Effect of Flexible Work Practices During the Covid-19 Pandemic on Employee Performance in the Insurance Industry in Kenya
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Date
2023Author
Wanambisi, Jacqueline W
Type
ThesisLanguage
enMetadata
Show full item recordAbstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on workplace relations and all
firms have had to adjust their work models to ensure their employees perform optimally.
Research has shown that increased flexibility among Kenyan insurance to enhance
organizational performance with increased investment in digital technologies to enhance
telecommuting and flexible work policy to empower employees to flex up their work
hours. However, there has been limited examination of how various flexible work
practices during Covid-19 impacted employee performance within the insurance industry.
This study focused on solving this study gap. The research was grounded on the social
exchange theory and path goal theory. A quantitative descriptive research design was
adopted for the study with the 56 human resource managers for the registered insurance
companies considered in the research. Structured questionnaires were adopted in the data
collection with physical data collection approach implemented in the survey. The
collected data was analyzed using a mix of descriptive and inferential analysis. The
research focused on human resource personnel drawn from all the firms and the study
obtained 48 responses representing 86% response rate. Findings showed that majority of
the insurance firms 92% had adopted flexi-time work practices, 71% had applied
telecommuting and 64% were using work scheduling in management of their personnel.
Regression analysis revealed that that 67.9% of changes in employee performance can be
explained by job sharing, telecommute, work scheduling and flextime work practices. The
findings showed that flexi-time, work scheduling and job sharing had significant effect on
employee performance while telecommuting did not significantly influence the
performance of employees. The overall conclusions that can be draws from the research
is that flexible work arrangements have positive and significant relationship with
employees’ work performance. The study recommends that the insurance firms, and firms
in the sector continue to implement these practices as this will improve the firms’
performance and ability to meet strategic goals. Specifically, the research calls on these
firms to find the right balance of work-life balance practices that would have positive
impacts on employees’ outcomes. This study avers that formalizing job sharing and
flexible work schedules in company bylaws would increase its implementation and
encourage firm-wide participation. The study also calls on improved mentoring and
monitoring to ensure employees can co-handle some of the most complicated and
specialized staff roles.
Publisher
University of Nairobi
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United StatesUsage Rights
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/Collections
- School of Business [1421]
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