ENEMS MICROSYSTEMS RESEARCH SPOT: April 16

IMPACT OF EMPLOYEES ATTITUDINAL & BEHAVIORAL PROBLEMS ON PERFORMANCE AMONG LOCAL GOVERNMENT WORKER’S

ABSTRACT

This study set out to find out the impact of employees attitudinal and behavioral problems on performance among local government workers. It was guided by three research objectives as follows: To find out the relationship between employee attitudinal / behavioural problems and performance among Irepo Local Government workers; to establish the correlation between employee attitudinal / behavioral problems and service delivery in Irepo local government workers and to find out the relationship between employee attitudes and revenue collection in the local government . The study used a descriptive cross section research design which involved establishing the relationship between the independent variable and the dependent variable. The quantitative data was obtained using structured questionnaires from different categories of people such as respondents from the Irepo Local Government, while the qualitative data was obtained from key informants, interviews and observations. The study was based on a population of 600 individual members with more than half of’ it constituting women where a sample size of 100 was selected. Quantitative data from questionnaires were analysed by use of figures, and frequency tables. After the data was collected, hand written notes were assembled and typed into word processing program-MS word. The findings on the study revealed that there is a positive significant relationship between employee attitudes and productivity in Local Governments with(r = 0.723, sig. = 0,000). The result implies that as employees improve on attitudes towards work, their productivity in the local government will increase. Since the (sig. = 0.000 <0.005), this leads to the rejection of the null hypothesis that there is no relationship between employee attitudes and productivity in Local Governments. there is a Pearson Correlation coefficient of 0.851 between employee attitudes and Service delivery. This finding was subjected to verification to test the hypothesis; there is a significant relationship between employee attitudes and Service delivery. “by comparing the significance of the correlation (P.000) to the recommended significance of 0.05 and that employee attitudes have a strong and positive relationship with revenue collection in Irepo Local Governments (r 0.690, N 100, p < 0.05). This means that increased adherence to employee attitudes is expected to improve on revenue collection within Irepo Local Government. The study concluded that job satisfaction, performance, Involvement, staff commitment and Performance are associated and inter-related and together lead to the realization of organizational objectives. Some other factors which influence on the performance should be explored by further study. The study recommended that Performance standards should be established and communicated to the employees by the local government in Nigeria and Oyo state in particular. This will help employees to achieve the standards and perform well. Employees who are reaching standards and or above standard should be appreciated and rewarded, Fair pay, benefits, promotion opportunities and good supervision should be in the organization to satisfy the employees in order to enhance the performance, Good leadership styles as to fit for the organizational conditions may be satisfied the workers and Identifying weaknesses of employees may be the best one to improve the Worker’s performance because it indicates the area which training should be Provided.

CHAPTER ONE

1.0 Introduction

In this chapter, the researcher intends to explain the background of the study, statement of the problem, General objective, specific objectives of the study, research questions. Significance of the study, Scope of the study and definition of key terms. This is intended to give the reader a summary of the research issues and what surrounds them.

1.1 Background of the Study

In many organisations, it is expected that employees exhibit a wide range of work behaviours that would impact positively on organisational well-being and performance among workers. Yet, this is not always the case as some employees also have the tendency to indulge in attitude and work behaviours that are inimical to organisational interest and wellbeing. This type of workplace behaviours had at various times been described using terms such as workplace deviance, antisocial behaviour, organisational misbehaviour and dysfunctional behavior (Robinson and Bennett, 2016).

Employees have attitudes or viewpoints about several aspects of their jobs, their careers, and their organisation. Attitude describes an employee’s feelings toward his employer, co-workers, job, and position within the organisation. It is a psychological action expressed through evaluation of a particular entity, with some degree of disfavour or favour. In organisational settings, attitudes are essential for the achievement of goals and objectives. Employees’ behaviour at their workplaces often largely depends on their feelings about being there. Employees’ attitude basically involves characteristics such as having an interest in the job, having a positive, cheerful disposition, working without supervision, and willingness to contribute (Chatterjee & Kulakli, 2015).

