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HUMAN RESOURCE PRACTICES AND EMPLOYEE COMMITMENT IN LOCAL GOVERNMENTSIN UGANDA: A CASE OF OFFICERS AT PAIDHA TOWN COUNCIL, ZOMBO DISTRICT

ABSTRACT

The topic of study was human resource practices and employee commitment in local governments in Uganda: a case of officers at paidha town council, zombo district. The topic of study was; to examine the relationship between recruitment and selection practices and employee commitment at Paidha Town Council, to examine relationship between reward practices and employee commitment at Paidha Town Council and to establish the relationship between employee training and development and employee commitment at Paidha Town Council.

The study used descriptive research design method taking a form of cross-sectional survey, the study used both quantitative to qualitative. The study population comprised employees and stakeholders of Paidha Town Council. Key in the study population was overall supervisor of Paidha Town Council, Heads of departments, ordinary staff, and support staff, Lc3 Executives, DSC and Lc 1 Chairpersons. The sample size for the study was 161 respondents determined using statistical tables of Morgan and Krejcie (1970).

The findings from the table above shows that there is a significant relationship between reward practices and Employee commitment. This study results further indicates that the null hypothesis is rejected and the alternative hypothesis is accepted. This study results further shows that reward practices influence employee commitment, there is a strong correlation between Employee commitment with Training and selection practices. This also further shows that the training an organization gives to employees enhances Employee commitment and the R Square value of 0.412, indicates that Training and selection practices affects Employee commitment by 41.2% and the study results show that the P-value 0.000 indicates that there is a significant relationship between Training and selection practices on Employee practices. This results therefore rejects the null hypothesis and accepts the alternate The study results show that a unit change in Training and selection practices leads to 1.20 change in commitment. This results further indicates that the P-value of 0.000 indicates that there is a significant relationship between Training and selection on employee commitment.

The study made the following recommendations; There is need for Paidha town council to offer training to its employees so that to motivate them and enhance their commitment to their jobs there by leading to their increased productivity. The study also further recommends that there is need to enhance the payments of employees so that it is commensurate to the amount of work they do since this will enhance their productivity and the study also recommends that there is need for enhance transparency during recruitment and selection process so that if it like promotion the employees are aware of the criteria that is used so that they can be motivated to work and enhance their productivity.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.0 Introduction

The aims of HRM whether in public or private organization is to promote commitment. As stated by Guest (1987), Human Resource Practices comprised a set of policies designed to maximize organizational integration, employee commitment, flexibility and quality of work. Across the globe in both Public and Private sectors employee commitment imposed challenges. Many studies had been conducted on commitment but no definitive conclusions have been yet reached on the concept. This study therefore aimed at investigating the relationship between the human resource practices with special attention given to recruitment and selection practices, employee training and development, employee reward and employee commitment.

1.1. Background to the Study

The background presents historical, theoretical, conceptual and contextual perspectives of this study

1.1.1. Historical Background

Organizational commitment studies began with sociological theories (Becker 1960) and later adopted sociological and psychological approach (Porter et al (1974) culminating in the studies of links between individual and organizations from the perspective of organization behaviour. The concept of organization commitment had attracted a lot of interests from both scholars and practitioners in an effort to explain employee’s behaviour and performance. As emphasised by a number of authors, organizational commitment remained a core predictor of employee’s attitude to the organization and a strong indicator of turnover, and organizational citizenship behaviour (Mathieu and Zajac, 1990; Morrow, 1993; Sinclair and Wright, (2005).

A number of research had shown that organizational commitment improved organizational effectiveness and predictor of employee turnover (Porter and Steers 1982). As Meyer and Allen (1991) restated the role of employees in organization was to help organization meet their desired goal and employees’ behaviour was primarily self-controlled rather than by sanctions and pressure

In developing countries, according to available literature, the environment has elements that may promote or equally inhibit organizational commitment. The environmental element include: favouritism in recruitment and selection, insufficient financial resources among others (Rupiny et al 2011). As explained by Omony (2010) the low employee commitment in part explained the ineffective service delivery experienced in most developing countries. Uganda on the other hand had enacted a comprehensive employee related laws designed for workers, their interests and terms and condition of services. In Uganda, the constitution (1995) and other employee laws were put in place to protect public employees, their interest and the terms and conditions of service all geared towards enhancement of their moral, commitment and ultimately effective service delivery to the citizens. The Local Government Human Resource Association in their review observed that the greatest challenge in the delivery of local government mandates had been low employee commitment in particular turnover, poor attendance, absenteeism, public relations. (Human Resource Managers Association of UgandaHRMAU, 2015). It was therefore upon this background that the researcher intended to examine the influence of some selected human resource practices such as recruitment and selection, employee training and development and employee rewards on employee commitment in

District Local Governments of Uganda specifically Paidha Town Council, Zombo district There were two schools’ of thought about what made commitment important namely from control to commitment and Japanese/excellency lead by Walton (1985a 1985b) and Ouchi at el (1982) respectively. Walton noted that movement away from traditional control approach of establishing order, exerting control and achieving efficiency to workforce management that encompassed giving employees’ broader responsibilities, encouraging them to contribute and helping them to achieve satisfaction in the work led employees to respond better and creatively. Walton recommended a commitment-based approach where it was observed that a worker responded best and creatively when given broader responsibilities, encouraged to contribute and helped to achieve satisfaction in their work.

The origin of employee commitment can be traced back to Sociology (Kanter19681 and Psychology (Keisler 1971). Over the year’s employee commitment as a topic of research had gained prominence in a variety of disciplines and offered significant insights.

Organizational commitment was a bond or a force an individual overtime developed with an Organization, According to Porter (1974) it was defined as the relative strength of individual identification with and involvement in a particular organization.  According to Mow day 1982) OC had three characteristics namely: a strong desire to remain a member of organization; s strong feeling in and acceptance of the value and goals of the organization and a readiness to exert considerable effort on behalf of the organization. Salancik (1977) defined organizational commitment as a state of being in which an individual became bound by his action to beliefs that sustained his activities and his own involvement. Some features of behavior important in binding individual to act so far were identified and they included: the visibility of the act; the extent to which the outcomes were irreversible and the degree to which the individual undertook the actions voluntarily. Salancik (1977) posit that commitment can be increased or harnessed to achieve organizational goals and interest through policies or practices designed to promote participation in decision making.

Paidha Town council had an established set of complementary human resource practices and policies which were in effect designed to improve the council performance through committed employees. The concept of organizational commitment (OC) had drawn a lot of attention of scholars and practitioners alike and had played an important part in HRM philosophy. As stated by Guest (1987) HRM policies were designed to maximize organizational integrations, organizational commitment and quality of work. Three characteristics of organizational commitment encompassing: a strong desire to remain a member of a particular organization; a strong belief in and acceptance of the values and goals of the organization and finally a readiness to exert a considerable effort on the behalf of the organization. Salancik (1977) alternative definition of organization commitment emphasized the importance of behavior in creating commitment. He (Ibid) defined organization commitment as a state of being in which one became bound by his or her action to beliefs that sustained activities and involvement”. Three features of behavior were deemed important in binding individuals to their acts. They include the visibility of the act, the extent to which the act were irrevocable and lastly the degree to which the person undertook the action voluntarily.

1.1.2 Theoretical Background

The study was underpinned by the Organizational Support Theory (OST) by (Eisenberger, Huntington, Hutchinson, and Sowa, 1986). The theory postulated that employees view their organization as having a disposition to view them favorably or unfavorably as manifested in the treatment it provided them (Eisenbergeret al., 1986).

The theory described how perceived organizational support (POS) developed and yielded positive results for employees and organizations (Eisenbergeret al.,2013). The theory postulated that employees valued POS partly because it met their needs for affiliation, approval, and esteem ;and  provideed comfort during times of stress and withdrawal behaviors such as absenteeism and turnover.Therefore, when favorable supervision and HR practices led to high POS, employees were more gratified with their jobs, felt more closely attached to the organization, they were compelled to view organizational goals as their own and became more loyal and committed to the organization.

The theory was based on the assumption of the norm of reciprocity (i.e., the moral obligation to respond favorably to positive treatment (Gouldner, 2014; Rhoades et al., 2015), employees with high POS were more likely to care about and further organizational goals. Thus, POS resulted into increased employee performance and reduced absenteeism. These assumptions asserted this study because POS was believed to be strongly driven by effective leadership, favorable HR practices and policies, fair treatment and desirable job conditions.

