Incentives and Performance of Health Workers in Public Health Care Centres in Enugu State, Nigeria

Abstract

Recently, there has been a growing concern about the performance of health workers in public hospitals, particularly in Nigeria where there has been massive exodus of healthcare workers to foreign lands for obvious reasons. This work was focused on employee incentive on job performance of health workers in public health care centres in Enugu State with particular reference to Uwani General Hospital, and Asata General Hospital (Poly Clinic) Enugu State, Nigeria. The study objectives were to evaluate the extent to which employee incentives in terms of performanced based pay as well as increased salaries affected job performance of health workers in terms of job satisfaction and improved productivity in terms of quality of care given to patients in the selected public healthcare centers. The research design adopted was a survey method. Data were collection from primary source. The study population was 309 and sample size was determined through Taro Yamani as 174. Out of 174 copies of questionnaire distributed to the respondents, only 170 copies were correctly filed and retrieved. Therefore, the  analyses for the study were based on 170 respondents. Simple regression and Pearson Product Moment correlation coefficient were used to analyse the instrument collected. Based on the analyses of the data collected, the findings of the study showed that performance based pay has significant effect on employee job satisfaction; that there was a significant positive relationship between increased salaries and improved job performance in public health care centres in Nigeria. The study concluded that a well-designed incentive system aligns employee goals with organizational objectives, promotes a positive work environment, and fosters a culture of high performance. The study then recommended that health management executives in Enugu State should implement performance-based pay to motivate health workers to perform at their best and achieve organizational goals. Also, there is great need to maintain time frame for review of employee salaries in other to provide regular increment to workers salaries.