Employees’ work-related attitudes can directly affect the atmosphere and significantly impact a workplace, including productivity levels and morale. It is essentially either negative or positive, depending on the degree of like or dislike for the matter in question. A positive attitude refers to having a positive mind-set and thinking about the greater good, irrespective of the situation on ground. Positive attitudes are excellent and contagious. Everyone feels like teammates, effort is collective, and everyone’s ideas are valued and welcomed. A positive attitude gives a feeling that everything is achievable. Colleagues support each other and work in tandem. Positive employees’ attitudes lead to numerous other positive outcomes, such as improved morale, willingness to be creative and attempt new things, willingness to share ideas and information, ability to overcome challenges, a greater probability of teamwork and collaboration, better customer service, low employees’ turnover and increased productivity.

Negative attitudes, however, are counter-productive and would always have a profound adverse impact on an organisation’s morale. These include dull performance, unwillingness to be a team player or collaborate, be creative and attempt new things, reduced energy levels, dismal outlook, depressed feelings, reduced quality of job output, low customer engagement, and difficulty overcoming obstacles. A negative attitude breeds contempt and creates a situation of low motivation to make an effort to achieve success, distrusts among teammates, and employees merely struggle to complete their work-hours rather than flourish, take the initiative, and succeed. All these will drag down the morale of co-workers and create stress for fellow workers (Ilahi & Masood, 2016).

Work-related attitudes include job satisfaction, job involvement, and employee commitment. Job satisfaction basically is the extent to which an individual is comfortable and pleased with their job. It is the pleasant emotional state arising from evaluating one’s job or job experiences; It is the positive (or negative) evaluative judgment an employee makes about their jobs or its situation (Mahdi, Sakat, Zin, Nor & Naim, 2017). It is the extent to which employees gain enjoyment from their efforts at the workplace. According to Ndulue and Chinonso (2016), it has two major components – intrinsic (that is, job satisfaction on features associated with the job itself) and extrinsic job (that is, job satisfaction on various features associated with the job environment).

Job involvement, on the other hand, is the measure of how much employees are psychologically engaged in their daily work. It is the extent that a person psychologically identifies himself with his job, participates actively, and considers his performance level significant to self-worth (Singh & Gupta, 2015). Job-involved employees usually believe in work ethics; they find work meaningful and challenging; they are willing to work long hours. They complete given tasks, work at complex tasks employing various skills, and attempt to be high performers (Pardeep & Kumar, 2017).

In this competitive world, the global landscape is changing; the current dynamics of the market, economic situations, and competition make companies radically change how business is being done. Organisations are restructuring to operate better; businesses are moving to explore new markets. Every organisation strives to achieve its competitive advantage by establishing a decent workplace environment so that human resources can improve jobs and organizational performances through new innovative ideas. Organisations must continually change to remain ahead of others, remain profitable, and relevant. The extent to which an organisation has been able to deliver benefits of businesses linked to the substantial portfolio investments depends primarily on its ability to manage the process of organisational change and carry along its employees with strategic initiatives in such a way to reflect that every employee is working together towards a common objective. The extent that an organisation can engage its employees, build an on-going and sound capacity to gain commitment of and engage employees optimally, to ensure profitable and timely delivery of service is the extent that the organisation is successful, would gain competitive advantage and be better than its competitions. It is against this backdrop, therefore, this current study examined the impact of employees attitudinal and behavioral problems on performance among local government workers.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

Nigeria local governments in Nigeria have witness different attempt to improve on the capacity of their employee through staff training and development plan, in which career paths are designed to improve the attitudes and therefore performance of members of staff. Annually, staffs are invited for seminars, counselling sessions and other careers guidance efforts. Elected leaders are trained on their roles and responsibilities etc; all geared towards improving the employee attitudes to work, for better organisational performance. Nonetheless, this has not yielded positive results, for example, even after the training needs are met and sometimes sponsored by the district local government, employees opt for greener pasture elsewhere instead of bettering their work attitudes. This is an issue that requires to be investigated. It is due to the aforementioned that the researcher has decided to carry out an indepth investigation to establish the relationship between employee attitudes and organisational performance in Local Governments of Nigeria, a case study of Irepo Local Government and find out the solutions to those factors affecting employee attitudes and behavior in the organization.