In this study, organizational support theory (OST) was believed relevant to explain the key concepts of employee commitment which could have arisen from the organization support through recruitment, training and reward

1.1.3. Conceptual Background

Human resource practices and employee commitment in Local Government in Uganda were the concepts of this study. As Armstrong (2009) had stressed that human resource is broad to be covered under one study. This study focused on Human Resource Practices as Independent Variable with special attention given to recruitment and selection practices, training and development and reward practices. Meanwhile employee commitment based on Meyer and Allen had a three-multidimensional component in the dependent variable, i.e. Affective, continuance and normative commitments.

Selection procedures referred to the process of finding and engaging potential productive employee loyal to the organization (Armstrong 2009) in a cost effective and timely manner and in accordance with laid down recruitment and selection policies and procedures. According to scholars and practitioners’ the ultimate object of selection was to achieve individual employeejob fit. This selection process began with job analysis (JA) culminating into job description (JD) and job specification (JS), The latter detailed written statement that identified the characteristics of the job for the benefit of potential candidate, while the latter (JS) kept attention of those involved with the selection on necessary qualifications required for an incumbent to perform the job and assist in determining the suitable qualified candidates,

Training and development practices referred to acquisition of specific knowledge, skills or attitudes aimed at an occupation or tasks (Armstrong 2009). There was consensus from both practitioners and scholars that the concept encompassed on-job training, off-job training and career development. This study however conceptualized training and development to mean onjob training, off-training and career development

Reward practices referred to anything physical or psychological, tangible or intangible, monetary or non-monetary, perceived by employees as valuable and are offered to them as a compensation for the productive work they have successfully achieved. For the purpose of this study, the employee reward practices conceptualized to include monetary and non-monetary rewards including recognition

The most used definitions of employee commitment in research which had received a lot of research attention was that of Meyer and Allen (1984) who defined commitment using as a three- multidimensional component consisting of  affective,  continuance and normative commitments.  The  affective perspective denoted positive feelings of identification with, attachment to and involvement in the work; continuance commitment referred to the extent to which employees felt committed to their organization by virtue of the costs that they felt were associated with leaving; and finally normative commitment was defined as employee’s feelings of obligation to remain with the organization. Common to the three dimensions of commitments was that all were psychologically -based.

Equally this study adopted the dimensions of commitment that included affective, continuous and normative commitments, to investigate the level of employees’ commitment in Paidha Town Council.

1.1.4 Contextual Background

This study intended to investigate the HRP practices adopted by Paidha Town Council to reinforce employee commitment. Paidha Town Council came into existence in 1993 as a lower Local Government administrative unit with legislative and executive power under Zombo district in line with Part 11 Section 9 (1) of the Local Government Act 1997 and Chapter 11 Article 176 and 177 of the Constitution of the Republic of Uganda (1995). The mission of the Council was to achieve sustainable socio-economic development through efficient provision of quality services to people in conformity with the national and local priorities. The political head of Paidha Town was the Council under the Mayorship. Invested in the council was Legislative and  Executive powers with key functions of: initiating and formulating policies; formulating development plans, work Plan and Budgets in consultation with administration and communities; providing, managing and coordinating primary, secondary, special, business, technical, and vocational education; providing, facilitating and coordinating health services within the council including primary health care, medical curative services, disease and vector control and sanitary services;  providing vermin control services within council; promoting and regulating industrial and commercial activities in the council; providing technical services and supervising construction and maintenance of infrastructure and public facilities including roads, buildings and water supply within their jurisdiction; carrying out land administration function within the council; providing community based services including social rehabilitation, probation, welfare, culture, gender, youth and women issues in development and children’s affairs, community development and adult literacy programs; mobilizing, collecting and managing revenue and ensuring value for money in all areas of service delivery; and planning, managing and developing human resources .

These functions were carried out by subject matter specialists, specific technical staff from nine departments headed by the Town Clerk. The departments included:  Administration, Finance and planning, Public Health, Production, Trade and Industry, Education, Community Based Services Division and Internal Audit.

Since Paidha Town Council came into existence in 1993 one of Council’s core functions had been planning, managing and development of human resources. To give its rightful importance the Administration department under which the Human Resource unit headed by Personnel Officer falls directly under the Deputy Town Clerk. Furthermore, in line with the recommendations of the Ministry of Public Service (Comprehensive Review of Local Government 2018) the functions of the Council were organized into eight sectors to enhance productivity and service delivery. These sectors were headed by senior technical officers or specific subject specialists with remuneration upgraded to Salary Grade 3 (U3) to reflect their seniority. Similarly, in each sector or at departmental levels jobs were re-arranged and harmonized to reflect levels of operations and responsibilities. Equally staffing levels and competences of individual posts were revisited to match the job requirements and the demand for service delivery.

In addition, the Councils had in place human resources practices that included: recruitment and selection procedures to attract well qualified motivated prospective employees, effective induction program for new entry employees; formal education cost-sharing and study leave and trainings inform of workshops, seminars and exchange visits for information sharing; financial and non-financial rewards such retiring pension, recognition as the best employee of the year and information sharing. However, the employees of the Paidha Town Council continued to demonstrate low commitment as reflected in; .late arrival and early departure to the office or meetings; absenteeism; willingness to change employers, bad- mouthing the council,  use of town council assets such as computers or vehicles for personal work. Thus, the need to carry out this study.

1.2 Statement of the problem

Indeed, in Uganda, District Local Governments attached utmost significance to human resource practices to elicit quality performance and subsequent employee commitment.  Paidha Town Council, for example, had in the past adopted a number of human resource practices and policies which included: rigorous recruitment and selection practices, training and development policies and employee reward among others. These were intended to motivate the employees’ so as to reduce on the lack of commitment, absenteeism, abscondment, turnover rates and lack of sense of responsibility among Town Council staff.

However, despite putting in place these practices, employee commitment in the Town Council was still a distant reality as review of daily attendance register(2017/2018 and 2019/2020) and personal interview with personnel officer revealed; that between 2017 and 2020 six staff voluntarily resigned from their work, rate absenteeism and  abscondment increased and very low level of  commitment at work registered thus raising the cost of attracting and recruiting new staff. This was a bad situation for organization performance and it explained why the researcher was interested in investigating relationship between human resource practices and employee commitment with special interest on recruitment and selection practices, employee reward and training and development practices, taking a case of officers at Paidha Town

Council, Zombo district.

1.3 Purpose of the study

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of human resource practices on employee commitment in District Local Governments in the context of Uganda, taking a case of staff at Paidha Town Council, Zombo district

1.4 Objectives of the study

This study was guided by the following objectives:

1. To examine the relationship between recruitment and selection practices and employee commitment at Paidha Town Council.
2. To examine relationship between reward practices and employee commitment at Paidha Town Council.

• To establish the relationship between employee training and development and employee commitment at Paidha Town Council

1.5 Research Questions

1. What is the relationship between recruitment and selection practices and employee commitment at Paidha Town Council?
2. What is the relationship between reward practices and employee commitment at Paidha Town Council? iii) How does employee training and development practices contribute to employee commitment at Paidha Town Council?

1.6 Study Hypotheses iv) There is significant positive relationship between recruitment and selection practices and employee commitment at Paidha Town Council

1. v) There is significant relationship between reward practices and employee commitment at Paidha Town Council vi) There is significant relationship between training and development practices and employee commitment at Paidha Town Council.

1.7 Conceptual Framework

The conceptual framework is drawn to graphically show the focus of the study, that is, the relationship between human resource practices and employee commitment

Source: Adopted from Chance; Chand and Katou (2007) and modified by the researcher

Figure 1.1: Conceptual framework: The influence of HR practices on employee

commitment. 

Figure 1.1 above presented the concept of the study. Human resource practices (HRP) was the independent variable and in particular focusing on: recruitment and selection, reward practices and training and development. Selection objective was ultimately to achieve individual-job fit and it is achieved through job analysis (JA) leading to job descriptions (JD) and job specification (Robbins 1998). According to Robbins (1998) job descriptions were used to describe the job potential to potential candidates. While the job specifications kept attention of those carrying out the selection on the necessary qualifications for an incumbent to perform a job and determining the most suitable qualified candidates. Training and development practices referred to induction and in-service training (workshops, seminars, exchange visits) and career development. While reward practices were related to monetary and non- monetary rewards organization offers to motivate employees.

While dependent variable was the tri-directional approach to commitment that entailed affective commitment, continuance commitment and normative commitment. Based on the reciprocity norms, when  the Council employees believed that selection practices, training and development practices and rewards practices were transparent, fair and equitable then the staff would feel connected to the council; became dedicated and put in more efforts into their work and became obliged to achieve Council’s desired goals.

