1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Nigerian working conditions is one of the poorest among the developing countries in the world. Nigeria is located in the West African Continent. It is on record that Nigeria is the most populous Black people in the World and not just in Africa. However, Nigerian workforce is the least motivated to work due to environmental and physical conditions confronting employees‘ everyday in their workplace. Physical facilities where provided are not adequately maintained for optimal utilization by the workers who need them for their convenience and comfort while at work. The researchers worried by the state of these facilities decided to carry out studies in order to uncover through the review of literature on similar or related works on the effect of working conditions on the employee performance in Nigeria.
The issue of low productivity of Nigeria workers has in recent years been a matter of great concern to the nation. The success of any organization is closely tied to the job productivity of its employees. The quality of the employees’ working condition impacts on their motivation level and hence productivity (Heath, 2006). When employees have the desire, physically and emotionally to work, then their productivity shall be increased (Boles et al., 2004). They also stated that having a proper workplace condition helps in reducing the number of absenteeism and as a result can increase the productivity in today’s competitive and dynamic business world. The working condition that is set in place impacts employee morale, productivity and engagement – both positively and negatively (Chandrasekar, 2011). She adds that factors of workplace condition play an important role towards the employees’ productivity. The factors of workplace condition give an immense impact to the employees’ productivity either towards the negative outcomes or the positive outcomes.
The study is grounded on the Two Factor Theory (Herzberg, 1986). Herzberg came to a conclusion that the aspects of the work condition that satisfy employees are different from the aspects that dissatisfy them. The theory points out that improving the condition in which the job is performed motivates employees to perform better. The other theory is Weiss and Cropanzano’s Affective Events Theory (AET) which explains the link between internal influences and their reactions to incidents that occur in their work condition that affect employee productivity, organizational commitment and job satisfaction (Phua, 2012).
Employees on the other hand are faced with issues concerning their working condition especially their working hours due to shifts and lack of mobility in the workplace in terms of promotions. This is also coupled with other work conditions related challenges that might cause them to underperform.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Research has been carried out in ministry of information and culture Anambra state; regrettably not much has been done in the way of solving the problem facing the Nigeria workers. This has been detrimental to the increase of productivity which will contribute to the development of nation like Nigeria. In order to increase productivity among the workers in Nigeria with the help of ministry of information and culture Anambra state as a guide the following bottle neck were observed.
The fear of job security among workers.
The workers should be assured of their jobs
The motivational tool and incentives were not provided to the workers that will make them to put in their best. The job evaluation system has been carried out in an unfair manner.
Lack of programmes provision for developing staff made many junior staff under take personal training at the detriment of the employment.
1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
To carry out the research effectively, a number of related questions covering the Impact of Working Condition on Employee Productivity in the Civil Service in Ministry of Information and culture, Anambra state have been raised. The following questions were used to acquire the necessary information on the study.
1.4 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The objective or purpose of the study is to discover the following.
1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
This research work is of great relevance to the society at large. This is applicable to the government, the readers of this research work and to the researcher.
The benefit of this research work to the government is that by the end of the research, the weak-points and short – comings of all the sectors of the nation would be pinpointed and displayed based on findings, thereby proffering solution to the problem.
To the reader, they will be upgraded intellectually and also will be highly informed of the up and doings of the current administration. It will also give the reader’s insight on how the Working Condition on Employee Productivity in the Civil Service, also partake in the political affairs of the country geared towards the achievement of national development.
1.6 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The essence of this research work is to study the Impact of Working Condition on Employee Productivity in the Civil Service in The research intends to focus on the Ministry of Information and culture, Anambra state.
1.7 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
In the course of writing and carrying out this project work, the research encountered many difficulties; some errors in the results of the research and from external sources of data collection. These are factors standing as constraints thereby limiting the effect of the research result.
Among these are, time finance , scope and use of wrong statistics in data analysis, due to time limit, the research work is a time consuming one. A lot of time is taken to observe the subjects.
Most times the behaviour of the staff changes even when they are aware that they are being observed by the researcher, this is by taking their behavior. The researcher also observed that these senior staff some time give true and false information in order to cover their branches.
At sometime the research work lasted over two months due to large scope of area of the study.
1.8 OPERATIONIZATION/DEFINITION OF TERMS
For the purpose of clarity, the concepts of politics, Women participation and power will be used interchangeably in the discourse:
Productivity:- A measure of how well resources are brought together in organizations and utilized for accomplishing a set of results.
Performance: The accomplishment of a given task measured against preset known standards of accuracy, completeness, cost, and speed. In a contract, performance is deemed to be the fulfillment of an obligation, in a manner that releases the performer from all liabilities under the contract.
Public Service: It is an organized body or agency responsible for carrying out the day to day activities of the government. For the purpose of this study, public service is a government agency billed with the responsibility of carrying out government assignment for the benefit of the society.
Motivation:- This can be defined as those activities which involves the satisfaction of a workers desired need and similar forces in other to induce them to act in desired manner .
1.9 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY
This research work is organized in five chapters, for easy understanding, as follows. Chapter one is concern with the introduction, which consist of the (background of the study), statement of the problem, purpose of the study, research questions, significance of the study, scope of the study etc. Chapter two being the review of the related literature presents the theoretical framework, conceptual framework and other areas concerning the subject matter. Chapter three is a research methodology covers deals on the research design, area of the study, population of the study, sample and sampling techniques, methods of data collection, instruments for data collection, reliability of the instruments, validity of the instruments, distribution and retrieval of instruments and methods of data analysis. Chapter four concentrate on the data collection and analysis and presentation of finding. Chapter five gives summary, conclusion, and recommendations made of the study