TEAMWORK AND TRAINING VARIABLES AS PREDICTORS OF WORKERS’ PERFORMANCE IN PUBLIC ORGANISATIONS IN CROSS RIVER STATE, NIGERIA
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Date
2013
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Abstract
There has been persistent poor performance among workers in public organisations in Cross
River State of Nigeria over the years. The trend is exacerbated by lack of teamwork and
unsystematic training programmes. Previous studies have focused more attention on staff
performance appraisal, commitment and job involvement with less attention paid to the
combined effects of teamwork (communication, team-spirit, recognition, collaboration) and
training (training needs identification, plan, design, delivery, evaluation variables) on workers’
performance. This study, therefore, examined the extent to which teamwork and training
variables predicted workers’ performance in public organisations in Cross River State, Nigeria.
The descriptive survey design of ex-post facto type was employed. Cluster sampling technique
was adopted to divide the public service into Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
Purposive sampling technique was used to select 10 ministries, 10 departments and five
agencies. These MDAs were stratified along three job cadres, namely: 221 junior, 574 senior
and 273 managerial. A total of 1,068 respondents were randomly selected to represent the entire
population of public servants in Cross River State. Participants were 584 males and 484 females.
Teamwork Variables (r = 0.87), Workers’ Training variables (r = 0.78) and Workers’
Performance Rating (r = 0.86) scales were used for data collection. These were complemented
with in-depth interview with selected 15 public service workers across the three cadres in
MDAs. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Pearson product moment correlation and
multiple regression at 0.05 level of significance; while the qualitative data were content
analysed.
Workers’ performance was: managerial (44.90 ± 1.21), senior (44.23 ± 2.42) and junior (43.13
± 2.22) cadres. Teamwork and training variables had a significant joint prediction of workers’
performance in public service (R2 = .070, F(9, 1068) = 8.794,) and accounted for 7% in its variance.
There was a significant joint prediction of teamwork variables on workers’ performance (R2
=
.037, F(4, 1068) = 10.306) and accounted for 3.7% in its variance. Training variables had a
significant joint prediction of workers’ performance (R2 = .033, F(5, 1065) = 7.258) and accounted
for 3.3% of its variance. Communication (β = -.099, t = -2.792), team-spirit (β = .058, t =
1.565), recognition (β = .104, t = 3.228) and collaboration (β = .134, t = 3.726) had relative
contributions to workers’ performance. Training needs identification (r = .112), training design
(r = .78), training plan (r = .019) and training evaluation (r = .045) had significant positive
relationships with workers’ performance, while training delivery did not.
Teamwork (communication, team-spirit, recognition, collaboration) and training (training needs
identification, plan, design, delivery, evaluation) variables positively influenced workers’
performance in public organisations of Cross River State, Nigeria. Adequate consideration
should be given to these variables so as to improve workers’ performance in public
organisations. Attention should be given to employees’ personal characteristics in motivating
them to higher performance level.