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European Journal of Social Sciences Studies ISSN: 2501-8590 ISSN-L: 2501-8590 Available on-line at: www.oapub.org/soc Volume 2 │ Issue 6 │ 2017 doi: 10.5281/zenodo.844044 WORKING ENVIRONMENT INFLUENCES EMPLOYEE PRODUCTIVITY AMONG PUBLIC PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS IN IMENTI NORTH SUB COUNTY, KENYA Morris Kiambi Mukethai School of Business & Economics, Meru University of Science & Technology, Meru, Kenya Abstract: The government has stepped up effort to offer attractive terms and conditions of service to its employees. It has also provided training and development opportunities, career progression, and an enabling environment to its employees to enable them offer services. However, their level of performance has not increased as expected. The objective of the study was to determine how working environment influences employee productivity among public primary school teachers in Imenti north sub county. The study adopted descriptive survey research design. This study was carried out in the 21 public primary schools in Imenti North Sub County, targeting the population of teachers’ service commission. The questionnaire was used to collect the data from the sample. It was also found that the employees would like to work in an organization where the working environment is friendly; they argued that they can work better and more effectively in such a working environment. The study also revealed that majority of the respondents would be satisfied if only the working environment was conducive. Therefore, the teachers’ service commission has to look for other ways of motivating its teachers by ensuring good working environment. Keywords: working environment, employee, productivity, teachers 1. Introduction Employee productivity is a result of employee’s satisfaction. In employee satisfaction, the state of satisfaction varies from person to person. It depends on a number of both Copyright © The Author(s). All Rights Reserved. © 2015 – 2017 Open Access Publishing Group 287 Morris Kiambi Muketha WORKING ENVIRONMENT INFLUENCES EMPLOYEE PRODUCTIVITY AMONG PUBLIC PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS IN IMENTI NORTH SUB COUNTY, KENYA psychological and physical variables which correlate with satisfaction behaviors. Employees are the key assets thus assessing their engagement and satisfaction is necessary. The result of highly engaged and satisfied employees is overall improvement in productivity index and reduction in grievances. This in turn leads to a better organizational and performance (Dessler 2009). Organizations should equip employee’s with competences and skills through training, feedback and development to ensure achievement of set targets. Provision of comparatively higher pay, an equitable payment system, and real opportunities for promotion, considerate and participative management, a reasonable degree of social interaction, interesting and varied tasks, and a high degree of autonomy over work pace and methods will lead to high employee productivity and individual employee productivity, (Chhabra 2005). How the management establishes a shared understanding about what is to be achieved, how it is achieved, and an approach to managing people which increases their probability of achieving job related success will translate to high productivity in key result areas such as timely provision of quality services and high employee morale. In Kenya, a study done by Majanga, Nasongo and Sylvia (2010) on the influence of class size on classroom interaction in the wake of Free Primary Education (FPE), they found that FPE created increased class sizes, shortage of teachers, heavy teachers' working load and lack of teacher motivation. They further found that teachers are demoralized with heavy workloads, handling many lessons, many pupils and work for long hours. Sirima and Poipoi (2010) also reported in a study in Busia District in Kenya that public secondary school teachers with high levels of job satisfaction tend to have high social and psychological atmosphere in the classroom that result in high productivity and effectiveness in job performance and willingness to stay longer. For downloading the full article, please access the following link: http://oapub.org/soc/index.php/EJSSS/article/view/174 European Journal of Social Sciences Studies - Volume 2 │ Issue 6 │ 2017 288