1.3. Objective of the Study

The general objective of the study is to examine the impact of employees attitudinal and behavioral problems on performance among local government workers – a case study of Irepo local government area of Oyo state.

Specific Objectives

To find out the relationship between employee attitudinal / behavioural problems and performance among Irepo Local Government workers
To establish the correlation between employee attitudinal / behavioral problems and service delivery in Irepo local government workers
To find out the relationship between employee attitudes and revenue collection in the local government

1.4 Research Questions

What is the relationship between employee attitudinal / behavioural problems and performance among Irepo Local Government workers?
What is the correlation between employee attitudinal / behavioral problems and service delivery in Irepo local government workers
What is the relationship between employee attitudes and revenue collection in the local government

1.5 Significance of the Study

The findings of the study will act as a baseline in the related interventions and for possible modifications in order to find relevant solutions to other specific interventions needed in improving employee attitudes and organizational overall performance.

The research findings will be useful to investigators in the field of Human Resource and they will refer to these findings in their researches.

The research will be of great importance to the government especially Local Governments and of Human Resource department.

The study shall also provide good lessons that can be used to improve the performance of the Ministries, Departments and Agencies both states and nationally level.

The research will be of advantage to the student in fulfilling the partial requirement for the award of the Degree in the field human resources development.

1.6 Scope of the Study

Content Scope

The study’s general interest was the examination of the impact of employee attitudinal and behavioural problems on performance among local government workers.

Geographical Scope

The study was carried out in Irepo Local Government of Oyo state, which keeps records in vouchers, ledgers and other transaction records. Personnel department which keeps Human Resource records as well as communication records were included in the study. This local government has been selected because many complaints have been raised about low turnover of workers, low employee morale, lack of commitment and low productivity of the employees.

Time Scope

The study based data covered on employee attitudinal and behavioral problems and its impact on performance among Irepo local government workers for the last 10 years and this from 2012-2022.

1.7 Limitations and delimitations of the study

The researcher faced a number of challenges in the due course of the research. First and foremost, time was not always on the side of the researchers. The research needs more time, However, the researcher had to employ research assistants to assist in the completion of the work on time.

Secondly, the researcher was limited by funds as there are a lot of costs to be met. In order to address this challenge the researcher had to borrow some money in order to complete the research activities.

During the research, there was also a challenge of uncooperative behavior of some respondents, unapproachable respondents and those who were reluctant to give in information. This was overcome through getting good relationships with the respondents so as to easily collaborate with them in filling up the questionnaires and some of them never trusted the researcher with confidential information.

1.8 Operational Definitions of Terms

Employee Behavior: The term employee behavior, refers to the way in which employees respond to specific circumstances or situations in the workplace.

Job satisfaction: An evaluative state that expresses contentment with and positive feelings about one’s job. The most-used research definition of job satisfaction is by Locke (2016). Who defined it as a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of ones job or job experiences.

Job attitudes: evaluation of one’s job that express one’s feelings towards beliefs about and attachment to one’s job.

Organizational commitment: An individual’s psychological bond with the organization. As represented by an affective attachment to the organization, a Feeling of loyalty toward it, and an intention to remain as part of it.

Attitude: A psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favour or disfavour (of which job attitudes are examples). ‘Despite the long history of research on attitudes, there is no universally agreed upon definition.” Perhaps the most widely accepted definition of an attitude, however, was provided by Eagly & Chaiken (2016).

Performance: A performance is an act of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function.

Sunday 16 April 2023

IMPACT OF EMPLOYEES ATTITUDINAL & BEHAVIORAL PROBLEMS ON PERFORMANCE AMONG LOCAL GOVERNMENT WORKER’S

IMPACT OF EMPLOYEES ATTITUDINAL & BEHAVIORAL PROBLEMS ON PERFORMANCE AMONG LOCAL GOVERNMENT WORKER’S