This study assessed the relationship between reward management and organizational performance in selected universities in Enugu State. The specific objectives of the study were to: (i) ascertain the extent to which employee benefits affect morale of employees’ of universities in Enugu State, Nigeria, (ii) ascertain the extent to which staff development opportunities affect job performance of employees’ of universities in Enugu State, Nigeria, (iii) determine the nature of the relationship between work environment and turnover of employees’ of universities in Enugu State, Nigeria and (iv) assess the extent to which job enrichment affects job satisfaction of employees’ of universities in Enugu state Nigeria. The study adopted the descriptive research design which employed a case study. The population of the study was 8623 staff of three universities in Enugu State, namely; University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), Enugu State University of Science and Technology (ESUT) and Godfrey Okoye University, Enugu. UNN and ESUT were chosen because they were the only federal and state universities in Enugu State while Godfrey Okoye University was selected because of its proximity and accessibility of information. The sample size of 368 was obtained using William Godden formula. Simple random sampling technique was used to select respondents from each of the selected institutions. Data were collected using researcher - developed questionnaire and oral interview. Content validation was carried out using 2 experts from both the industry and the academia. A pilot study was conducted to check the reliability of the research instrument with Cronbach’s alpha, giving a coefficient of 0.98, indicating a high degree of items consistency. Simple percentages, frequency, mean and standard deviation were used. Linear regression and Pearson Product Moment Correlation were used for data analysis at 5% probability level of significance. The results of this study showed that employee benefits significantly affect the morale of employees’ of universities in Enugu State, Nigeria (p = 0.002 < 0.05, r = 0.87), staff development opportunities significantly affect the performance of employees’ of universities in Enugu State, Nigeria (p = 0.000 < 0.05, r = 0.91), there is a positive relationship between work environment and employee turnover of universities in Enugu State, Nigeria(p = 0.005 < 0.05, r = 0.83), and job enrichment does significantly affect the job satisfaction of employees’ of universities in Enugu State, Nigeria (p = 0.000 < 0.05, r = 0.93). The study recommended that Universities in Enugu State, Nigeria should ensure that employees’ are promoted based on merit, as at when due, treated with respect, mentored and appreciated to ensure better performance; Staff development opportunities should be created for employees’ of universities in Enugu State, Nigeria; management of universities in Enugu State, Nigeria should ensure that the work environment is very conducive for employees; and employees’ should be encouraged to exercise their skills, with adequate supervision, job empowerment, and the provision of adequate information and knowledge which enhances job performance.

