Reward systems and employee performance in Uganda police, a case of Uganda police headquarters-Naguru, Kampala

Abstract

The study was entitled "Reward Systems and Employee Perfom1ance in Uganda Police, a case of Police Headquarters- Naguru, Kampala". This study examined the relationship between the independent and dependent variables. This was initiated because, despite efforts by the government of Uganda through the managers in police to invest in developing its employees, improve their moral and knowledge base, through remunerations such as good pay and other non monetary rewards, there is still decreasing employee performance, slow speed of service, laxity in job accomplishment and inefficiency of service in the Uganda police force. The guiding objectives of the study were to: examine the extent to which payment influences job accomplishment; assess the effectiveness of promotions on the quality of services delivery and evaluate the ex tent to which employee career advancement influence the quality of services delivery red in Uganda police. This study adopted a cross sectional survey design, in which both qualitative and quantitative data was u ~ed. The study population comprised of accessible 150 employees according to police force (Uganda) and a sample size of 132 respondents was selected non top management, middle level and junior officers. The key findings were: there was a negative correlation between payments and job accomplishment ( -0.359). This meant that payments did not influence job accomplishment in Uganda police force. The study indicated a positive correlation between promotions and service quality to be 0.372. Promotions were so important in the bid to improve quality of service delivery. Any improvements in the criteria of awarding promotions could lead to substantial improvement in the quality of service delivery. The study finally showed a linear relationship between employee career advancement and service quality with an overall, R square value of .374. This led to a conclusion that employee career advancement contributed 0.374 variations in service quality. Thus any improvements in the above promotions and career advancement would lead to 37.4% improvements in service quality. This again means that there is a multiplicity of factors other than rewards that are responsible for service quality in Uganda police force and should therefore be attended to. The study recommends that there should be a well streamlined payment system; alignment between payments and job accomplishment; use of a mix of financial and non-financial rewards; officers should be given chance to indicate how best they should be rewarded; employees should be evaluate and appraised periodically to ensure that any improvements in performance are rewarded; police needs to be sensitized in 'order to realize that their work should not be based on pay only.