Assessing the impact of remuneration and employee performance in higher institutions of learning: A case study of Makerere University, Kampala

Abstract

This study is an investigation, on the relationship between remuneration and employee performance. Remuneration/salary and health related factors such as age of the employees are the conceived while employee performance as measured by Work Ability Index and the number of hours spent at work is the outcome variable. Specifically, the study sought to (𝑖) to establish the relationship between the salary (amount) and the level of employee performance; (𝑖𝑖) to assess the influence of personal characteristics such as age, marital status and team cohesion of the employee on the employee performance; (𝑖𝑖𝑖) to identify and describe motivation packages such as housing, educational, health allowances available at Makerere University and their influence on employee performance. Of the 50 respondents interviewed, 54.0 percent were female and 46.0 percent were male. The majority (52.0%) of the respondents at the University were married and below the age of 35 years. The majority (66.0%) of these employees interviewed at Makerere University in this study were non-teaching staff of whom 56.0% of them indicated that they were earning salary between Ugshs 250,000-500,000 and these were majorly the non-teaching staff such as cleaners of lecturer rooms and halls of residences. The study concluded that availability of motivational packages to employees of Makerere University has caused the university workers to enhance their performance. The most common motivational packages include half payment of tuition for their biological children, health and transport allowances plus the salary increments that are promised after temporal strikes. University council must provide incentives and rewards to their staffs and this should include personal acknowledgement by letter or emails for staffs.