Influence of Participatory Decision Making of Junior Staff at the Retail Markets in Kenya. An Empirical Study of Uchumi Supermarket in Nairobi
In today's turbulent environment and intense competition, firms are forced to seek ways to be more flexible, adaptive and competitive as they are faced with competitive pressures and rapidly changing markets. Above all, firms are discovering that people really are the most important assets. Success depends on involving the workforce's entire capacity to generate new ideas and ways of working to outsmart the competitors. Junior employees must be involved if they are to understand the need for creativity and they must be involved if they are to be committed to changing their behaviors in work, in new and improved ways. Junior employee involvement is one important aspect of organizational life to achieve increased organizational effectiveness and positive employee perceptions. Junior employee participation in decision making is one of the many current forms of employee involvement in the workplace decision making. Managers are encouraged to allow a high degree of junior involvement, employee participation and autonomy, which are intended to increase workforce commitment and to humanize the workplace with the intention of improving work performance and good citizenship behavior. The current study will determine the impact of junior employee participatory decision making on employee performance with the study conducted on employees working in the retail markets in Nairobi. In carrying out the study, stratified and random sampling technique were used to select 30 employees of the Uchumi Supermarket in the Nairobi retail market who have worked for a period of at least 5 years. Stratified sampling was used to group the employees into two; those in management positions and those in lower positions. Random sampling was then be used to select 30 respondents from the grouped strata. Relevant data was collected using structured questionnaire. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics and presented by manual and computer aided packages of Microsoft Excel. The results were presented through statistical figures such as tables, graphs, and pie charts. The result from the study clearly indicated that participatory decision making amongst the junior staff of the retail markets affects, capability development, cohesion and trust, communication, staff retention and motivation by enhancing their performance. The four factors had different indices of influencing participatory decision making by Communication being influencing factor closely followed by capability development, staff retention. Motivation and cohesion and trust were also found to be important in determining participatory decision making. Most uchumi supermarket branches would not easily grow due to lack of junior staff involvement in decision making, acceptance and appreciation. This study found the need for participatory decision making studies in other retail markets to reach elaborate findings for this industry. ISSN: 2411 5681 www.ijern.com 2 1.0 Background of the Study Participatory decision making is considered as the process of involving all the employees of an organization in decision making irrespective of the ranks they hold in the organization. By enhancing junior employee participation in decision making, effective communication in which the manager embraces two way communication with his employees is a vital tool. The manager should be an active listener who gives an opportunity to the employees to present their views and suggestions and act on them. It is therefore evident that the manager's encouragement of junior employees' voice can lift their well being and productivity. Involvement of employees in the organization's decision making, which is through employee voice, is directly linked to high performance. It is also arguable that encouraging employees to present their views is positively associated with increasing employee well being (Gilley, Gilley McMillan, 2012) When employees have the feeling that they are appreciated at their workplace, they have the idea that they have influence over what they do. The management in this case gives the employees an opportunity to have control over their work, which makes them even more encouraged since they learn from challenges presented. Even though they have to work under set deadlines and targets, they are not under the pressure of the management who designs what needs to be done (Salvendy, 2012) The junior employees are at liberty to work through teams and meet the demanding targets. They exercise control over their work and this makes them feel responsible hence increasing their performance and productivity and hence the enhanced success of the organization. Summers and Hyman (2014) argue that there are several levels and types of employee voice encouraged in the workplace. The main ones are formal like committees and informal such as open door policies. Informal communications modes are limited to one way communication since the employees are allowed to air their views through suggestion boxes and meetings. However, these views are not responded to immediately and as a result, this type of communication has little impact on improvement of employees' well being. On the other hand, formal communication ensures that employees' voice is heard and acted upon. Employees either present their views and suggestions directly to the management or do it through employee representatives and trade unions. This makes it possible for management to make decisions after considering the wishes of the employees (Hambley, O'Neill Kline, 2014) This way, employees feel that they are appreciated and acknowledged and this makes them motivated to work hard thus improving their performance. It is therefore clear that employee participatory in decision making is a motivational tool as it makes employees feel that they are appreciated, acknowledged, and recognized in the organization, which in turn improves their morale, performance, and productivity. Retail markets have been facing some challenges which include lack of proper planning by the management, lack of proper human resource policies, lack of career growth for the junior staff, staff turnover, poor human capacities, lack of teamwork, lack of motivation amongst junior staff, who are the majority in the organization, shoplifting problems, lack of job satisfaction, and poor relationship between the senior management staff and junior staff. It is due to these challenges experienced that the researcher bases her study on Kenyan vision 2030, touching on eradication of poverty and creating employment for the youth as well as sustainability of the business. 1.1 Statement of the Problem The problem is the fact that even after understanding the importance of participatory management in the organization, most small scale organizations do not understand what should be done and how to ensure that junior employees are appreciated and involved and in decision making. When International Journal of Education and Research Vol. 4 No. 2 February 2016 3 employees have the feeling that they are appreciated at their workplace, it makes them feel that they have influence over what they do. The management in this case gives the employees an opportunity to have control over their work, which makes them even more encouraged since they learn from challenges presented. Even though they have to work under set deadlines and targets, they are not under the pressure of the management who designs what needs to be done. The employees are at liberty to work through teams and meet the demanding targets. They exercise control over their work and this makes them feel responsible (Griffin Moorhead, 2013) As noted by de Vries, van den Hooff& de Ridder (2014) through the manager's encouragement to the employees to present their suggestions, it becomes possible for one to balance his work and life activities. A junior employee is free to request for day off work to cater for pressing personal issues. They are also free to discuss with their management on pressing personal issues and get the required help. When employees' voice is encouragement, it becomes also possible for them to discuss work issues that might threaten their lives. When allowed to air their views both formally and informally, employees are able to find ways to relieve their work related stresses. Further, through a two way communication, employees are informed of all the decisions made in the organizations. They are also are allowed to participate in decision making and this guarantees them of job security (Summers Hyman, 2014) They feel that they belong to the organization they work for and thus are more satisfied in their respective job responsibilities. As earlier noted, junior employee participatory decision making is very beneficial to the organization. It acts as a motivational tool ensuring that employees are encouraged to improve their performance and productivity. However, even with several studies done on the impact of employee participatory decision making on the organization, very little is done on the retail markets. The management in retail markets in most developing countries is not informed on how it should ensure employee participatory decision making. This is because most retail markets and other small scale organizations hire employees who are not that skilled and thus unable to make decisions and bring suggestions that are important in decision making. However, through the experience garnered in their work, any employee can help in decision making. As a result, the recent study will highlight the impact of employee participatory decision making in the retail market in Nairobi by helping the management to understand how to enhance employee participatory decision making even when working with nonprofessionals. 1.2 Objectives of the Study i. To determine the extent to which participatory decision making contributes to capability development of junior staff performance at the uchumi