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

1.1       Background of Study
The current economic difficulties have thrown into sharp relief not just what people get paid, but whether it is fair, from a perspective of many stakeholders resulting in a challenging balancing act for reward (Cotton, 2013:3). With the increased global competition, developments in Information Communication and Technology (ICT), and changes in workplace demographic characteristics, organisations need to reform their reward system to be relevant in terms of performance in order to get the best from its employees and withstand the tides of incessant competition (Ibrahim, Mayendesifuna, Buteeme and Lubega, 2013). A survey on global talent management and reward by Towers Watson (2012) in partnership with worldatwork reported that 63% of employers have difficulty in attracting the skills required for business growth and 47% faced problems of retaining top talents. The mismatch alignment between what employers are ready to offer in terms of rewards and what employees’ wants is assumed to be the reason for this difficulty in attracting talent and the loss of intellectual capable employees (Maycock and Salawudeen, 2014).
The basic premise of reward systems which is to maintain employee motivation in order to increase production and sustain a competitive edge, while keeping costs low has been evident throughout the centuries but was especially dominant during the historical period spanning the late 1800s to the early 1920s, a period known as the scientific management era (Kanin-Lovers and Porter, 1991; Milkovich, Newman and Gerhart, 2011; Wren, 1987 cited in Caudill and Porter, 2014). Management then as a discipline was itself in its infancy. The idea was to bring ‘science’ to bear through time and motion study and to link pay to production of ‘pieces’ on the production lines typified by those created by Henry Ford in his US car manufacturing plants. With manufacturing in the most advanced economies today balanced and sometimes outflanked by the service industries, the question of what that ‘piece’ (of work) would be, how it should be incentivised through rewards, and what effort employees should be expected to contribute to produce it becomes ever more complex (Caudill and Porter, 2014). And the numerous reward types on offer further complicates the challenge of designing, communicating and monitoring what, since the 1990s, has been referred to as the ‘total reward’ approach (Cotton, 2013).
Total reward, which is a tool of reward management, is seen by market analyst as top priority of UK human resource agenda (Armstrong and Brown, 2005, cited in Nazir, Shah and Zaman, 2012). Total reward is a term adopted to describe a reward strategy that brings additional components such as learning and development, together with aspects of the working environment, into the benefits package (Armstrong and Brown, 2001 cited in Zhou, Qian, Henan and Lei, 2009).
The influence of effective rewards management on employees’ affective commitment, motivation and subsequent high organizational performance has been recorded by Google Inc., which currently ranked 4th in Fortune’s Top 10 Best Companies to work for, branding it as one of the most desirable employers worldwide (CNN Money, 2011, cited in Nujjoo and Meyer, 2012). The report from the company indicates a high rate of employee satisfaction, low employee turnover and high organizational profitability due to the fact that its employee management and retention strategies incorporate both monetary and non-monetary rewards. Google’s reward management strategy in line with changing work patterns includes flexi-time and a work environment that reconciles employees’ work-life balance (Nujjoo and Meyer, 2012).In a survey on drivers of organizations reward strategies, Tower Perrin (2007)showed that 31% of organizations are using rewards to retain top performers, 29% to attract talents and only 4% to reduce costs. Therefore, the importance of employee’s role in sustainable competitiveness has led to the paradigm shift from cost as a driver of reward strategy to its use as leverage to motivate and retain the existing talents and attract new ones (Maycock and Salawudeen, 2014). In Nigeria, KPMG surveyed 86 organisations in different sectors of the economy on their human resource (HR) practices and found that more Nigerian organisations are taking active steps to align their HR and reward strategies to international best practices. The organisations appreciate the fact that their ability to stay ahead of competition is dependent on being able to weave a competitive advantage around their people and so for them, focus on effective people management should continue in the future as HR becomes more strategically positioned to attract, motivate and retain top talents, as well as provide measurable support to enable organisations achieve business goals (Ajayi,Apanpa, Alile, and Ogbonna, 2014).
The criteria for rating Universities all over the world include amongst others, their research outputs (demonstrated in terms of publications in referred journals, number of postgraduate outputs (particularly doctoral), and the quality of academic staff (doctoral). The numberand quality of academic staff, coupled with theireffectiveness make the difference in universityeducation production function. As Evenson (2004) surmises
The escape route from the mass poverty now endemic in most African countries is improved income. This means invention and reinvention, innovation, and reverse engineering and such processes require skills that can be produced only in higher education programs (p.174).
Nwadiani and Akpotu, (2002) note that university education in contemporary times the world over, is becoming an exceedingly complex enterprise and this complexity requires a high degree of competence and proven scholarship from the university academic staff in particular and the entire staff in general (Samuel and Chipunza, 2013: 97 - 99). They contribute much to the social, political and economic development of a nation and that is why every government is making efforts to budget a huge amount to that sector (Ajayi, Awosusi, Arogundade and Ekundayo, 2011).
In the UK, government know that the success of their universities depends very substantially upon their having a staff that is motivated, committed and supportive of the institutions’ mission to conduct internationally-leading research and teaching and so developed a framework known as the ‘Science and Innovation Investment Framework 2004–2014’ (HM Treasury et al., 2004 cited in Hooley, Kent and Williams, 2010). This framework has ensured that universities received substantial investment from government through year-on-year increases in the budget. The money has enabled higher education in the United Kingdom to expand through the recruitment of new staff, both academic and those in professional and support roles and to repair or replace a decaying research infrastructure. While Government, the European Union and others seek to develop an environment within which human capital investment is emphasised, it is left to individuals within universities to interpret this and implement it ‘on the ground’ (Hooley, Kent and Williams, 2010).
In Nigeria, successive government seems to see education as a social (welfare) services to the citizenry. Education is not vigorously pursued as a vital and dynamic sector that determines all spheres of development and so lip service is paid to the effective management and dynamic approach to its development (Hamza, 1999). Though the number of universities has been increasing as reported by NUC in 2008, the number of qualified teachers is not increasing proportionately (Adeniji, 2011). Thus, there had been constant mobility of these highly skilled persons from one university to another or to other countries abroad where the environment is more conducive to work and there is better remuneration package. This mobility has been tagged as ?brain drain and is the major challenge of Nigerian universities. Other challenge facing Nigerian universities include incessant strikes, weak accountability for educational performance, poor work environment, academic staff shortage, corruption, et cetera (Ajayi, Awosusi, Arogundade and Ekundayo. 2011). In addition, the motivation of university employees’ has been reported to be affected by challenging situations like irregular research investment (Igwe, 1990 and Donwa, 2006), inadequate resources to acquire advanced information technologies such as internet, intranet, extranet, browsers, data warehouse, data mining techniques, software agents, (Donwa,2006, Krubu and Osawaru, 2011, cited in Ohiorenoya and Eboreime, 2014), lack of feedback regarding personnel evaluation reports, management emphasis on particular administrative style, workload, lack of support from superior in terms of mentoring to salary package, unchallenging jobs, et cetera (Adeniji, 2011). There are cases of some absentee lecturers that come to class only when exams are around to rush their lectures. Some of the lecturers also have been alleged of using graduating students to lecture students, record scores and compute student results. Also, there are observed cases of arbitrary award of marks, examination malpractices and students tell stories of academic staff that abandon their students to chase contracts and political appointments (Ajayi, et al. 2011). The researcher also observed that this does not affect the lecturers only. It is also seen in the way some non-teaching staff do their work. There are instances of absences among these calibres of staff, lateness, lack of initiative in the performance of duties, lack of commitment to task and the organization, luke-warmness, work stress, delays in administrative performance, et cetera.
One of the factors influencing performance is identified to be motivation to perform well on the job (Van- Knippenber 2000) which can be influenced by rewards. The need to ensure that employees perceive organization reward as fair and directed toward their satisfaction on the job is necessary to harness employee’s potential for business benefit (Jonathan et al. 2010; Cooke et al. 2014 cited in Maycock and Salawudeen, 2014). A lot has been researched about reward management. However, little attention seems to have been given to variables such asemployee benefits, staff development, work environment, job enrichmentand their effect on performance. Against this background, the study attempted to contribute to the knowledge base by assessing the relationship between reward management and organisational performance of universities in Enugu State, Nigeria.

