Effect of High Commitment Work Systems on Employee Performance in Tea Warehouses, Mombasa County

Abstract

High commitment work system is managerial set of activities and policies directed at enhancing employee’s commitment to the organization and to their work. The system generates performance through bonding organizations with employees psychologically as well as providing a conducive environment for employee to commit themselves to the achievement of organization’s objectives. Increase of tea warehouses in Mombasa has brought with it acute competition for tea storage facilities and handling sector. This has necessitated management of tea warehouses to adopt competitive strategies such as high commitment work systems to gain distinctive competence by leveraging on employee’s commitment. Tea business in Mombasa has created a need for more tea warehousing facilities in the recent past accompanied by job opportunities. The purpose of the study was to determine the effect of high commitment work systems on the performance of employees in tea warehouses in Mombasa County. The specific objectives were to investigate the effect of performance based compensation, to establish the effect of training and development, to investigate the effect of performance appraisal and to assess the effect of communication on employee performance. The study was anchored on social exchange theory and resource based theory. This study used descriptive cross-sectional design. The study targeted all 17 active tea warehouses licensed by the Tea Board of Kenya. Since this number was small, a census of the tea warehouses used. The study utilized primary data which was collected from randomly selected employees of the warehouses using a semi- structured questionnaire with a five point Likert scale that were applied to all variables. Multiple regression and correlation analysis techniques were utilized. Results were presented in frequency distributions, charts and tables. The findings of the study confirmed that there is a positive association between high commitment works systems and employee performance. The regression results showed that high commitment works systems account for 89.1% of the change in employee performance and the regression coefficients results revealed that performance based pay, training & development, communication and performance appraisal had a positive and significant effect on employee performance since the p-values were less than 0.05. 12