Effect of Staff Promotion on Employee Productivity in an Organization (a Case Study of Ministry of Information and Culture in Yola State, Adamawa State)

Chapter One of Effect of Staff Promotion on Employee Productivity in an Organization (a Case Study of Ministry of Information and Culture in Yola State, Adamawa State)

 

INTRODUCTION

Background to the Study

Generally public organizations have an increasing expectation to be comparable to the best in the private organizations. In strategic plan of Nigeria, the government will embark on a services transformational initiative to respond to the needs of the people and business. This may be about creating efficient and convenient services for people and business in general. In order for people to perform the tasks; the recognition should be reviewed accordingly. This is important to ensure employees are motivated and deliver high quality services to government.

Every of government’s parastatals and ministry in Nigeria has put the interest on development of human capital, especially the mission to become a world class organization. The challenge for ministry of information and culture in Yola Adamawa State employees is providing high quality services. High motivation is also a top management priority as well as expecting employees to follow rules and regulations to perform the tasks assigned to them according to the standards set for them. However, employees expect good working conditions, fair pay, fair treatment, secured career, power and involvement in decision making (Khan et al, 2010).

Performance of any organization largely depends on the performance of its employees. Most organizations that are achieving success in their performances today are increasingly coming to the realization that there are a number of factors that contribute to performance but human resource is clearly most critical (Mello, 2005). No matter the size and nature of the organization, the activity being undertaken, and the operation environment, its success depends largely on its employees, decision and their behavior. The evaluation of employees’ performance in an organization is one of the significant reasons of employing human resource practices. In today’s competitive environment of modern time, organizations are seriously improving performance of their employees by improving human resource practices. Caliskan (2010) postulated that human resource practices are the main source of competitive advantage. Many researchers have proven that human resource practices have a significant and positive relationship with employee’s performance (Tessema and Soeters, 2006). Since motivation vary between top management and employees, it is important to understand what motivates them, what factors influence motivation and which rewards influence motivation in order to enhance productivity (Mills and Walton, 1984)

Among the various approaches that organizations use to motivate their employees is promotion. This is the practice of placing employees from lower grades in the organization into higher grades with subsequent increase in salary on one hand and responsibilities on the other. Promotion can be viewed as a reward for what an employee has contributed to the organization. Based on merit an employee has to the organization, promotion might be a necessity in order to retain that particular employee.

However, as Bedfast (2004) pointed out that promotion should not only be considered as a means of merely rewarding employees but also should be taken as a means towards placement of employees in positions they fit. In this view, promotion touches not only the welfare of the employee but also that of an organization (employer). Therefore, Promotion of employees in organizations should be carefully implemented by following specific policies and procedures. Contrary to that, promotion turns into a setback to the employees’ performance. This study was meant to assess the impact of promotion to employee’s performance for the public organization, the ultimate goal being to identify appropriate recommendations to relevant authorities on the necessary steps to be taken to ensure that the implementation of the promotion practice leads to efficiency and effective in attaining organizational goals.

Edward Thorndike’s law of effect states that behaviours that are rewarded are more likely to be repeated than those that are punished (Schermerthon, 1986). Pinnington et al., (2002) revealed that employees of nowadays require instructive and supportive feedback as well as desired rewards if they have to translate their knowledge into improved productivity and superior quality. Properly administered feedback and rewards can guide, teach, and motivate people in the right direction for positive change. If the performance level is lower than that of others who get the same reward, there is no reason to increase their output. Lawler (2003) argued that success and growth of an organization is determined on how the human resources are treated. When an employee is highly motivated, it leads to actions in pursuit of the interest Armstrong, (2001). Thus, this study aims to investigate the effect of staff promotion on employee productivity in an oganization. The findings of this study are expected to provide references to Ministry of Information and Culture in Yola Adamawa State in developing an appropriate strategy of motivation approach for their employees.

Statement of the Problem

            Promotion plays a key role to employee motivation-both intrinsically and extrinsically (Flippo, 1961) promotion refers to a change from one job to another that is better in terms of status and responsibility. Ordinarily, the change to the higher job is accompanied by increase in pay and privileges. In this context, we can argue that employees are intrinsically motivated by promotion through the increased responsibility and also extrinsically through the increased status, pay and privileges. Promotion tries to meet the employees’ higher order needs for esteem and self-fulfillment or actualization as suggested by Abraham Maslow in hierarchy of needs. According to Maslow, people need to have respect of others (prestige) and this is what he termed as “Esteem needs”. These include desires for adequacy, achievement, reputation and status. In addition, employees need to develop their potentialities and skills to enable them become what everyone believes is capable of becoming-this is what is termed as “self fulfillment” or “self actualization”.

Promoting employee from lower level to the higher level brings about a feeling of satisfaction among the employees. It improves their job satisfaction and motivation by providing greater income, status and responsibilities. By building up loyalty, promotion reduces, labour turnover. Promotion stimulates self development and creates interest in training and development programmes (Gupta, 2011).