1.8. Significance of the study

Practical relevance: Practically this study would help managers make decisions regarding training and development of staff. As supervisors learned and improved their knowledge and skills, they learned how they can use this training as a vital instrument to commit the employees in turbulent economic times. In fact, managers must be in better position to make better decisions concerning the education and training of employees.

Socially: The study would lead to finding answers to prevailing questions on the issue of investing in human capital. By doing so, employers would contribute to getting the right people in the right position and that was an important contribution to the functioning of society. It would provide the ideal or best practices to the managers who would be in position of reading this research work.

Scientific relevance: The research could lead to further scientific research. The study could help researchers get more insight about basic relationship between the concepts. The findings of this study should also be important in the sense that; it would improve employee commitment in the urban councils or help the ministry of Local Government in review of human resource practices so as to improve the quality-of-service delivery.

1.9. Justification of the study

It was envisaged this study would help the Council make decisions and take actions regarding selection practices, training and developments practices and rewards practices to enhance employee commitment. Employee commitment should be an integral part the Council’s

culture.

Furthermore, it was envisaged that the research could lead to further scientific research. The study could help researchers get more insight about basic relationship between the concepts. The findings of this study should improve employee commitment in the urban councils or help the ministry of Local Government review human resource practices so as to improve the quality-of-service delivery.

1.10      Scope of the study

This sub section presented the content, geographical and time scope of the study:

1.10.1 Content Scope

The content scope of the study was human resource practices as the independent variable and employee commitment as dependent variable. Human resource practices was represented by factors such as employee recruitment and selection, employee training and development and employee reward meanwhile employee commitment was represented by factors such as affective, normative and continuance commitments.

1.10.2 Geographical scope

This study was carried out at Paidha Town Council, Zombo District North Western part of

Uganda.

1.10.3 Time Scope

The study time scope was the period from 2017 to 2022 because during these years Paidha Town Council experienced challenges with employee commitment in areas which included high staff turnover rate, low level of employee commitment manifested by late arrival to and early departure from work, unexplained absenteeism, and failure to meet deadlines of assignments, resignation, and poor customer care leading to lack of devotion to work.

1.11 Operational definition of terms

Employee Commitment: In this study refers to a psychological attachment and the resulting loyalty that binds the individual employee to the organization (John, Meyer & Elyse, 2016).

Human Resource: In this study refers to the prime asset of an organization and businesses an organization need to invest in to ensure its survival and growth which represents the human factor in the organization; the combined intelligence, skills and expertise that give the organization its distinctive character (Armstrong, 2014).

HR Practices in this study refers to activities carried out in the implementation of HR policies and programs and these include resourcing, learning and development, performance and reward management, employee relations, career management and administration (Armstrong, 2014).

Selection refers to achieving right potential employee-job fit where the individual abilities, experience, skills and knowledge match with the requirements of the job. The Council carries out job analysis (JA) that result into job description (JD) and job specification (JS). While the Council uses the job description JD describe to the potential candidates the characteristic of the  job specification  (JS) keeps attention of those involved in selection process  the characteristics of the successful job incumbent.

Training and Development: In this study refers to on-job training; off-job training and career development programs the Paidha Town Council have adopted to implement to the employees. On-job training practices cover induction; job rotation allowing employees work at different jobs; coaching and mentoring. The off-job training practices such as workshops, seminars and exchange visits to other Towns or district or information exchange. Mine while employee career development refers to academic progression from certificate, Diploma and Degree to Diploma, Degree and Advanced Degree

Reward Practices: refers to incentives in forms of monetary and non-monetary offered to the employees of the Council.

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Introduction

This chapter presents a review of literatures related to Human resource practice and Employee commitment in Paidha Town Council. Key in this chapter was the reviews of different or related literatures, summary of literature review and review of theories that underpined the study. The literature reviewed were based on the purpose and objective of the study.

2.2 Theoretical Review

As earlier mentioned in chapter one, this study was anchored on the Organizational support theory developed by Einsenberger et al., 1986. Organizational support theory explained how POS developed and yielded positive results for employees and the entire organizations.

According to Shaw et al., (2016), POS provided employees with a straightforward way to understand their value to the firm, and it ranged from a positive view to the opposite extreme of disdaining them at the first opportunity. Employees considered POS partly because it met their requirements for approbation, esteem, and affiliation, as well as providing comfort during times of stress, according to Kurtessis et al., (2015). Employees felt more delighted with their jobs, they were more closely connected with the organization, they were more inclined to regard corporate goals as their own, and they became more loyal and devoted to the organization when given favorable supervision.

In addition to meeting employee demands as outlined above, POS communicated to employees that the organization was ready to assist with job tasks as needed and to reward increased performance (Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2016). As a result, POS improved staff productivity and reduced absenteeism. Effective leadership, attractive HR policies, appropriate working conditions, and fair treatment were all linked to POS. (Eisenberger & Stinglhamber, 2015) suggested that employees who felt they received more support from their employers were more willing to “repay” the organization by increasing their commitment to it. As a result organizations would best serve their employees and their bottom lines by adopting policies and tactics that resulted in good employee views and attitudes toward the company.

Organization policies and procedures aimed toward employees, or human resource practices, according to Eisenberger, Fasolo, and Davis-LaMastro (2014), should have had a major positive or negative impact to POS since they were explicitly oriented toward employees. To boost POS, good HR practices were advised should reflect investment in human resources and demonstrate acknowledgement of employee contributions (Allen et al., 2013). As a result, POS were linked to HR policies including job stability, autonomy, training and development, decision-making, engagement, and prospects for rewards and promotions (Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2016; Allen et al., 2013).

Despite the fact that many researchers regarded the work of (Eisenberger et al., 1986) as a significant contribution to employee commitment, research, scholars and practitioners questioned the theory’s validity and applicability (Stajkovic & Luthans, 2012; Smither et al.,

2013). According to Shanock et al., (2016), the presumption was consistent, stable, and traditional. Furthermore, there was no universally successful HR practices mechanism, and HR practices categories conceptually difficult to identify.

2.3 Conceptual literature review

This review were handled in line with the objectives of the study;

2.3.1 Employee recruitment and selection and Employee Commitment.

According to the studied literature, scholars became more interested in employee commitment. Employee commitment were linked to perceived fairness in the resourcing process by Fong et al. (2016), while Ombui et al. (2017) found a strong positive significant relationship between human resource practices and employee commitment in South African Research Institutes.

According to Chapman and Webster (2003), employee recruitment and selection were done in four stages: job advertisement, applicant acceptance, application screening, and final decisions by the recruitment and selection committee. The study concluded that recruitment was the act of gathering names of qualified candidates for a job, whereas selection was the process of appointing the correct people for the job. Methodological gaps occurred, however, because the factor of employee commitment were largely ignored in earlier empirical studies.

Building competent personnel, according to Firend and Sofyan (2016), began with picking the finest candidates for current positions. Their research found that effective employee recruitment tactics had a substantial impact on staff commitment and retention intentions at Equity Bank in Kenya. Regression study revealed that employee commitment was influenced by selection in a positive but significant way. Because surroundings were rarely similar for effective outcomes, the study’s contextual gaps showed that more empirical examination was needed in Local Government, particularly in the District Local Government of Zombo.

According to Roehl& Swerdlow (2014), a thorough job analysis can be used for a variety of purposes, including trainings, merit ratings, selection, training, incentive pay, improving work conditions, improving work methods, charting lines of responsibility, functions of the job, and lines of promotion. The findings showed that HR procedures and employee commitment were a beneficial association. The findings and recommendations were useful for managing employee resourcing; nevertheless, they were collected several years ago and relied on secondary data from outside Uganda, creating geographical and methodological gaps that necessitated a similar study in Uganda using primary data. The study did not confirm either a positive nor negative significant relationship between the two variables hence a gap that this study attempted to address

Organizations, according to Mohammad Nor (2015), must pay close attention to employees’ social needs to attach and belong. Employees, he said, needed to be in an environment that would make them feel at ease. Recruited people must share the goals and values of the organization. The problem was that in order to foster commitment, organizations must ensure that they had the right workers on board.

Similarly, as Guzzo and Noonan (2016) pointed out, there were a variety of strategies that companies could use to help employees feel appreciated as the recruitment and selection process progressed. They must share information about the organization, provide assistance to employees during the recruitment and selection process, and communicate the organization’s primary interests and principles. Only descriptive analysis was used to identify the gaps in these various publications. There was no correlation regression analysis presented. This left loop holes in the context, necessitating a similar study in Uganda based on descriptive inferential analysis and confirming the degree of association.  More so, although relevant the findings of this study should cover recent timespan owing to the recent changes seen in Local Government. This, therefore, called for a related study to be carried out in Uganda now especially in this era of change management in the public sector, thus a justification for this study.

