Working environment and employee performance in local governments in Uganda; case study: Soroti Municipal Council

Abstract

The study sought to examine the effect of working environment on employee performance in Soroti Municipal Council. The specific objectives were; to determine the effect of physical working environment on employee performance, to examine the effect of staff support supervision on employee performance and to find out the effect of work incentives on employee performance. This study adopted a descriptive survey design so as to have a detailed study of fundamental themes, with a population of 205 people and the sample size of 136 people, however, 116 finally participated giving a response rate of 85.3%. Respondents were selected through purposive and simple random sampling; thereafter they were given questionnaires, while management participated in key informant interviews. The findings of the study indicated that physical working environment significantly affects employees’ performance by 22.7%. This implies that the enhancement of the general physical environment translates into an improvement in the employees’ performance. For objective 2: findings indicated that support supervision significantly affects employees’ performance by 28.8%. This implies that support supervision positively affects employee performance, as indicated by supervisors guiding and closely working with their subordinates to ensure that their performance is measurable. Objective 3: the study indicated that work incentives significantly affect employees’ performance by 35.2%. This is a testament that institution of work incentives like salary improvement, fringe benefits, promotion, recognition among others induce employees to commit themselves to the organization the more. Multiple regression analysis indicates that up to r 2 = 0.390 (39%), was accounted for by the independent variables included in the model. This shows that working environment is a strong correlate and predictor of employee performance. The study concluded that the three dimensions of working environment, namely; physical working environment, support supervision and work incentives are strong correlates and predictors of employee performance. In light of the findings, the researcher recommended that, the physical working environment needs to be made responsive to employees’ performance needs, Soroti Municipal Council needs to come up with guidelines on staff support supervision and the management should examine and improve the existing Human Resource procedure on disbursing fringe benefits and promotion opportunities which can motivate employees to be more committed to their work and also perform better by: giving priority to internal staff to compete in vacant positions before announcing to external applicants, disbursement of fringe benefits and transparency of promotion function.