Employee Remuneration and Performance of Civil Servants in the Health Ministry in Mombasa County, Kenya

Abstract

This study examined the extent to which remuneration can be used as a tool of improving organizational performance among the civil servants working in the Ministry of health, County of Mombasa. The study was guided by the following objectives: to establish how satisfaction with remuneration affects workers’ performance in the health ministry; to determine the effect of employee’s perception of compensation equity on their performance in the health ministry; to evaluate the effect of remuneration management on workers’ performance in the health ministry and to establish the relationship between compensation components and workers’ performance in the health ministry. Descriptive survey design was used in this study. The target population were 8 public health centres and 41 dispensaries within Mombasa County. Stratified sampling design was used to select 40 respondents from health centres and 104 respondents from dispensaries. Purposive sampling was used to select 100 recipients of service delivery in the health centres and dispensaries under study from the health centres under investigation. Primary data was collected using questionnaires for administrators and health providers and interview schedules for patients. A pilot study was done among 10 randomly selected patients and 10 health providers in the health facilities in Mombasa County. The data collected was cleaned, coded and entered in to a computer database in readiness for analysis. Statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 20.0 was used for analysis. Quantitative data was analysed through descriptive statistics while qualitative data was analysed through content analysis. Multivariate regression model was used to help indicate if remuneration has a significant relationship with employee performance and to indicate the relative strength of different independent variables’ effects on employee performance. The analysed data was presented in tables, bar graphs, and pie charts. The study showed a positive relationship between the four independent variables and health workers’ performance. Health workers reported dissatisfaction with the salary amounts paid, long periods before salaries were reviewed, inequity between salaries and effort put, low salaries compared to people with similar qualifications but in the private sector, salary reviews and salary scales. The employees perceived inequity in their compensation shown by their perception that salary was not equal to effort put, inadequacy of compensation and benefits, unfairness in compensation which also affected their relations with their colleagues. There were remuneration management issues affecting health workers’ performance like dissatisfying salary structure, few salary reviews in line with economic changes and delayed salaries. The compensation components issues affecting employees’ performance were indicated by the dissatisfaction with the compensation components they got. The performance of health workers was mainly poor as indicated by patients’ dissatisfaction with health workers’ skills and competency, efficiency in nursing care, unfriendliness and lack of courtesy among health workers, negative attitude, and failure to act in the best interest of the patients. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended that salaries should be reviewed more often to cater for the changing economic needs; the county government should pay the health workers on time and salary structures should be reviewed; the county government should review the compensation components they gave to their health workers and the county government should look into health workers performance and get ways of boosting it because they work in a crucial sector. The issues investigated: satisfaction with remuneration, employee perception of compensation equity, remuneration management and compensation components explained 69.7% of health workers’ performance. It was suggested that a further study should be carried out to identify the other issues affecting health workers’ performance in order to get better ways of improving it.