-teaching staff ofthe university.