An investigation into the attitude of young employees and work performance in Kampala extra region of Uganda Prisons Service

Abstract

Attitude of young employees in today’s world is critical in determining performance. This study investigated the attitude of young employees and work performance in Kampala Extra Region of the UPS. The researcher observed that though the UPS was doing a lot to ensure it trains its staff and equip them with necessary knowledge, skills and attitudes, there was still a challenge of poor response and attitudes among the young employees that results into conflict with their superiors. There was need for an in-depth investigation to establish the relationship between attitude of young officers and work performance in Kampala Extra Region. A Case study research design was preferred because it’s an ideal methodology when a holistic, in-depth investigation is needed for collecting data from a sample population that tests attitudes and preferences. A sample size of 52 employees drawn from 2 units of Luzira Upper Prison and Murchison Bay was used to collect data. From the findings of this study, young employees have a positive attitude towards work performance. The findings indicated that there is a significant positive relationship between attitude and work performance of young officers at KER. This finding was consistent with Meyer et al., (2012) who noted employee’s commitment towards organization was a strong factor connected with job performance in that job involvement, affective and normative organizational commitment, and team commitment were positively correlated. The findings also indicated that work environment and training were factors influencing attitude of young officers in KER. The researcher concluded that guidance and counselling, understanding employee’s family background by management and change of leadership at Station can help improve attitudes of young employees towards work. Therefore, management of Uganda Prisons Service need to identify employees with bad attitudes for refresher trainings as a solution to improve their attitude towards work among other possible mitigation measures that may be designed. The researcher recommends that management of UPS conducts effective assessment of the Prison officer’s attitude before assigning them duties to understand what attitudes are prevalent for individual generations in an organization in order to design appropriate mitigation measures to change a negative attitude towards work into a positive attitude in order to reverse the negative effects on performance. Also importantly is to review its Human Resource polices to include aspect that promote young employee’s commitment and engagement like retention policy, favorable working environment and training opportunities on professional ethics so that young employees are enlighten on what to do and when.