1.2       Statement of Problem
Managing employees’ reward is today more difficult than it has ever been due to many economic, cultural and social influences which were not there before. Workers are more sensitive to the value they create and the reward they get in form of pay and benefits.
It has been observed that in many Nigerian organisations both public and private, apathy and nonchalance on the part of employees are a general phenomenon andmany reasons adduced for such apathy, low morale and indifference include lack of staff development opportunities, poor management styles, unconducive work environment and above all poor remuneration. As a result, university employees through their respective unions embark on strike to press on their demand for a better condition of service. Also, it appears that performance evaluation which is vital to reward management is not adequately being utilized, as such; it does seem that most rewards are not based on performance.
From the foregoing, it does seem that the members of staff of the universities are not well motivated such that there are cases of truancy, absenteeism, job burnout, withdrawal and indifference to university norm and value expectation and job dissatisfaction.In addition, there is disruptive office politics, negative work attitude, low productivity, missed deadlines, low quality and poor customer service.The perceived problems seem to have negative effect on the quality of graduates produced into the labour market as the fundamental purpose of university deteriorates to be an institution of learning how to read and write, designed to prepare the mind as a ticket to acquiring wealth (not knowledge) and to separate the mind from collective (community) progress and national development, to individual interest. Our universities loses a lot of revenue due to the fact that many potential students prefer universities in neighbouring African countries including Ghana, Benin and Togo, not because of superiority of academic programmes but because of instability of academic calendar.If our universities are to nurture the manpower needs of the nation and satisfy the aspirations of the people for a good and humane society, then it is important for university employees to be properly motivated to ensure that they give their best in job performance.
Against this background, this study seeks to assess the relationship between reward management and organizational performance in selected universities in Enugu State, Nigeria.

