Relationship Between Health and Safety Programmes and Performance of Manufacturing Firms in Mombasa County, Kenya

Abstract

This research is about the relationship between health and safety programmes and performance of manufacturing firms in Mombasa County, Kenya, the objective being to establish the relationship between employee health and safety programmes and performance of manufacturing firms. A descriptive survey design was used and data was collected using a structured questionnaire comprising of Likert-scale questions which were dropped and picked later from respondents. The respondents were heads of departments in the manufacturing firms that were studied. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics such as mean, standard deviation, percentages and frequencies. Pearson correlation analysis was used to determine the strength of the relationship between health and safety programmes and how they related to work performance. The findings were that many of the firms that responded had taken some health and safety measures and that they had shown positive effect on work performance. Among the four factors that were being investigated, health and safety measures, social welfare programmes, accident prevention programmes and occupational health programmes. The results showed that each of the four factors had a positive and significant correlation with employee performance. Therefore, the implementation of health and safety programmes at the work place has a positive impact on employees’ performance. All organizations should implement health and safety programmes, not just because it is a government requirement, but because it is of great benefit to the organization, and it results to improved employee performance, therefore achieving their goals of productivity and profitability. The government, on the other hand, should ensure that it enforces the implementation of health and safety programmes at the work place as well as sending inspectorate teams to ensure that each firm is taking the right health and safety measures at the work place