The influence of employee rewards management practices on the performance of small scale enterprises in Uganda

Abstract

The study, examined the influence of reward management practices on the performance of small scale enterprises in Uganda. The study specifically examined the role of reward management practices on the performance small scale enterprises in Uganda. Reward management is an issue that has not been well managed among small scale enterprises in Uganda. Most small scale enterprises do not have reward structures in place as many employees are paid small irregular amounts of money that largely reduces employee’s morale to work. Most of the small scale enterprises fail to maintain market share, don’t have a competitive prices level, face stagnated and or reducing profits that keep dropping to their collapse, low sales volumes, unstable market share and low return on investment. The study adopted cross sectional survey design with both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The study involved business directors and business employees across all 400 the sample size small scale business enterprises in Uganda. Questionnaires and interviews were used to collect data from respondents. Data was analyzed to obtain descriptive statics and inferential statics. From the findings it was revealed that there is a positive significant relationship between employee rewards management practices and the performance of small scale enterprises in Uganda. The correlation coefficient of .265(**) with a significance value of .000 was obtained to explain the nature of the relationship that exist between the two variables. This implies that in a situation where financial & non financial rewards which are; pay, benefits, Incentives, Recognition, Value for money rewards, Performance management platform are well managed then there is likelihood that enterprise performance will improve in the long run hence affecting overall performance of small scale enterprises in Uganda. The regression model revealed R²= .070 which shows that 7% variation of small scale enterprise performance is explained by changes in reward management process in small scale enterprises in Uganda. This implies that any changes in reward management in the human resource management practices in small scale enterprises would lead to 7% chance improvement in enterprise performance in Uganda. It was therefore concluded that Financial and non financial rewards are lightly considered by many small scale enterprises in Uganda and they need to ensure that small scale enterprises give their employees good financial and non-financial rewards.