The Relationship between Working Conditions and Organizational Performance of Kenya's Flower Industry

Abstract

Many firms have realized the importance of attracting and retaining highly skilled, quality employees as a necessary component of competitive advantage. Counselling is a very useful activity that helps employees to know themselves better provided both the counsellor and the counselee take it in the right spirit. It helps the employee as well as the employer organization to identify weaknesses, and formulate strategies to improve the performance. The aim of this study was to determine the influence of employee's working conditions on organizational performance in Kenya's flower industry and determine the moderating effect of counselling on organizational performance in Kenya's flower industry. The research adopted cross section survey research design and the target population was companies in the flower industry in Kenya. The managers and employees of the flower farms were the key respondents in this study. The instrument of data collection was semi-structured questionnaires. The data collected was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics, and presented in the form of frequency distribution tables, pie charts, graphs, means, modes and percentages. To achieve this SPSS version 20 was used. Pearson's correlation coefficient and multiple regression analysis was the main tool to test for relationships among variables. The study established that working conditions within the flower sector were considered to be fair according to the employees. It was evident that organizations offer good working conditions for the employees and this contributed to organizational performance. Working conditions in the sector was not only associated with the sectors performance but also predicted its performance although to minimal extent jointly with financial stress. The study concluded that, those farms that embraced counselling had positive effects on organizational performance. Although counselling was fairly practiced, it had a moderating effect on the relationship between overall organizational performance in the flower industry and financial stress experienced by the employees. Flower farms were performing well with increased profits being witnessed and moderate market valuations. The employees perceived themselves as always timely in performing their duties with high proportion always achieving their targets. The study recommended that; flower farms as well as other organizations should base the evaluation of their employees' performance on their accomplishment/ achievements and identify the gaps and the reasons affecting the performance. Flower industry needs to consider improving its environmental factors to boost employee performance. Managers and supervisors must consider improving work environment while considering both physical and psychosocial factors to promote job performance of their staff. The organizations need to maximize the use of counselling in their respective managerial systems, in order to correct the behavior of employees with low performance and make them more efficient and effective.