CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Working environment plays an important role towards the employees ‘performance. Working environment is argued to impact immensely on employees’ performance either towards negative or the positive outcomes (Chandrasekar2001).In the world, there are international organizations who debate the rights of employee. Most people spend fifty percent of their lives within indoor environments, which greatly influence their mental status, actions, abilities and performance (Dorgan, 1994). Better outcomes and increased productivity is assumed to be the result of better workplace environment. Better physical environment of office will boosts the employees and ultimately improve their productivity. Various literature pertain to the study of multiple offices and office buildings indicated that the factors such as dissatisfaction, cluttered workplaces and the physical environment are playing a major role in the loss of employees’ productivity (Carnevale 1992,Clements- Croome 1997).
In the 1990’s, the factors of work environment had changed due to the changes in several factors such as the social environment, information technology and the flexible ways of organizing work processes (Hasun & Makhbul, 2005). When employees’ are physically and emotionally fit will have the desire to work and their performance outcomes shall be increased. Moreover, a proper workplace environment helps in reducing the number of absenteeism and thus can increase the employees’ performance which leads to increased productivity at the workplace (Boles et al.2004).
As the Economic and Social Council reported in 2007, global economic growth is increasingly failing to create the kinds of new and better jobs that can lead to a reduction in poverty. Despite high and sustained economic growth in many developing countries, unemployment is rising, a large proportion of the labour force is working below poverty level wages, and the majority of non-agricultural employment is situated in the informal economy. It is of little surprise that in recent years there has been a shift of focus from a singular interest in economic growth to an enlarged concern with improving the quality of work. Governments from across Africa have forcefully called for action to overcome these challenges. The African Union Extraordinary Summit on Employment and Poverty Alleviation in Africa (Ouagadougou, September 2004) overwhelmingly endorsed the ILO’s Decent Work Agenda with an emphasis on the creation of quality jobs. The Government of the United Republic of Tanzania supports this pan-African call for the integration of employment growth and improved quality of work, as reflected in its National Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty 2005– 2010 and its National Employment Policy of 2008.