CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Performance is associated with quantity of output, quality of output, timeliness of output, presence/ attendance on the job, efficiency of the work completed and effectiveness of work completed (Mathis & Jackson 2009). Performance incorporates the resulting outcomes of the performed actions of employees based on their expertise and skills. Performance management is being looked as a participative system, continuous and future oriented, as well as an ongoing cycle of criteria settings, evaluations, diagnosis and improvements, action plans and development resources, (Shields, 2001).
Employees’ performance is the accumulated result of the skills, efforts and abilities of all the employees contributed to improved productivity leading towards goal achievement, (Ellinger et al, 2003). It can also be viewed as the successful completion of tasks by a selected individual or individuals, as set and measured by a supervisor or organization, to pre-defined acceptable standards while efficiently and effectively utilizing available resource within a changing environment. Employee performance represents the general belief of the employee about his behavior and contributions in the success of organization. Employees are the central point in the triumph of every organization. If the employees work together and carve up a good relationship with employers they can attain their tasks much quicker.
Managing employee relationship is imperative and precious to the organizational success and achieving spirited benefit. It is required to have a sturdy relationship between employees and employers that leads to productivity, motivation, and better performance. Employees are most important resources as well as most valuable assets of any business organization. The nature and amount of work performed by them have a direct impact on the productivity of an organization. So maintaining healthy relations in an organization is a pre-requisite for any organization in order to achieve growth and success.
Considering the imperativeness of employees in an organization, it is important that there is strong human relation practice in place that would continue to cement the bond among employees and also their employers. Human relation practices tend to set up good relationship among employees and maintain high confidence and provide good working conditions in an organization. It helps and acts as a change agent while controlling various activities of the organization (Bajaj et al., 2013). According to CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development) human relations is a broad term that incorporates many issues from collective bargaining, negotiations, employment legislation to more recent considerations such as work-life balance, equal opportunities and managing diversity. It comprises of the practices or initiatives for ensuring that Employees are happy and are productive. Human relations offers assistance in a variety of ways including employee recognition, policy development and interpretation, and all types of problem solving and dispute resolution. It involves handling the pay–work bargain, dealing with employment practices, terms and conditions of employment, issues arising from employment, providing employees with a voice and communicating with employees.
Human relations is concerned with maintaining employee-employer relation, which contributes to satisfactory productivity, increase in employee morale and motivation. Human relation promotes Commitment, facilitates employees in achievement of organizational objectives minimizes workplace conflict and increases trust (Bajaj et al., 2013). If these relationships are strong, then employees are more likely to be satisfied with their jobs and more productive as a result (Daniel, 2003). Human relation must address procedural and interactional equity, which means “people” involvement in all vital processes (Singh & Kumar, 2011). While most employees are on job, they do not put up their best performance if there is unhealthy relationship between them and their employers. If employees are not happy, then it is unlikely that they will make the customers happy. For that reason management should care of managing strong relationship with their employees, (Bratton & Gold, 2003).
There was a time when "Human Relations" meant labor relations. Today, human relations is a much broader concept, as a result of the proliferation of research. It involves maintaining a work environment that satisfies the needs of individual employees and management. Improving employee morale, building company culture, conveying expectations. An effective human relation involves creating and cultivating a motivated and productive workforce. It’s necessary to keep the dynamics of employer-employee relationship in mind. It covers all the relations between employers and employees in industry. human relations also includes giving scope for employee participation in management decisions, communications, policies for improving cooperation and control of grievances and minimization of conflicts.
People are generally motivated from within, but Human Resources focus on what can be done to help foster the type of environment where employees thrive to give their best performance, reduced turnover. Since the organization success is directly linked with the performance of its employees, maintaining strong employee relations initiatives will propel organization in achieving goal within the stipulated time. Hence managing these relationships becomes important for business success, as strong and healthy relationships can lead to greater employee happiness and even increased productivity.
Human relations are stronger than strict rules and regulations. The scale of attention and the relationship paid by the employers for their employees is more important than formal supervisory and more control type atmospheres. The self-help, mutual cooperation, improving attitude, developing formal and informal relationship are some of the ingredients for developing human relations. Maund" denotes that Mayo's (1880-1949) Hawthorne study (1924-1936) which was carried out at Hawthorne Work Plant at Chicago on the productivity growth over effect of lighting resulted that social interaction motivated workers hence it caused their productivity increased. Hawthorne study concludes that personnel cannot be taken as individuals in isolation; hence they have to be deployed as groups. The underline principles related to Mayo's theory are human relations, attitudes, team work and the recognition of man as a very dignified social being in the social milieu. They naturally feel for mutuality, friendship, brotherhood, self-help and cordiality.