2.3.3. Rewards and Employee Commitment

According to Alamelu et al., (2015), if an employee was satisfied with his or her salary, his or her attachment to the company would grow or remained the same. Remuneration was one of the elements that led to employee engagement in firms, according to Ooi and Arumugam (2016). The majority of employees were motivated and performed better job as a result of financial incentives provided by their employer. They became much more productive if the compensation they received made it worthwhile for them to do so. In addition, motivation benefits included not only monetary rewards but also employee support programs such as subsidized cafeterias, travel discounts, and so on. Therefore, if the remuneration is executed well, it will make employees feel motivated. There existed contextual gaps as more study needed to be done in district Local Government and a shift focused to other players facing Town Council.

O’Driscoll and Randal (1999) found that any acceptable rewards supplied by the business had a big impact on the employees’ dedication in their study based on a sample of 350 workers in Ireland and New Zealand. As a result, the employer chose the optimal remuneration package to give the employee in order to enable him to attain the degree of satisfaction he required in exchange for his whole dedication. According to Miner et al. (2016), motivation was made up of wants, drives, and rewards, as well as their interactions. Every manager had control over motivation, which was supposed to be a good drive that led to exceptional performance and the formation of habits. It should be recognized that motivation came from both within and without. It was internal when it was in form such as job attraction, growth, recognition and achievement or external when it was in such form as employee’s actions and concerns were impressed by external incentives like reward, feedback, and punishment. Carter et al., (2011) reaffirmed that motivation was affected by three factors, information, reward and personal elements. He further noted that employees could be encouraged and motivated through provision of some special allowances and fringe benefits when we referred to their good performance and specific skills, this would in turn increase the job commitment of employees. The findings and recommendations were relevant for managing employee commitment; however, the study relied on secondary data gathered outside Uganda, this resulted in both geographical and methodological gaps thus calling for a similar study in Uganda basing on primary data. The study did not confirm either a positive nor negative significant relationship between the two variables hence a gap that this study would attempt to address.

2.3.2. Training and development and Employee Commitment.

Training and development were found to link with employee commitment. According to Garcia (2005), training and development seemed to have a positive relationship with employee commitment .Bradley, Petreseu and Simmons (2004) elaborated that creating an on-going learning as well as training at work place had a high significant impact on employee commitment. Tannenbaum and colleagues (19991) in their studies noted that training can induce positive or negative attitudes that trainees carry with them into the work place. Those attitudes, explained Berlet (2001) were so important that they could be considered as a result of training.

According to Roehl and Swerdlow (2017), training and development led to a positive relationship with employee morale, perceptions of supervisors’ quality, awareness of rules, and thus organizational success, as well as employee commitment. In Brazil, Scheible and Bastos (2015) discovered that effective training and development programs are linked to employee commitment, job happiness, high performance, and the intention to continue in government jobs. Meanwhile in South Africa, Nkosi (2015), also noted among his respondents of a local municipal, that training had significant impact on employee’s performance and commitment. Contextual gaps were present thus more study should cover recent timespan owing to the recent changes seen in the public sector budgets hence a gap that this study must attempt to cover.

According to Lamba and Choudhary (2013), employee training in areas such as work orientation, safety, and promotional activities were primarily targeted at expanding HR skills so that they become more proficient. Increasing staff knowledge through training and offering a sense of appropriate career counseling was to contribute to a sense of future security and the development of self-efficacy (Guest, 2017). These training programs were usually led by experienced and skilled managers from the same firm, but specialists from outside agencies were occasionally enlisted with the goal of increasing the organization’s worker efficiency.. Engaging consultants to train the employees can be expensive for the organization but may be more beneficial as current managers may not deliver the required results (Lim & Ling, 2012).

Schmidt et al (2007) examined whether a match between employees preferred mode of training in which the employee participates made a difference in employee commitment at work place.  Findings from the survey done indicated that if an employee most often received training using the methodology he or she believed was most effective for himself or herself, it was considered a match. However, a non-match was a situation in which an employee most often received training using a methodology other than the one he or she believed was most effective in helping him or her-self learn. A t-test was conducted and it was found that there were significant differences with employee commitment when a respondent preferred methodology most often used in providing respondent with training and development. The methodology used in training had an effect on employee commitment. Given this findings, it was crucial that the method used by Local Government to train staff be established in order to establish their effectiveness.

In summary, an organization’s training efforts had a significant effect on employees and on the organization. Attitudes about training and development were not limited to the training situation. Instead, they were crucial pieces in employees’ feelings about the job and organization.Rowden and Canine (2013) recommended additional research to further understand this apparent powerful link between work place learning and employee commitment. If this powerful link continue to exist in local governments, managers concerned with human resource practices and employee commitments may want to encourage more learning opportunities in the work place.

However, their various reviews did not establish the period that previous data may be ascertained too. This still led to the issue of methodological gaps in that the dimension of employee commitment was hardly considered in past empirical findings hence a gap that this study would attempt to address.

2.3.4 Employee Commitment of DLGs

According to literature reviewed, there were so many definitions of employee commitment but most researchers agreed that the best definition of commitment is a multidimensional psychological connection of an individual to the organization (Dordevic, 2017).

Organizational commitment, according to Allen and Meyer (1990), had three aspects: affective, continuation, and normative. According to Owoyemi et al., (2016), employee commitment was typically determined by their level of trust and relevance to the firm. Designing and implementing a performance management system that was efficient and successful in enhancing employee performance could maximize trust and relevance.

Employee commitment, according to Bartlett and Kang (2016), was an extremely valuable intangible asset that every organization should have had in order to succeed. It aids in determining the organization’s overall progress. As a result, management should increase employee commitment because it ass one of the aspects that determined an organization’s success. Furthermore, according to Awamleh (1996), deeper and more widespread devotion can help organizations evolve, flourish, and survive. Unless workers were content with the company, it would never achieve competitiveness in terms of product and service quality (Stewart,2016).

It was a common belief, according to Batau and Mohamed (2016), that insufficient pay, fewer benefits, fewer opportunities for career advancement, a hostile work environment, unattractive remuneration, a lack of training, development, and recognition provided by public organizations to their employees had caused them to become emotionally and mentally detached from the organization.. Thus, the employees were not committed and hence resulted to dismal performance of the department.

2.4 Summary of literature review

The literature reviewed in this study revealed that employee commitment can be explained using Organizational Support Theory which posit that employees would reciprocate by staying with the organization based on their perceived organizational support in training and career development. However, the literature was not conclusive on the possible outcome of employee training, better reward and improved work environment for instance, employee being highly committed to serve as a proof of employees being committed to their job when such is done.

Furthermore, the literature revealed insufficient evidence on the extent to which job analysis and selection factors contribute to affective, normative and continuance commitment in the Local Government work.

The review further revealed that HR practice which includes managing entry, stay, and exit shows contextual and empirical gaps in the relationship between HR practice and employee commitment. For instance, at contextual level all the studies above were carried outside Uganda (Ushie, Agba, and Okorie, 2015; Roehl& Swerdlow,2014; Hossian et.al.,2017), apart from students’ unpublished dissertations and proposals in various libraries of universities and other Higher Institutions of learning. Despite the expansive body of literature reviewed above, there is limited empirical evidence directing HR practice to employee commitment. Indeed, it’s not clear what HR practice will reciprocate to more meaningful levels of employee commitment. This study therefore intends to bridge gap by interrogating the extent to which HR practice will impact the employee commitment of Paidha Town -Zombo district, Uganda

CHAPTER THREE

METHODOLOGY

3.1 Introduction

This chapter elaborated on the methodology that will be employed in this research. For instance, research design, population of study, the sample size and selection, sampling techniques and procedures, data collection methods, and the data collection instruments and it will also cover the pre-testing of data collection instruments, validity and reliability tests, data collection procedures, data analysis, measurement of variables and ethical considerations.

3.2 Research design

The study used descriptive research design method taking a form of cross-sectional survey.

According to Saunders (2016), this design allowed the researcher to gather information’s, summarized, presented and interpreted them for the purposes of clarification. The design was suitable for this study as it allowed the collection of information for (IV) and (DV) variables using structured and unstructured questionnaires (Creswell, 2013). Therefore, a mixed method using both quantitative and qualitative approaches were adopted for this study.

