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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.