Perceived relationship between reward practices and employee job satisfaction in City Council of Nairobi

Abstract

The dynamism in the current competitive world where excellence and timely achievement of goals and targets in both the public and the private sectors is a key objective demands that management must be innovative enough and come up with best reward practices that motivate, satisfy and retain their employees. The objective of this study was to establish the perceived relationship between reward practices and employee job satisfaction in City Council of Nairobi. The study adopted an exploratory approach using a descriptive survey design on all the 2880 employees of City Council of Nairobi. The focus of the study was senior management, middle level management, supervisory staff and clerical officers. Using stratified random sampling, a sample of 288 respondents was selected on whom the survey was conducted. A semi structured questionnaire was used to obtain information from the respondents. Data collected was then analyzed using descriptive statistics techniques such as mean, frequencies and standard deviations to facilitate presentation and interpretation. Regression analysis was then done using Pearson Correlation(r) to establish perceived relationship between reward practices and job satisfaction among the employees. Summary of the research findings was explained in a pros form, from which the researcher has drawn his conclusions and recommendations. The finding of the study was that there was a negative relationship between reward practices and employee job satisfaction in City Council of Nairobi. The study also found out that majority of employees strongly disagree that there were adequate reward practices to ensure employee job satisfaction in City Council of Nairobi. The types of rewards vi available were also found to be unfairly allocated, not well structured and are not reviewed regularly to harmonize them with those of employees in other sectors employment. Based on the findings, the study recommends that City Council of Nairobi should utilize reward strategies that incorporate performance related pay, competence related pay, skill based pay, team based pay and broad banding. The study also recommends that rewards should fairly allocate to all employees and reviewed from time to time in order to keep employees satisfied with their jobs. The study finally recommends that terms and conditions of service of City Council of Nairobi employees should be harmonized for all employees and matches the same with those of employees in other sectors employment.