Reward Strategy and Employee Commitment Towards Organizational Development: A Case of Church Workers in Ankole Diocese

Abstract

Employees are the most valuable and important assets for any organization including religious organizations. Given their significant role in strengthening many people, especially during tough times, rewarding church workers is of significant importance not only to the church/believers but also staff themselves. The purpose of this study was therefore to find out the relationship between reward strategy and employee Commitment towards organizational development among church workers in Ankole Diocese. Specifically, the study sought to establish the current reward systems used by church workers in Ankole Diocese, to assess the positive and negative contributions of the current reward systems on commitment of church workers towards development in Ankole Diocese. The study used a descriptive survey research design which exploited a quantitative approach to collect data from church workers in 14 parish churches in two (2) Archdeaconries of Ankole diocese; Deanery and Greater Mbarara in Ankole Diocese. A sample size of 134 church workers was randomly selected from the 2 archdeaconries out of which only 120 workers responded to questionnaires as the main instruments for data collection. Data analysis was aided using SPSS and results presented as descriptive statistics. From the analysis, the study revealed that there is a very wide deviation in perceptions of fairness of the financial and non-financial rewards received by church workers, with most employees perceiving the rewards as unfair. However, the findings revealed that a good reward system motivates employees to work hard and exhibit all their skills and efforts to effectively and efficiently perform their duties and meet their targets instead of involving in counterproductive work behavior. This in turn improves employee commitment and productivity and job satisfaction as well as reduced labour turnover. The study however revealed that a poorly structured reward system can result in high labour turnover and low level of productivity among employees since it reduces their morale and commitment towards work. The study concluded that if Ankole diocese does not review the reward system to provide adequate and fair rewards to church workers, it is likely to contribute to conflicts and dissatisfaction among workers which can have a detrimental effect on employee productivity, performance and commitment towards church development. The study also concludes that employee rewards can be an effective tool for improving employee performance among church workers in Ankole Diocese due to its ability to prevent counterproductive work behavior and improve employee productivity, job satisfaction, commitment, and loyalty to the church where they serve and the diocese in general. The study therefore recommends Ankole diocese to review the pay structure in a way that it ensures all church workers are reward fairly and equitably without discrimination.