Quantitative approach was emphasized; measurement and data analysis in numerical form  gave precise description, and in addition placed emphasis on methodology, procedure and statistical measures to test hypothesis and make predictions (Yin, 2014). Furtherance to this, quantitative approach strived for precision by focusing on items that could be counted into predetermined categories and subjected to statistical analysis (Ott & Longnecker, 2015).

Qualitative approach on the other hand enabled collection of data in form of words rather than numbers and provided verbal descriptions rather than numerical (Creswell, 2013).A mixed study methodology allowed researchers to retain the holistic and meaningful characteristics of real-life events (Ott & Longnecker, 2015).

3.3 Study population

The study population comprised employees and stakeholders of Paidha Town Council. Key in the study population will be overall supervisor of Paidha Town Council, Heads of departments, ordinary staff, and support staff, Lc3 Executives, DSC and Lc 1 Chairpersons. The Personnel officer of this Town Council would be key because he/she dealt directly with both administrative and non-administrative staff and was expected to know much about human resource practices and policies that affected the employees and their commitment towards their work. A total of 200 employees from the Paidha Town Council  in Zombo district was targeted; of these 15 were Head of Departments, 5 Lc3 Executives, 5 District Service Commission, 130 junior officers and 45 Local Council One Chairpersons as shown in table 3.1 below.

3.4 Sample size and Determination

The sample size for the study was 161 respondents determined using statistical tables of Morgan and Krejcie (1970).

Table 3.1. Sampling approach

Source: Researcher’s construct using Human Resource Department; Paidha Town Council (2021) and guided by Krejcie and Morgan (1970) sampling table.

From the above Table 3.1:  a total of 200 respondents was targeted for this study and sample size of 161 respondents as determined from statistical table developed by Morgan and Krejcie

(1970).

3.5 Sampling techniques

The study used both simple random sampling and purposive sampling techniques.

3.5.1 Simple Random Sampling

Junior officers under Administration, Finance, Production, Health, Works and Transport, Community Based Services, Audit, Education and Local Council One Chairpersons were chosen using Simple random sampling, a probability sampling strategy in which every subject or element in the population had an equal chance of being chosen for the sample (Amin, 2005). The researcher ensured that all elements had equal chance of being included in the sample, eliminating bias and increasing internal validity (Hennink et al., 2015). The lottery method was used to choose participants for this study. In this approach, the name of each employee and stakeholders was written on a tag and mixed in a bowl and then later picked by the researcher randomly until the required number of respondents was accessed.

3.5.2 Purposive sampling

Purposive Sampling was a non-probability sampling technique (Sedgwick, 2014). The researcher used purposive sampling to select respondents especially Head of Departments from Administration, Finance, Production, Health, Education, Audit, Community Based Services, members of District Service Commission and Local Council 3 Executives to participate in the study. The researcher used this technique to choose respondents from these departments basing on their level of knowledge, experience and engagement with regards to human resource practices and employee commitment in Local Government.

3.6 Data Collection Methods

In this study data was collected using face to face interview, questionnaire survey method and document review method as explained below:

3.6.1 Questionnaire Survey

Questionnaire survey method refers to a technique for gathering statistical information about the attributes, attitudes, or actions of a population by a structured set of questions (Saunders et al, 2016). The method involved the researcher preparing a set of questions pertaining to the field of enquiry.

The researcher used this method to enable him to collect quantitative data from respondents in the health and education departments of the two Town Council s. The advantage of this method was that it enabled the collection of vast amounts of data in a short time. In addition, it was cheap and easy to analyze data from the questionnaire survey method

3.6.2 Interview method

An interview method was a qualitative research technique which involved asking open-ended questions to converse with respondents and collect, elicit data about a subject. This method was used to collect data from the selected key informants especially heads of departments of the Town Council, members of the executives and district service commission. Face to face interview method was used to enable the researcher to collect qualitative data and elicit opinions, views with regards to the what, how, why of the phenomenon being studied. This method  enabled the researcher to judge the non-verbal behavior of the respondent and it gave the opportunity for the researcher to probe and clarify some of the study questions. Interviewing allowed key informants a wider chance to give detailed information that were not possible to obtain using questionnaires.

3.6.3. Document review

The researcher used the available literature related to the study topic. Such documents reviewed included but not limited to; Policy statements (2017 – 2021), annual HR reports (2017 – 2021), journals and conference papers and comprehensive data on HR trainings.  These were analyzed to collect the appropriate data related to the study topic.

3.7. Data Collection Instruments

The researcher used appropriate instruments for each method of data collection as explained below in the next subsections:

3.7.1 Questionnaire

The researcher used self-administered questionnaires to head of departments and junior officers because the researcher believed that these people could read and write. The questionnaire contained close ended questions which were be logically ordered so as to collect quantitative data. The researcher prepared both structured and unstructured questionnaires with two parts and set of questions. Section A contained background information such as age of respondent, gender, level of education and number of years of experience. Section B contained Human resource practices consisting of questions measured using an ordinal scale, Section C had

Employee commitment with questions measured using an ordinal scale.  This part was inform of a Likert scale anchored by a 5- point rating ranging from strongly disagree =1 to strongly agree = 5 that focus on the measures of the credit monitoring system and loan portfolio performance.  A sample of the questionnaire is attached as Appendix I.

3.7.2 Interview guide

A key informant interview guide was used to guide the researcher on the questions to pose to the key informants. The interview guide contained open ended questions which enabled the researcher to elicit opinions, views with regards to human resource practices and employee commitment in Local Government. Open ended questions enabled the researcher to probe for more details in relation to the questions being posed to the key informants. The interview guide contained questions structured based on the specific objectives of the study. The interview guide was administered to the key informants of the study selected among Local Council One Chairpersons of Paidha Town Council. Their oral views recorded and used in chapter four to supplement the quantified data obtained using questionnaire. The questions were attached in the appendix 2 of this report.

3.7.3 Document review checklist

This will be a list of documents that the study will consult in order to get relevant data for the study. The instrument is deemed necessary to guide the researcher to review relevant documents in order to collect data required to answer the research questions. It will also help the study to verify facts especially during secondary data collection. The document review checklist contains all relevant books such as journals, websites, and board reports, reports from the Zombo district website and any other related literature to the study.

3.8 Quality control of data Collection instruments

Quality control of data collection instruments will be used to examine the precision/quality for this kind of study; while the precision with which study instruments will be measured in a study and expressed in terms of validity and reliability (Yin, 2014) related because if a measure is valid then it is reliable. The validity and reliability approaches are described below:

3.8.1 Validity of Data Collection Instruments

According to Sekaran and Bougie, validity is concerned with the accuracy of the research instrument, as well as determining and confirming whether the instrument is measuring what it is supposed to measure or not (2016). To test and improve the validity of data collection instruments, the researcher will give them to academic supervisors, who will look over them and look for language clarity, relevance, and comprehensiveness of content, as well as the length of the questionnaire, and any errors will be edited.

The Content Validity Index (Coefficient Validity Index – CVI), which is determined by expert judgment, will be used to measure validity. (2005, Amin). The expert judgment makes a comparison between “what is to be included in the instrument, given in the intended purpose and what actually is included in the instrument.” The formula for measurement of validity is as follows: – CVI = Number of items declared valid/Total number of items. CVI = (N – ne)/N.  Where: N = Total number of items; ne = Number of items discarded. For an instrument to be accepted as valid, the average CVI must be 0.7 or above (Creswell, 2014).  For the instruments to yield relevant and correct data, they will be given to four team leaders of “Zombo Town Council” who are conversant with the study area to comment on the content, ambiguity, difficult and relevancy of questions to ensure content, construct and face validity.

3.8.2 Reliability of data collection Instruments

The degree to which a research instrument produces consistent outcomes or data after repeated trials is known as reliability (Sounder, 2016). To assess reliability, split-halves, test-retest, equivalent forms, and the internal consistency approach are utilized. This suggested study will use the Cronbach alpha (Cronbach, 1951) internal consistency approach based on 5-point Likert scale items. The researcher will conduct a pilot test on 10 respondents to check that questionnaires yield consistent findings when utilized under the same settings, and the results will be subjected to Cronbach alpha reliability. The questionnaires will be given to 10 respondents of Zombo Town Council to fill in and will be collected for analysis. Raw data from these questionnaires will be entered into a statistical program known as the Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS). Using this program, the internal consistence (reliability) of the instrument will be measured using Cronbach‘s Alpha coefficients for each variable, which will be compared to a recommended Alpha coefficient by Nunnally with acceptable cut off point

0.70 demonstrates that all attributes are internally consistent.