Man is not a machine neither for that matter is he or she an animal but something higher and virtuous.
The behavior of the people who work in any organization is more influential than any other factors therefore more output could be achieved through utilizing behavior changes and behavior modification procedures, (behavior school of thought). Argyris developed maturity-immaturity theory which contemplates the individual behavior in an organization. He assumed a descriptive and multidimensional growth process is taken place of an individual when the organization is also nurturing. He sees that people in an organization grow from infancy to adulthood when the organization also develops. Infant qualities of an individual end in short period when the qualities of maturity of the same person begin to grow. According to Argyris seven basic changes that take place in the maturing process of people over the years are;
• Human beings have a tendency to develop from a state of being passive as an infant and lead to a state of being more positivist as an adult,
• Human beings have a tendency of dependence from their infancy and they reach for independence when they become adult.
• People begin with behaving in few ways from their infancy and they end up with behaving in many ways when they reach at the adulthood
• People possess with irresponsible behavior, feelings, attitudes, and have little interests of performing tasks and later become more responsible, proactive, and lead for deepening interests when they reach at the adulthood
• Human being starts with the short sighted view as an infant and turns into a farsighted person when he or she becomes an adult
• Person starts with in the work organizations having a tendency to develop from subordinate position as an individual member of family, society, or union as an infant and turns out to be a leader of directing human resources when he or she becomes an adult.
According to Massey and Dawes (2006) one must take into account three variables of communication, for this to be successfully completed: frequency, bidirectional and quality. The appropriate communication will lead to relationship consolidation. Gennard and Judge (2002) stated that human relations is a study of the rules, regulations and agreements by which employees are managed both as individuals and as a collective group. Lewis et al (2003) explained that human relations suggest a wider employment canvas being covered with equal importance attached to non-union employment arrangements and white collar jobs. Armstrong (2005) observed that human relations is to manage the relationship between employer and employees with the ultimate objectivity of achieving the optimum level of productivity in terms of goods and services, employee motivation taking preventive measures to resolve problems that adversely affect the working environment. Walton (1985) narrated that the unitary viewpoint of human relations is the belief that management and employees share the same concerns and it is therefore in both their interests to cooperate. Clarke (2001) commented that effective human relationship management requires cooperation between managers representatives and employees, that good relationship between employer and employee do not just happen but they are the result of a strategy and activities that employee relations managers design to improve communication between employees and management (Mayhew, 1985).
However, none these studies truly explicate the benefit of human relation practices on employee performance. In addition to this, there has been no study conducted with the variables using Opobo/Nkoro Council in Rivers State, Nigeria as the setting. Considering the attribute of employee performance in an organization and economic growth of any nation, it became necessary this study is conducted.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Among the vital determinants of performance is human relationship. This aspect and how it affect employee performance has not been given the attention it deserves by management. It became critical to give much attention to the human relation practices as employees in any organization are the most valuable assets. Hence it determine the achievement of organizational goals. Failure to prioritized human relation practices in an organization as resulted in the manifestation of challenges such as unrest, brain-drain, county migration, increased medical errors, high mortality and low life expectancy rates (MoH, 2014). With increasing widespread cases of workplace conflicts, poor industrial democracy, strikes, poor quality and high employee turnover, and unhealthy rivalries among employees and also their employers. Happy employees are as a result of good relationship among themselves. An employee that is complacent and does not really enjoy their work, but is simply there for a paycheck usually does not produce at a high level, develops a bad attitude and generally drags a team down. Thus interpersonal relations at work place are absolutely essential as they help employee to develop a mutual understanding among themselves and this ultimately play a big role in ensuring objectives of the organizations are achieved.
Efforts put in place by previous scholars to curb these challenges has not actually dealt with it. This is because these challenges ranges from region to region, that is, what is applicable in one region is different in another region as a result of culture. According to Allan and Sienko (1997), Fierman (1994), Kitay and Lansbury (1997), and Korman and Kraut (1999) changes in organizations, in terms of both structure and employer and employee relationships, changes in the economic environment have affected both formal and informal contracts of employment. These in turn, have affected human relation practice and employee performance. Adjusting successfully to relationship changes has had enormous implications in terms of sustained competitive advantage based on the ability to access and retain a skilled workforce. This study therefore intend to address this gap by critically examining the effect of human relation practices on employee performance using Opobo/Nkoro Local Government Council of Rivers State in Nigeria as the setting.
Conceptual Framework
Fig. 2.1 Conceptual diagram of human relation practices and employee performance
Source: This diagram was developed by the researcher based on the studies of Riss and Bernadet (2013)
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