1.3       Objective of Study
The major objective of the study is to assess the relationship between reward management and organizational performance in selected universities in Enugu State, Nigeria. Specifically, the study seeks:

1. To ascertain the extent to which employee benefits affect morale of employees of Universities in Enugu State, Nigeria.
2. To ascertain the extent to which staff development opportunities affect job performance of employees of Universities in Enugu State, Nigeria.
3. To determine the nature of the relationship between work environment and turnover of employees of Universities in Enugu State, Nigeria
4. To assess the extent to which job enrichment affects job satisfaction of employees of Universities in Enugu State, Nigeria.

1.4       Research Questions
In this study, the researcher used the following questions:

1. To what extent do employee benefits affect morale of employees of Universities in Enugu State, Nigeria?
2. To what extent do staff development opportunities affect job performance of employees of Universities in Enugu State, Nigeria?
3. What is the nature of the relationship between work environment and turnover of employees of Universities in Enugu State, Nigeria?
4. To what extent does job enrichment affect job satisfaction of employees of Universities in Enugu State, Nigeria?

1.5       Research Hypotheses
In line with the study’s objectives and research questions designed to give direction to the study, the following research hypotheses are hereby formulated:
H1: Employee benefits do significantly affect morale of employees of Universities in Enugu State, Nigeria.    
H2: Staff development opportunities do significantly affect the performance of employees of Universities in Enugu State, Nigeria.
H3: There is a significant relationship between work environment and employee turnover of Universities in Enugu State, Nigeria.
H4: Job enrichment does significantly affect job satisfaction of employees of Universities in Enugu State, Nigeria.

1.6       Significance of the Study
The study will be of importance to the following:

1. To the Organization: Organizations can improve or change their reward systems to survive in today’s environment with the help of this study. They can renew their reward systems and put more efficient and effective ones. This study will enable employees in the organization to be more committed to their task, thereby increasing the organization’s performance and the nation’s GDP in the long run.
2. Government and Policy makers will find the discussions in this study and the recommendation that will follow useful because it will throw more light into the issue of reward management. They will see how policies in reward affect the performance of government-controlled organizations directly and private organizations indirectly.
3. Management: Discussions and recommendations that will follow will help to minimize labour disputes between management and employees as both parties know what is expected from them for a harmonious work environment.
4. To future researchers: This study will serve as a basis for further research, especially in related topic by providing secondary data.

1.7       Scope of Study
This work is a study on reward management and organizational performance for the period 2010 to 2014. Geographically, the study was restricted to the Universities in Enugu State. The Universities are University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN), Enugu State University of Science and Technology (ESUT), Enugu, Godfrey Okoye University, Enugu. The three Universities represent Federal, State and Private Universities respectively. The researcher wants to find out how rewards affect the organizational performance of Federal, State and Private Universities for the period 2010 - 2014.

1.8       Limitations of the Study
This work is limited to how employee benefits affect employee morale. It considers staff development opportunities and job enrichment as it affects job satisfaction and performance of employees of universities in Enugu State. Also, the attitude of some respondents limited the study. They claimed that they were too busy to fill the questionnaire. However, this limitation was overcome by repeated visits by the researcher. In addition to the above, dearth of secondary data on reward management in universities in Enugu State limited the study.