However, the main reason behind organization’s practicing promotion is first to enhance employee motivation and ultimately achieving organizational success; and second, to ensure achievement of the interests of individual employees. In this context, promotion is an important practice in ensuring mutual existence between the organization and employees. It encourages people to stay longer with the organization in order for them to satisfy their needs, which in turn lead to increased organizational stability and performance (Armstrong, 1984).

Therefore, employees’ promotion is an essential component for the survival of any organization, whereby various ways of promotion can be implemented such as merit and seniority. If well implemented, it leads to motivation. However some organizations are not adhering to the procedures that lead to poor performance due to employees’ lack of satisfaction. In order to ensure effectiveness of the practice in organization, clear policy and procedures must be laid down for guidance.

In this view, having a clearly established policy and procedures to guide promotion at hand and the government set resources to provide promotion every financial year, does not mean that there are no problems that face public servants in connection with their promotions. Despite the efforts done by government to promote its employees, the observation made on the promotion trends for Ministry of Information and Culture in Yola Adamawa State was that promotion is usually delayed. To provide these things to the employees in an economic way is very difficult and cumbersome. But in order to retain talented employees it is crucial for any organization to provide promotions timely, although this requires economy which is performing positively and good production turnover. There are some cases where promotions are delayed due to certain circumstances which lead to complaints, labour turnover, and absenteeism from public servants.

It is from this point on view the research has to be conducted on the study on the effect of staff promotion on employee productivity in an organization by using Ministry of Information and Culture in Yola Adamawa State as a case study.

Objective of the Study

This study mainly intends to assess the effect of staff promotion on employee productivity in an organization. Specifically the study is aimed at accomplishing the following objectives:

1. To examine the implementation of promotion procedures at Ministry of Information and Culture in Yola Adamawa State
2. To assess the positive effects of promotion to the individual employees and organization performance
3. To determine customers satisfaction level with performance of the ministry in service delivery.
4. To identify the factors that hinder effective implementation of promotion practice to employees of Ministry of Information and Culture in Yola Adamawa State

Research Questions

This study aimed at answering one main question: “To what extent promotion contributes towards employees’ productivity? More specifically, the study intended to find answers to the following questions:

1. What is the implementation of promotion procedures at Ministry of Information and Culture in Yola Adamawa State?
2. What are the positive effects of promotion to the individual employees and organization performance?
3. Are customers satisfied with the performance of the ministry in service delivery?
4. What are the factors that hinder effective implementation of promotion practice to employees of Ministry of Information and Culture in Yola Adamawa State?

Research Hypotheses

The research hypotheses that will be tested for this study include:

1. There is a significant correlation between employee promotion and employee performance in an organization
2. There is no significant correlation between promotion procedures and organizational performance

Significance of the Study

In recent years, researchers are conducting research on employee’s promotion. The significance of this study is to help Public and Private Organizations by identifying the benefits, problems, analyzing information’s and recommending for the improvement of promotion practices for employees. In addition to that, this study will act as a stepping stone to other researchers who wish to conduct studies in this area and hence contributing to knowledge advancement and solving related problems pertaining to the promotion of employees in Nigeria.

Scope of the Study

The study was carried out at Ministry of Information and Culture in Yola Adamawa State and was concerning with the effect of staff promotion on employee productivity in an organization in Nigeria. Therefore the findings that generated represent almost true aspects of what is happening in Public sector in Nigeria.

Limitation of the Study

            Time constraint, the sample size is likely to be influenced by time for doing research and data analysis of data. The less the time allotted, the big the possibility of using small sample size. For a study of this nature, time limitation result in failure to contact many respondents.

Another limitation is inaccessibility to some information. The researcher faced some difficulties in terms of accessing some information, especially some official documents which are sometimes referred as “confidential” by some authorities. This limitation has been addressed by the good introduction meeting or entry meeting as collection of data will be used only for the purpose of the study and nothing else prior to the commencement of research study.

Definition of Terms

            The following terms were used in the course of this study:

Employee Performance: is the successful completion of tasks by a selected individual or individuals, as set and measured by a supervisor or organization, to pre-defined acceptable standard while efficiently and effectively utilizing available resource within a changing environment by Mathias and Jackson (2009:324).

Employee Productivity: Employee productivity is the value added per employee divided by the average number of employees during the year converted into full-time equivalents.

Motivation: refers to influences that account for the initiation, direction, intensity and persistence of behavior Bernstein (2008). Motivation is a feeling of enthusiasm or interest that makes you determine to do something (Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners, 2007).

Promotion: According to Gupta (2011) promotion refers to advancement of an employee to a higher post carrying greater responsibilities, higher status and better salary. It is the upward movement of an employee in the organization’s hierarchy, to another job commanding greater higher authority, higher status and better working conditions. Promotions are used to reward employees for better performance and to motivate them for greater effort.