PERCEIVED EMPLOYEE CONTRIBUTION IN RELATION TO RECREATIONAL FACILITIES: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY

PERCEIVED EMPLOYEE CONTRIBUTION IN RELATION TO RECREATIONAL FACILITIES: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY

As the society has shifted from the industrial to the information era, recreation activities in organisations represents ever more important area of social responsibility and organisational growth. Organisations of all hue and texture- governmental,private or commercial enterprises- will need well planned and aligned recreational facilities to ramp up their productivity.Todays challenging social context increasingly calls on the leadership expertise of these organisations to address the important issue of human resources ??burnout. Their charge is to contribute to quality of life of the people at their organisations in the dynamic context of new modes of communication, new information, changing demographics, changing attitudes towards work and play, individualism and globalisation. A recreation facility is provided in premises or precincts of an organisation,for fun,diversion,enjoyment relaxation,amusement and physical, psychological, spiritual or social well being of members of the organisation. Activities engaged in the facility are planned by management with the view to enhance productivity by looking at the well being and development of employees. It is inclusive of hiring recreation organisations services. The steel baron Andrew Carnegie endowed hundreds of public libraries across the country in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, explaining, "How a man spends his time at work may be taken for granted but how he spends his hours of recreation is really the key to his progress in all the virtues." Among the important literatures, study by Sabarirajan, Meharajan & Arun. (2010) titled Positive correlation between welfare activities and employee attitude in textile mills, remains prominent beacon of welfare studies on Indian organisations. In this exploratory research the authors have established the positive influence of various welfare activities practiced in Indian organisations on employee attitudes including employee productivity.The study has concluded that,generally, welfare measures are recreational,medical, educational, housing, sanitation and so on. Every organization provides the statutory welfare measures but some organizations provides some more welfare facilities to the employees so that they may retain the employees and by improving their quality of work life. By the result of improved quality of work life among the employees their involvement in job gets increased and results in increased productivity of the organization. The organizations maintaining smooth relationship between workers and management, which leads to attainment of organisation goals. Recreational facilities has received a great deal of interest by human resources management, professionals and organisational behaviour researchers in Western countries over the years; however, its practice is fairly nascent in Indian organisations. The organisations in India are facing many diverse and complex challenges of the growing economy and ever increasing demands of the workplace. Recreational facilities at the place of work play bigger and a vital role in ensuring an organisational sustained productivity by systematically building team, leadership and communicative skills. Enhanced and informal contact amongst all employees across hierarchy enriches and secures retention of cultural, social and intellectual assets, its skill and inventiveness. This study analysed organisational employees perceptions of Recreational facilities, Recreation activities and Employee contribution as one of the consequences of recreational facilities. 202 employees from 10 organizations (5 manufacturing and 5 IT services) were surveyed. The judgemental sampling technique was adopted to draw the sample. A questionnaire was designed and pilot tested. The reliability of the questionnaire was above . 850 (Cronchbachs Alpha reliability). The major findings of the study were: 1.Statistical analysis and interpretation of data reveal that organisations have provided varying level of recreational facilities to their employees since the level of perception of importance of recreational facilities varied considerably.Overall, the perception of the facilities was moderate. 2. Employees perception of level of recreation activities provided was higher than recreational facilities although the perception varied considerably again. Employee perception of recreation facilities was high. 3.The level of perception of importance of employee contribution as a result of recreational facilities varied considerably in the range. The mean value was considerably high at mean value of 5.89, with standard deviation 1.00. 4.There was significant correlation between the perception of importance of recreational facilities and recreational activities and the level of employee contribution. Thus, the level of employee contribution has been found to be related to each of the perception of importance of recreational facilities and recreational activities. 5.Multiple linear regression of level of employee contribution on the independent variables of perception of importance of recreational facilities and perception of importance of recreational activities was found to be statistically significant. Both of the independent variables were found to have a significant impact on the level of employee contribution, and together explained 60.2% of the overall variation in level of employee contribution. 6.There were significant differences in the perception of importance of recreational facilities, recreation activities and the level of employee contribution across variable demographics. The study empirically indicates that employee contribution made to the organisation productivity is strongly linked to recreational facilities provided by the organisation to their employees.In addition,at the same time it also reveals that the employees perceive only moderate recreational facilities from their organisations.This means that the system of recreational facilities and recreation activities in the organisations is yet not formalised and is ad-hoc and haphazard. Organisations should dedicate efforts to increase perception of recreation among the employees by including the aspects and goals of recreation in the organisational strategy.

Singh Rajender

Management