1.9       Contextual Definition of Terms
The operational definitions as used in the research are as follows:
Affective Commitment: This refers to psychological attachment to the organization (Tella, Ayeni and Popoola, 2007).
Distributive justice: As defined by Leventhal (1), distributive justice refers to how rewards are provided to people. They will feel that they have been treated justly if they believe that the rewards have been distributed in accordance with the value of their contribution, that they receive what was promised to them and that they get what they need (Armstrong, 2007:5).
Fairness: A fair reward system is one that operates in accordance with the principles of distributive and procedural justice. It also conforms to the ‘felt-fair’ principle formulated by Eliot Jaques. This states that pay systems will be fair if they are felt to be fair (Armstrong, 2007:6).
Job Burnout: this refers to the adverse effects of working conditions under which strong stressors are perceived as unavoidable and relief from them is interpreted as unavailable.
Procedural Justice: refers to the ways in which managerial decisions are made and reward policies are put into practice (Armstrong, 2007:5).
Retirement Age is the age one retires from service. In government owned organizations, the retirement age is 65 years.

1.10     Profile of The Universities Under Study
University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN)
The University of Nigeria Nsukka was founded by Dr Nnamdi Azikiweon October 7, 1960. The founding of the university in 1960 which was the same year Nigeria gained political independence was informed by the need to produce the highly skilled men and women that will fulfill the manpower needs of the newly independent Nigerian state. The choice of the motto of UNN - to restore the dignity of man - was due to the unique circumstances of her birth as an institution. Since inception, UNN has strived to be the best in manpower training as well as in research and development and is always conscious of her mission which is to seek truth, teach truth and preserve truth.
The main campus of the university is situated in Nsukka in present day Enugu state in South Eastern Nigeria. The Enugu campus housing the faculties of Business Administration, Law and Environmental Studies are located in Enugu, the capital city of Enugu state. The faculties of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences and Technology are located at Ituku Ozalla - about 15 kilometers from the city of Enugu while another campus, dedicated to the study of Nigerian languages, is situated a few kilometers off the commercial city of Aba in Abia State.
The number of departments has grown from 6 in 1960 to 106 (in addition to 5 sub-departments), all contained within 16 faculties in contrast to the 2 faculties that existed at inception. In addition, there are 10 semi-autonomous institutes and research centres, a school of postgraduate studies and a school of general studies.

Enugu State University of Science and Technology (ESUT), Enugu
The Enugu State University of Science and Technology (ESUT) was originally founded as ASUTECH on July 30, 1980.The aim of establishing the university was to have an institution that can closely relate to society, its industry and above all, serve as a catalyst in the technological advancement of the people. Thus, the University’s motto remains, “Technology for Service”. On establishment, the University stamped its name as the first University of Technology and first State University in Nigeria with her main campus at Enugu having the faculties of Engineering, Science and Technology. Other campuses that were created later were located at Abakiliki, Awka and Nnewi.
Following the creation of Enugu State in 1991, the university’s name was changed from ASUTECH to ESUT. The two former campuses of ASUTECH at Awka and Nnewi became the State University for Anambra State which has been taken over by the Federal Government and renamed Nnamdi Azikiwe University, while the Enugu and Abakiliki campuses on the other hand formed ESUT. ESUT however retained and adopted all the identities of the old ASUTECH including its main campus, the logo, colour, anthem, philosophy, aims and objectives among others. ESUT established a new campus at Adada Nkpologwu in Uzo-Uwani Local Government Area where students of Applied Natural Sciences and Social Sciences were located.
The University was moved from its temporary site at Independence Layout Enugu to a permanent site in Nkanu West L.G.A. on February 14, 2006 and to date has nine (9) Faculties with forty-seven (47) departments and a College of Medicine.

Godfrey Okoye University, Enugu
Godfrey Okoye University (GO University) was founded in 2009 by the Catholic Diocese of Enugu having Very Reverend Father Professor Christian Anieke as the first Vice Chancellor. The university was established to produce graduates who will be outstanding in learning, balanced in character and personality and ready to pursue epistemic unity in all its ramifications. The philosophy of the university is based on the nature of the human person as a social being, as a dialogue-seeking being. That is, she sees education as a dialogical process of acquisition and dissemination of knowledge with the motto - unity of Knowledge
In 2009, the university started with 215 students and has 1200 students by the end of 2012. She has four faculties and several departments. She partners with other universities in Austria, UK, Germany, USA and University of Nigeria.