3.9 Data Collection Procedure

The researcher will present the introductory letter to the in charge of the Town Council seeking for the permission to distribute questionnaires and interview guides to the respondents. Anonymity and confidentiality of the respondents will be observed by not asking the respondents for their names and contacts on the questionnaires. The various areas of interest will be marked on the questionnaires to aid the distributors of the questionnaires from not picking one department only. Thereafter, a team of 3 research assistants led by the researcher with commence to collect data from the sample populations using the selected methods as appropriate.  Data collected will be edited with a view to check for completeness and accuracy.

3.10 Data Analysis

The data collected will be analyzed using both qualitative and quantitative analysis methods

3.10.1 Qualitative data analysis

Qualitative data will be analyzed using manual content thematic analysis where similar texts, opinions and views will be identified as emerging themes. Analyzed data will be presented in a narrative summary (verbatim form) coupled with direct quotations of what the key informants exactly said (Creswell, 2013). There is no single or best way to analyses qualitative data, for you can adapt to your own extension evaluations. The common technique for qualitative data analysis will be used will be limited to direct interaction with the respondent and the responses recorded.

3.10.2 Quantitative Data Analysis

Quantitative data will be coded, edited and entered into SPSS (Statistical Package for Social

Scientists) data editor. Data will be analyzed using version 22 of SPSS. Descriptive statistics

(frequencies such as measures of central tendency and percentages) and inferential statistics (Spearman correlation and regression) will be used to describe and summarize the data (Hair et al., 2014). Data will be interpreted using the mean and standard deviation. Also, relational statistics like Spear Man’s Rank correlation coefficient (rho) and Pearson’s correlations Coefficients will be used to measure the strength of relationship between the variables (Creswell, 2013;Hair et al.,2014), cross tabulation in Microsoft excel will be used to establish the strength of the relationship between the variables. Other data will be presented using graphs and tables. The correlation coefficient (rho) will be used to determine the strength of the relationship between the variables because the scale (that is strongly disagree, disagree, not sure, agree and strongly agree) that accompanied the questionnaire is ordinal.The regression beta values (β) will be used to determine whether the indicators of both variables This will then be squared and adjusted to determine how much variance is in the dimension dependent variable caused by the independent variables.

3.11 Measurement of variables

The researcher will use both the nominal scale and ordinal scale in measuring the data.  Nominal scale will be used for capturing gender, age, occupation, and ordinal scale will be used in ranking the data. The researcher will use the Likert scale rate system to rate the opinions of the respondents because it measures people’s attitudes, beliefs, emotions, feelings and other psychological constructs (Spector et al., 2012). The Likert scale will be represented by 5- Strongly Agree; 4 – Agree; 3- Neutral; 2- Disagree and 1- Strongly Disagree(Likert, 1967; Joshi,2015).The respondents will express their opinion by ticking in the box along the question to indicate their level of agreement or disagreement using the scale.  This will be preferred because it eases coding and analyzing of the results.

3.12 Ethical Considerations

Anonymity and Confidentiality; In order to promote ethics in the study, respondent’s names will be withheld to ensure anonymity and confidentiality in terms of any future prospects and in-order to avoid bias. In addition, pseudo names and study codes will also be used so as to ensure anonymity and confidentiality.

Voluntary Participation; The researcher will give respondents reasons as to why he is interviewing them and that will definitely encourage voluntary participation of the respondent in the study. The researcher will also inform the participants about their rights to withdraw from the study at any point during the study and no harm will be fall them but a guaranteed privacy.

Informed consent; The researcher will inform the respondents about the nature of the study, purpose of the study, benefits of the study and will assure the respondents about no known risk associated with participating in the study and a verbal consent to participate in the study will be obtained from the respondent. This report will further be subjected to plagiarism test and all materials that will be used in this research will be properly cited and referenced, as acknowledgement of use.

CHAPTER FOUR

DATA PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF FINDINGS

4.1 Introduction

This chapter presents, analyses and interprets findings according to the study objectives. It contains the response rate, demographic information of respondents, findings according to objectives of the study and research hypotheses. Results on objectives and hypotheses are presented using descriptive and inferential statistics.

4.2 Response Rate

One hundred and sixty-one (161) questionnaires were distributed to respondents. Out of the 161 questionnaires, one hundred fifty-three (153) were returned fully completed, giving a response rate of 95%.

Figure 1: Response Rate

Source: Primary Data 2022

The findings from the table above indicate that the percentage of the returned questionnaires was 95%. This finding therefore according to Amin, (2005) indicate that the response rate was good and therefore the study could be conducted since the response rate was above 70%, while the response rate for interview respondents was 100%.

4.3 Demographic Information of Respondents

The researcher sought out to collect demographic information about the respondents. This information was about gender, age, department of employee, education level, duration one worked.

4.3.1 Gender of respondents

The researcher requested the respondents to indicate their gender, and this was intended to find out whether the sample size was a fair representation of the population. The response was presented in Table 1

Table 1: Gender of Respondents

Source: Primary Data 2022

Table 1 above indicates that the majority of respondents in the study were males constituting 95(62%), females on the other hand, were constituted 58 (38%) of the respondents. The implication of this finding was that no matter the disparity in percentage of males and females who attended the study, at least views of both males and females were captured which was too vital in making a critical analysis in the performance of an organization. This made the study findings representative and therefore, enabled generalizations.

4.3.2 Duration of service in Paidha Town Council

Table 2: Duration of service in Paidha Town Council

Source: Primary Data

The study results indicate that majority of employees 40.5% of the employees have worked for Less than 1 year, the results further indicates that respondents 1 Year to 5 years have worked for 30.1% and the remaining 29.4% have worked for Greater than 5 years.

4.3.3 Department of respondents

This table indicated the department of respondents.

Table 3: Department of respondents

Source: Primary Data

According to the findings in the study majority 49.7% of the respondents are heads of department, 20.3% were support staff and 30.1% belonged to non-of the above. This results also indicated that majority of the respondents were in responsible position that could allow them to respond to the questions asked.

4.4 Findings on the relationship between recruitment and selection practices and employee commitment at Paidha Town Council.

Source: Primary Data

Findings on the study indicates that regarding the findings on if In Paidha Town Council job analysis is frequently done to determine recruitment and selection of employees, the results indicated that the respondents agreed, this is indicated by the mean value of 3.60.

Table results also showed that respondents held the view that Job analysis is frequently done to develop job description and job specifications, this is indicated by the mean value of 3.70 further showing that majority of the respondents strongly agreed.

On findings out if Paidha Town council appropriate job description is used to facilitate recruitment, majority of the respondents agreed. This further indicated that Paidha town council uses the job description in recruitment of employees, the results in the table further indicated that the shortlisting criteria is transparent as indicated by the mean value of 4.00.

The study showed that the mean value was 3.800 indicating that respondents held the view that Unsuccessful candidates are given notice on their application and on the same note and lastly with the mean value of 3.31 the results therefore disagreed with the findings that the shortlisting criteria is based on established criteria of meeting requirements.

4.4.1 Correlation analysis between recruitment and selection against Employee commitment.

Table 4: Correlation analysis between recruitment and selection against Employee commitment

Source: primary data

A Pearson correlation analysis was carried out in establishing the relationship between recruitment and selection against Employee commitment. The pearson correlation results of .940^** has revealed that there is a strong positive relationship between the two variables. This finding further reveals that recruitment and selection have a very big influence on Employee commitment.

Table 5: Model Summary

Source: primary data

The results from the table indicates that R values are 0.94 indicating a strong relationship between the variables while R Square value 0.884 indicating that 88.4% of the factors influencing Employee commitment is determined by recruitment.

Table 6: Analysis of variables between recruitment and selection against employee commitment

Source: Primary Data

The results from the study shows that the P-value 0.000<0.05 , indicates that there is a significant relationship between recruitment and selection on Employee commitment. The results further acknowledge that null hypothesis is rejected while the alternative hypothesis is accepted.

Table 7: Findings on the coefficiency of variables

Source: Primary Data

According to the findings in the study the results indicates that a one percentage change in recruitment and selection lead to 2.741 change in Employee commitment, this is also significant at P-value 0.000, the findings further shows that Employee commitment is greatly achieved due to improvement in recruitment and selection.

Table 8: To examine relationship between reward practices and employee commitment at Paidha Town Council.

Source: Primary Data

On finding whether the salary employees earned from the organization is appropriate the results indicated that the mean value of 2.40 shows that majority of the employees indicated that the salary the earned in the organization was not appropriate to them.

Findings from the table above indicates that majority of the employees disagreed that they are given top up salary periodically. This results further indicated that employees are not given top up salary periodically as indicated by the mean value of 2.68.

