Workplace Environment and Employees Performance in the Public Sector: A Case of Ministry of Land, Housing and Urban Development Nairobi City County, Kenya
Abstract
Public segment is the part of economy of a Nation that is controlled by the state. It provides a
range of government services e.g. healthcare, education, agriculture, water, tourism etc. The
workplace environment is important as it surrounds the conditions in which employees operates in
making them satisfied at the workplace and therefore, more productive. A Case study was carried
out at the Ministry of Lands and Housing. This study concentrated on four variables; office
design, social support, job characteristics, employee health and safety as well as job incentives in
relations to employee performance. The target population was 950 employees working at the
Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development head office in Nairobi. Stratified sample
procedure was used to split the populace into different divisions to pull a random prearranged
amount of components. Researcher used simple random sample to select 95 respondents. Primary
research data was composed from staff working in the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban
Development using an assessment that was self-conducted by the analyst to reduce disparity in
data gathering processes and ensure uniformity. Secondary data was sourced from publications,
journals, articles and the internet. The collected data was processed and descriptively analyzed
using percentages, frequencies, mean and standard error. Inferable statistics thus regression also
carried out. A Statistical Package Social Sciences aided the data analysis computer and the results
were obtainable by means of tables and diagrams. From the investigation, there was a relationship
among office design and employee performance as shown by the increase in employee
performance for a unit change in office design. There is strong connection amid social provision
and worker presentation. Findings shows a component increases social care factors leads to
improvement in employee performance. From the analysis, the job security and job requirements
in their organization to a very large extent affect job performance respectively. According to
regression model, a unit improvement in employee health and safety would lead to increase on
employee performance. On workplace incentives, majority of the respondents strongly agreed that
performance recognition can improve their job performance. As workplace incentives improves,
the employee performance also improves. Conclusion of the study, subsequent recommendations
to be made. Social support factors are important aspects of employee performance and the study
recommend that the management keep abreast of the existing relationship in the organization to
ensure health relationships are maintained between coworkers and supervisors. Job characteristics
affect employee performance and therefore the study concludes that every job should be well
designed, job requirements must be well stipulated to ensure personnel know there expectation
from every duty. On employee wellbeing, findings endorse soundness of the employees to be
accountability of both the management and employees. On workplace incentives, the study
recommends that the management should offer both monetary and non-monetary incentives
towards improving employee job presentation. Study recommends for various methods of
financial compensation such as performance based pay, bonuses and shares allocation.