Effect of Intrinsic Rewards on Employee Performance of Isiolo County Government, Kenya

Abstract

Every institution has a dire need to ensure that its staff become the driving force through its representation in the business market. However, there have been high employee turnover in Kenyan county governments. Therefore, the main objective was to examine the effect of intrinsic rewards on employee performance of Isiolo county government, Kenya. The specific objectives were to determine the effect of flexible working hours, capacity building, staff recognition and interpersonal relations on employee performance of Isiolo County Government, Kenya. Notably, there were three theories that guided the variables which are expectancy theory, social exchange theory and human relations theory. The study adopted descriptive research design whereby quantitative data was collected using close-ended questionnaires. Therefore, the target population included 1,662 employees of Isiolo county government in various departments. These employees were the directors, managers and operational staff who were further sampled using simple random method to obtain 43 directors, 48 managers and 309 operational staff as the sample size. Further, the study undertook a pre-test study in Samburu County government whose feedback was assessed using Cronbach Alpha coefficient to test the reliability of the questionnaires. SPSS software version 25 was used during the analysis process to provide descriptive and inferential analysis. On descriptive analysis, the study ensured that various statistics like frequencies, percentages and means were measured. The various inferential statistics that were determined included Pearson Correlation. The findings revealed that the Pearson correlation coefficients result for flexible working hours, capacity building, staff recognition, and interpersonal relations were 0.120; 0.164; 0.118; and 0.223 at α < 0.011 and 99% significance level respectively. The conclusions made in regards to flexible working hours was that the choice on hybrid options was based on informal agreement between first line supervisor and an employee. This brought about unprofessional favors and unbalanced allocation of tasks to the staff. In regards to capacity building the study established that human resource department financial needs were not adequately met by the county government when preparing the budget. This left the department to work with limited finances that were supposed to serve a growing work force in the county government. On staff recognition was that the rewarding system was equivocally decided by few management team members without necessarily consulting the employees. In regards to interpersonal relations, the study established that decision making relied on few ‘chosen’ management team members, most expressed opinions on how to enhance various performance matrix was not implemented. The study’s recommendation on flexible working hours is that there should be a formal policy structure formulation by the management that allows equality and fairness on allocation of tasks. On capacity building, the senior county leadership should reconsider increasing the budget allocation to HR to cater for recruitment, training, promotion and salary increment. On staff recognition is that there should be a collective bargaining agreement between the staff and the management to encourage in corporation to decision making. On interpersonal relations is that there should be more interactive sessions between the management and the staff created through formal meetings, trainings, bench-marking and team building initiatives.