The respondents disagreed that competitive remuneration enhances commitment for employees as indicated by the mean value of 2.69. the findings also further show that the employees of paidha are not given competitive remuneration.

On finding out f In this organization staff are always acknowledged upon achieving their goals, the mean value was 2.80 indicating that majority of the respondents disagreed and this results further shows that in paidha town council staffs are not acknowledged upon achieving their goals.

On finding out if Staff are always motivated with carrier development, the results were 3.80 indicating that majority of the respondents agreed that career development motivates the staff and therefore it enhances Employee commitment.

On findings out if the Staff are motivated with conducive working environment, the response indicted a mean value of 3.90 indicating that majority of the respondents agreed. This further shows that staffs are motivated with a conducive working environment.

Table 9: Correlation between reward practices and Employee commitment

Source: Primary Data

The study results in the study shows that the Pearson correlation coefficient 0.545^** , shows that there is a strong positive correlation between reward practices and Employee commitment. This finding further shows there is a strong relationship between Reward practices and employee commitment.

Table 10: Model summary

Source: Primary Data

The findings in the study above shows that the R Square value of 0.297 presents the level at which the independent value affects the dependent variable when multiplied by percentage. this results therefore indicates that reward practices affect employee commitment by 29.7% indicates that R value which shows the correlation between the variables.

Table 11: Analysis of variables. Employee commitment and reward practices

Source: Primary Data

The findings from the table above shows that the P-value 0.000<0.05, indicates that there is a significant relationship between reward practices and Employee commitment. This study results further indicates that the null hypothesis is rejected and the alternative hypothesis is accepted. This study results further shows that reward practices influence employee commitment.

Table 12: Analysis of coefficiency of variables

Source: Primary Data

The findings from the table indicates a unit change in reward practices leads to 1.97 change in Employee commitment. this is also significant since the P-value 0.000<0.05. The above results further show that reward practices have a significant influence on Employee commitment.

Table 13: To establish the relationship between employee training and development and employee commitment at Paidha town council

Source: Primary Data

According to the results of the study the findings indicates that majority of the respondents agreed that they were given a written job description of their roles in the organization, this is supported by a high mean value of 4.20 indicating that most of the respondents hold the same view.

The findings of the study show that most of the respondents also held the view that they received appropriate training necessary to perform my job when I was entering the organization as indicated by the high mean value of 3.80 further showing that indeed training is imperative in enhancing employee commitment.

As indicated by the high mean value of 3.90 the findings show that most of the respondents held the view that they were given adequate information on the human resource issues in the organization.

The study results further show that majority of the employees disagreed with the statement that

They have undergone training with my Supervisor as part of the Inservice training, this is also supported by the low mean value of 3.30 indicating that the there has been training offered to the employees.

As regards to the statement of Efforts are regularly undertaken to identify my training needs while on job, most of the respondents disagreed with this result, this has been indicated by the low mean value of 3.39.

The table above represents that the results of 2.29 indicates that majority of the respondents disagreed with the statement that they regularly undertake refresher trainings to enhance my performance.

Table 14: Correlation analysis Employee commitment and Training and selection practices

Source: Primary Data

Table results show that Pearson correlation of 0.642^** indicates that there is a strong correlation between Employee commitment with Training and selection practices. This also further shows that the training an organization gives to employees enhances Employee commitment.

Table 15: Model summary of Employee commitment and Training and selection practices

Source: Primary Data

According to the findings from the model summary, the R, indicates that there is a relationship between Training and selection practices with Employee commitment, R Square value of 0.412, indicates that Training and selection practices affects Employee commitment by 41.2%.

Table 16: Analysis of variables Employee commitment and Training and selection practices

Source: Primary Data

The study results show that the P-value 0.000 indicates that there is a significant relationship between Training and selection practices on Employee practices. This results therefore rejects the null hypothesis and accepts the alternative hypothesis. The findings therefore indicate that Training and selection have a significant Influence on Employee commitment.

Table 17: Findings on Training and selection on Employee commitment

Source: Primary Data

The study results show that a unit change in Training and selection practices leads to 1.20 change in commitment. This results further indicates that the P-value of 0.000 indicates that there is a significant relationship between Training and selection on employee commitment.

CHAPTER FIVE

DISCUSSION, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS OF FINDINGS

5.0 Introduction

This section presents the discussion, conclusion and recommendations of findings.

5.1 Discussion of findings

This section presents the findings of the study inline to the study objectives

5.1.1 Relationship between recruitment and selection practices and employee commitment

The study results also indicate that the Pearson correlation analysis was carried out in establishing the relationship between recruitment and selection against Employee commitment. The Pearson correlation results of .940^** has revealed that there is a strong positive relationship between the two variables. This finding further reveals that recruitment and selection have a very big influence on Employee commitment. This study results were also in line with the findings of Ombui et al. (2017) who found a strong positive significant relationship between human resource practices and employee commitment in South African Research Institutes and on the same not Fong et al. (2016), also further indicates that employee commitment. Employee commitment were linked to perceived fairness in the resourcing process and on the same view Firend and Sofyan (2016), began with picking the finest candidates for current positions. Their research found that effective employee recruitment tactics had a substantial impact on staff commitment and retention intentions at Equity Bank in Kenya. Regression study revealed that employee commitment was influenced by selection in a positive but significant way.

The findings indicate that R values are 0.94 indicating a strong relationship between the variables while R Square value 0.884 indicating that 88.4% of the factors influencing Employee commitment is determined by recruitment. The results from the study shows that the P-value 0.000<0.05 , indicates that there is a significant relationship between recruitment and selection on Employee commitment. The results further acknowledge that null hypothesis is rejected while the alternative hypothesis is accepted, these views were also shared by Chapman and Webster (2003), employee recruitment and selection were done in four stages: job advertisement, applicant acceptance, application screening, and final decisions by the recruitment and selection committee. The study concluded that recruitment was the act of gathering names of qualified candidates for a job, whereas selection was the process of appointing the correct people for the job. Methodological gaps occurred, however, because the factor of employee commitment was largely ignored in earlier empirical studies.

According to the findings in the study the results indicates that a one percentage change in recruitment and selection lead to 2.741 change in Employee commitment, this is also significant at P-value 0.000, the findings further shows that Employee commitment is greatly achieved due to improvement in recruitment and selection, this view was also shared by Mohammad Nor (2015), must pay close attention to employees’ social needs to attach and belong. Employees, he said, needed to be in an environment that would make them feel at ease. Recruited people must share the goals and values of the organization.

5.1.2 To examine relationship between reward practices and employee commitment at Paidha Town Council.

The study results in the study shows that the Pearson correlation coefficient 0.545^** , shows that there is a strong positive correlation between reward practices and Employee commitment. This finding further shows there is a strong relationship between Reward practices and employee commitment this view was also shared by Alamelu et al., (2015), who if an employee was satisfied with his or her salary, his or her attachment to the company would grow or remained the same. Remuneration was one of the elements that led to employee engagement in firms.

On another note, Ooi and Arumugam (2016). The majority of employees were motivated and performed better job as a result of financial incentives provided by their employer. They became much more productive if the compensation they received made it worthwhile for them to do so. In addition, motivation benefits included not only monetary rewards but also employee support programs such as subsidized cafeterias, travel discounts, and so on.

The findings in the study above shows that the R Square value of 0.297 presents the level at which the independent value affects the dependent variable when multiplied by percentage. this results therefore indicates that reward practices affect employee commitment by 29.7% indicates that R value which shows the correlation between the variables, this is also in line with O’Driscoll and Randal (1999) found that any acceptable rewards supplied by the business had a big impact on the employees’ dedication in their study based on a sample of 350 workers in Ireland and New Zealand. As a result, the employer chose the optimal remuneration package to give the employee in order to enable him to attain the degree of satisfaction he required in exchange for his whole dedication.

the P-value 0.000<0.05, indicates that there is a significant relationship between reward practices and Employee commitment. This study results further indicates that the null hypothesis is rejected and the alternative hypothesis is accepted. This study results further shows that reward practices influence employee commitment, this was also in line with Miner et al. (2016), motivation was made up of wants, drives, and rewards, as well as their interactions. Every manager had control over motivation, which was supposed to be a good drive that led to exceptional performance and the formation of habits. It should be recognized that motivation came from both within and without. It was internal when it was in form such as job attraction, growth, recognition and achievement or external when it was in such form as employee’s actions and concerns were impressed by external incentives like reward, feedback, and punishment.

