Flexible Work Arrangements and Productivity of Sales Representatives of Book Publishing Companies in Nigeria

Abstract

This study examined the effect of flexible work arrangements on productivity of sales representatives of book publishing companies in Nigeria. The specific objectives of the study were; to examine the relationship between flexi-time, job sharing, part time and telecommuting and employee effectiveness and employee efficiency of sales representatives of top 10 book publishing companies in Nigeria. Cross-sectional survey involving collecting data across top 10 book publishing companies in Nigeria was employed. Twenty (20) sales representatives from each company were surveyed using convenience sampling technique. Out of the 200 questionnaires administered, 162 copies of questionnaire were filled correctly and returned. constructs of flexible work arrangements as well as measures of employee productivity were measured on four point Likert scale ranging from 4= Strongly agree; 3 = Agree; 2= Disagree; 1 = Strongly disagree. Cronbach Alpha was employed to ascertain the internal consistency of the instruments and they fall within 0.70 -.080 threshold. Validity of instrument was determined using face and content validity. Views of respondents were analyzed using descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) with the aid of statistical package for social sciences version 22.0. Statistical instrument employed to analyze the hypotheses was Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient (rs). Findings revealed that flexi-time, job sharing, part time and telecommuting all have significant positive relationship with both employee effectiveness and employee efficiency. Based on the findings, the study concludes that making time and location flexible for employees, the book publishing sector organizations in Nigeria could significantly enhance productivity of their sales representatives. The study therefore recommended among others that since flexi-time is found to have the potential to affect employee productivity, management of companies in the book publishing sector in Nigeria should avail all categories of staff the opportunity to choose start and close time where necessary. It is also suggested that more options of FWAs like compressed week work and self-roistering could be added to the survey instrument in addition to the ones identified in this study which could lead to new findings.