CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Welfare is a corporate attitude or commitment reflected in the expressed care for employees at all levels, underpinning their work and the environment in which it is performed (Cowling and Mailer, 1992). Specifically, Coventry and Barker (2009) assert that staff welfare includes providing social club and sports facilities as appropriate, supervising staff and works’ canteens, running sick clubs and savings schemes; dealing with superannuation, pension funds and leave grants, making loans on hardship cases; arranging legal aid and giving advice on personal problems; making long service grants; providing assistance to staff transferred to another area and providing fringe benefits (such as payment during sickness, luncheon vouchers and other indirect advantages).

Productivity, on the other hand, means goods and services produced in a specified period of time in relation to the resources utilized (Singh, 2009). It is, however, contended by Cohen et al (1995) to be more than a narrow economic measure, as it also measures how well the group performs its required tasks to satisfy its customers inside and outside the organization. In effect, productivity suggests effectiveness and efficiency of the employees.

Most organizations achieve remarkable success in their operations not only because they operate in good environments, or because they are capable of competing favorably with other organizations but most because the management (or those at the helm of affairs) of such organizations provide them with the incentives that make their work worth enjoying.

They appreciate the fact that no organization performs efficiently and effectively if the human elements are not adequately motivated. The provision of those things (welfare package) that ginger workers to work in an organization have helped organizations to create the enabling environment for better performance among the workforce.

As noted in Koontz (1982), managing involves the creation and maintenance of an environment for the performance of individuals working together in groups towards the accomplishment of a common objective; it is obvious that the manager cannot do this job without knowing what motivates people.

Koontz explained further that the necessity of building motivating factors into organizational roles, the staffing of those roles, and the entire process of directing and leading people must be built on knowledge of motivation so it is through adequate motivation of employees which in this study is the secretarial staff that organizations will enjoy increased productivity.

Apparently, there are some scholarly works on staff welfare and productivity (Owusu-Acheaw, 2010; Osterman, 2010; Singh, 2009; Cowling and Mailer, 1992; Coventry and Barker, 1988), but they mostly dwelt on industrial settings to the neglect of service organizations and banking industry. There is therefore the need to extend frontiers in knowledge on the aforementioned theme that this study focused on the effect of staff welfare on job performance, using First bank Plc as references. Specifically, the study enquired into: (a) the effect and awareness of staff welfare as well as components of staff welfare in the study area; (b) the existence of staff welfare in the study area and (c) the perceived effect of staff welfare on performance (productivity) in the study area, which is First bank Nigeria Plc.

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