Table indicates a unit change in reward practices leads to 1.97 change in Employee commitment. this is also significant since the P-value 0.000<0.05. The above results further show that reward practices have a significant influence on Employee commitment, this view was also shared by Carter et al., (2011) reaffirmed that motivation was affected by three factors, information, reward and personal elements. He further noted that employees could be encouraged and motivated through provision of some special allowances and fringe benefits when we referred to their good performance and specific skills, this would in turn increase the job commitment of employees.

5.1.3 Training and development and Employee Commitment.

Table results show that Pearson correlation of 0.642^** indicates that there is a strong correlation between Employee commitment with Training and selection practices. This also further shows that the training an organization gives to employees enhances Employee commitment, this view was also in line with Garcia (2005) who indicates that Training and development were found to link with employee commitment. According to, training and development seemed to have a positive relationship with employee commitment.

According to the findings from the model summary, the R, indicates that there is a relationship between Training and selection practices with Employee commitment, R Square value of 0.412, indicates that Training and selection practices affects Employee commitment by 41.2%, this view was also in line with Simmons (2004) elaborated that creating an on-going learning as well as training at work place had a high significant impact on employee commitment. Tannenbaum and colleagues (19991) in their studies noted that training can induce positive or negative attitudes that trainees carry with them into the work place.

The study results show that the P-value 0.000 indicates that there is a significant relationship between Training and selection practices on Employee practices. This results therefore rejects the null hypothesis and accepts the alternate. This finding therefore indicate that Training and selection have a significant Influence on Employee commitment, this was also shared by Nkosi (2015), also noted among his respondents of a local municipal, that training had significant impact on employee’s performance and commitment. Contextual gaps were present thus more study should cover recent timespan owing to the recent changes seen in the public sector budgets hence a gap that this study must attempt to cover.

The study results show that a unit change in Training and selection practices leads to 1.20 change in commitment. This results further indicates that the P-value of 0.000 indicates that there is a significant relationship between Training and selection on employee commitment, this was also in line with Roehl and Swerdlow (2017), training and development led to a positive relationship with employee morale, perceptions of supervisors’ quality, awareness of rules, and thus organizational success, as well as employee commitment.

5.2 Conclusion

The study made the following recommendations;

This finding further reveals that recruitment and selection have a very big influence on Employee commitment and on the same note R Square value 0.884 indicating that 88.4% of the factors influencing Employee commitment is determined by recruitment. The study also further concluded that there is a significant relationship between recruitment and selection on Employee commitment.

There is a strong positive correlation between reward practices and Employee commitment. This finding further shows there is a strong relationship between Reward practices and employee commitment, the results indicates that reward practices affect employee commitment by 29.7% indicates that R value which shows the correlation between the variables.

The findings from the table above shows that there is a significant relationship between reward practices and Employee commitment. This study results further indicates that the null hypothesis is rejected and the alternative hypothesis is accepted. This study results further shows that reward practices influence employee commitment.

There is a strong correlation between Employee commitment with Training and selection practices. This also further shows that the training an organization gives to employees enhances Employee commitment and the R Square value of 0.412, indicates that Training and selection practices affects Employee commitment by 41.2%.

The study results show that the P-value 0.000 indicates that there is a significant relationship between Training and selection practices on Employee practices. This results therefore rejects the null hypothesis and accepts the alternate The study results show that a unit change in Training and selection practices leads to 1.20 change in commitment. This results further indicates that the P-value of 0.000 indicates that there is a significant relationship between Training and selection on employee commitment.

5.3 Recommendations

The study made the following recommendations;

There is need for Paidha town council to offer training to its employees so that to motivate them and enhance their commitment to their jobs there by leading to their increased productivity.

The study also further recommends that there is need to enhance the payments of employees so that it is commensurate to the amount of work they do since this will enhance their productivity.

The study also recommends that there is need for enhance transparency during recruitment and selection process so that if it like promotion the employees are aware of the criteria that is used so that they can be motivated to work and enhance their productivity.

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INFORMED CONSENT Department of Economics and Managerial science

TITLE OF STUDY: Human resource practices and Employee commitment: a case of officers at Paidha Town Council  –Zombo District  Local Government.

INVESTIGATOR(S):              Albert             Adokoyot                                           Odongo;                REG

No:16/MBA/00/KLA/WKD/0079. 

Participants, you are being asked to participate in the study voluntarily.

What is the purpose of this research? Employee commitment has been, and remains a major issue for the Paidha Town Council. Therefore, the purpose of this project is to determine and analyse the effect of Human resource practices on employee commitment in the Town Council -Zombo DLG

Benefits of Participation: There are no direct benefits to you as a participant in this study. However, we hope to learn about the significance of Employee commitment in determining your overall experience and impression about Paidha Town Council.

Risks of Participation: There are no anticipated risks associated with participating in this study.

Consideration /Compensation: There will be no financial cost to you to participate in this study. The only cost to you should be 45 minutes of your time. It is my hope that this will be offset by the experience of participating and sharing your perceptions.

 Confidentiality: All information gathered in this study will be kept as confidential as possible.

Participant Consent 

Yes, I have read the informed consent and agree to participate in this study

No, I do not want to participate this time.

Thank you very much for your attention

APPENDIX I: QUESTIONNAIRE

FOR EMPLOYEES/ OFFICERS OF PAIDHA TOWN COUNCIL, UGANDA.

Dear Respondent

I am Albert Adokoyot Odongo; Registration No: 16/MBA/00/KLA/WKD/0079, a participant of Uganda Management Institute pursuing a master’s degree in Business Administration. I am conducting an academic research study on the topic: Human resource practices and Employee commitment: a case of officers at Paidha Town Council -Zombo District Local Government. You have been scientifically selected to be one of the respondents to this study. You are kindly requested to take part in this study by filling in this questionnaire. The information you will provide shall be purely for academic purposes and will be treated confidentially. I, do not require you to indicate your name. We request you kindly to provide objective responses.

Questionnaire Study Number                                      Date of Visit

Section A: Background information / General Information 

Please answer the following questions by marking the most appropriate answer with a tick in the small boxes provided.

1. Sex:   Male [] Female [ ]

SECTION B:

This section captures information about Human Resource Practice in Paidha Town Council.

This table shows the rating of Human Resource Practices and Employee Commitment.

Kindly rate these activities as specified, in the Likert Scale by ticking your correct choice:

a).  Recruitment and selection practices

b). Reward practices

c) Training and selection practices

d).Employee Commitment in Paidha Town Council

APPENDIX II: INTERVIEW GUIDE

INTERVIEW GUIDE FOR THE KEY INFORMANTS

Dear Respondent

The researcher is a participant of Uganda Management Institute pursuing a master’s degree in Business Administration. He is conducting an academic research study on the topic: Human resource practices and employee commitment in Uganda:  a case of officers at Paidha Town Council – Zombo District Local Government.

You have been selected to be one of the respondents to this study. The information you will provide shall be purely for academic purposes and will be treated with confidentially. You are kindly requested to take part in this short interview by answering the following questions.

1. How long have you worked in Paidha Town Council?
2. In your own view, what is the relationship between recruitment and selection practices and employee commitment in your organization? (Probe recruitment and selection practices in terms of induction and in-service training while as employee commitment in terms of affective commitment i.e., identification with organization and involvement, normative commitment i.e., obligation to stay and continuance commitment i.e., cost of leaving the organization)
3. What are the procedures followed in your recruitment process?
4. In your own opinion, what is the relationship between reward practices and employee commitment in your organization? (Probe reward practices in terms of monetary and nonmonetary rewards while employee commitment in terms of affective commitment i.e., identification with organization and involvement, normative commitment i.e., obligation to stay and continuance commitment i.e., cost of leaving the organization)

5. In your opinion, what is the relationship between training and development practices and employee commitment? (Probe training and development practices in terms of induction and in-service training)

1. a) Are the training interviews done online or in-person?

b).What is done with the training interview data?

1. a) Are there mechanisms for feeding the information or outcomes from this data back to managers and employees?

6).How have you implemented HR policies to make employees committed?

Thanks for your co-operation

APPENDIX III: DOCUMENT REVIEW CHECKLIST

This list consists of the following documents that the researcher in interested to review

1. The District Budget Framework papers for 2018, 2019 and 2020
2. Human Resource review reports for 2018, 2019 and 2020
3. Human resource management policies
4. Government Standing Orders and Commitment Control System 2018, 2019 and 2020
5. Annual Auditor General’s Reports for 2018, 2019 and 2020
6. Current Zombo DLG Council Reports

APPENDIX IV:

Table for determining sample size from a given population

Note: “N” is population size

“S” is sample size.

1