Análisis y selección de la antena

Through the public service reform programme the government of Tanzania has recog- nised the importance of pay and incentives in the process of improving public service delivery by adopting a medium term pay policy (MTPP). The purpose was to guide pay in ministries, departments, agencies (MDAs), regional secretariats (RSs) and local gov- ernment authorities (LGAs). The policy was implemented through the medium term pay reform strategy (MTPRS) that covered:

• The adoption of a medium term target salary structure to increase pay to all public servants and to propose annual salary adjustments,

• Job evaluation and grading in order to link pay with performance and

• The adoption of the selective accelerated salary enhancement (SASE) scheme which targeted salary increase to key professional, technical and managerial personnel whose efforts were critical to the improvement of service delivery and other public service reform outputs.

The results were significant. Average monthly salary went up from 75,560 in 2000 to 214,180 Tanzanian shillings in 2006. This was equivalent to an annual increase of 10.2%. The actual wages in July 2006 were 96.5% of the levels wanted by the MTPRS targets while 65% of all eligible public servants received salaries equal to or in excess of their targeted levels. The SASE scheme supported recruitment, retention and motiva- tion of essential staff. Despite these achievements, there is still the concern in the public service that salaries are low compared to the private sector. This affects staff recruit- ment, retention and performance. In order to improve the situation, the public service reform programme II (2008/2012) aims to improve salaries by developing and imple- menting the central performance based rewards and incentives system. It also intended to review the planning and budgeting framework to allow for flexibility between per- sonnel emolument (PE), other charges (OCs) and development budget resources.

Money as a reward and motivator in Uganda

A study conducted by Mukoma (2008) provides very interesting results on whether em- ployers should be worried about salaries and other incentives as a key to improved em- ployee satisfaction and motivation. The summary of results from seventeen randomly selected organisations covering a sample of 396 top and low level employees are dis- played in Table 7.4.

The table shows that money is the leading motivating reward (59%) followed by ca- reer development (21%), and the nature of the job (14%). There were also exceptions where money did not appear as the first or second level reward. The results from the Voice of Toro, Uganda Martyrs University, International Resource Company and Sky- line Signs Uganda are such exceptions. For the Voice of Toro, the explanation was the presence of low salaries and availability of career development. In Uganda Matters

University, the nature of job scored (84%) and career development (80%) while pay was only (67%). However, the lower level staff ranked money as the number one motivator compared to top level employees who were mainly priests and nuns and who were trained and oriented towards intrinsic motivators, learning, trust, respect and commit- ment. Staff at the International Resource Company were more motivated by productiv- ity and career development (75%), and the provision of realistic policies and good ad- ministration (75%) followed by monetary benefits (58%). However, the bottom level employees were more motivated by money than the top level employees. The results from Sky Line Signs Uganda were seen to be influenced by the civil war, which de- prived people of love, comfort and a friendly environment. Also, employees had low levels of education (90%) that required high levels of coaching and mentoring, which in any case requires friendly company policies and a friendly attitude from colleagues. However, money was ranked number 3.

Table 7.4 Money as a source of motivation

Most motivating rewards Organisation Industry

Rank 1 Rank 2

MTN Uganda Mobile Phone Money Career development

Centenary Bank Banking Money Career development

New Vision Print Media Career development Money Uganda Debt Network NGO Nature of the Job Money Namugunga Girls

Primary

Primary Education Money Employee contract Voice of Toro Radio Transmission Career development Nature of the job Umeme Company Ltd Electricity Money Career development

Posta Uganda Courier Money Status

Uganda Martyrs University

Higher Education Nature of the job Career development Asea Beown Boveri

Ltd (U)

Merchandising Power and Automotive Tech- nologies

Money Career development

International Resource Company

NGO Career development Policies

Aggregate Ltd Cottage Money Employee contract

Total Uganda Fuel Station Money Career development

Lubiri Secondary School

Secondary Education Money Career development Skyline Signs Uganda Design Employee relationship Company policies Nyakatonzi Growers Coffee Export Money Company policies Rural Credit Finance

Ltd

Micro Finance Company policies Money

Source: Mukokoma (2008)

In other organisations where money was not ranked as the first motivator, the results were mainly from top level management. The major reason was that although employ- ees in the top level management were very well paid, the job was too demanding to al- low for time to participate in social activities, to take care of families and spend their money in a way that they wanted to.

Therefore, like other studies, Uganda’s case confirms that rewarding employees through monetary means is important and indeed companies should put emphasis on it.

However, this is not enough and may not be important in all organisations for all cate- gories of staff. However, if money, career development and a good job are combined the impact is very significant, although it does not mean that job performance will nec- essarily improve because there are other factors which affect job performance which are difficult to capture in a single study.