AN ASSESSMENT OF THE IMPACT OF NON-MONETARY INCENTIVES ON EMPLOYEES PERFORMANCE

This study is particularly informed by the need to assess the impact of non-monetary incentives on employee performance. To do this, requisite data was sourced via primary and secondary sources. Primary data was sourced through the instrument of a questionnaire, while secondary data requisite for this study was sourced from performance appraisal report viz-a-viz non-monetary incentives implemented by the organization. Due to the structured (closed ended) and unstructured (open ended) nature of question data useful for analysis were mostly nominal and interval in nature while, the secondary data were mostly ratio in nature. Consequently, the research questions were analyzed using single (%) and calculation of means (x). However, to test the hypothesis, the secondary data was analyzed using regression analysis facilitated by Ms-Excel software. It was found that employee performance was significantly related to non-monetary rewards and that the organization actually implements variants of non-monetary incentives. However, implementation of non-monetary incentives was considered unjust and unfair by employees and the fact that some form of non-monetary incentive was actually not effective. The researcher therefore, recommended the implementation of non-monetary incentives however without discrimination. The promotion in particular should be made on the basis of performance and not on “connection” basis.

Employee performance simply is the target and goal achievement of an entity facilitated by the contributions – labour which is skilled or unskilled and possible suggestions to decisions or policies made by the entity the employee works for. That is to say, the extent to which an organization‟s objective (goals) are being achieved courtesy to the role played by the employee is what employee performance is all about. Consequently, employee performance include all of the employees efforts in terms of his/her commitment to work, punctuality, willingness to work extra hours, exerssion of innovation in the execution of task to mention but a few directed at goal achievement at effective cost. However, this performance of employee which is desired by entities in both private and public sectors is a function of employee motivation.

These motivations are broadly referred to as monetary and non-monetary incentives. It is a general belief that reward system seek to attract people to join an organization, to keep them coming to work and motivate them to perform to high levels (Puwanenthiren Pratheepkanth, 2011). Evidently, both employers and employees do have their needs intertwined or dependent on each other. It is however mostly use one that the employees performance depends on the corresponding compensations, recognition and benefits. Studies have shown that organizations are increasingly realizing that they have to establish a blend or balance between the employee‟s contribution to the organization and the organization’s.