IJMS 2016 vol.

3 (1): 47 - 57
International Journal of Multidisciplinary
Studies (IJMS)

Volume 3, Issue 1, 2016

A study on the impact of workplace

environment on employee’s performance:
with reference to the Brandix Intimate
Apparel - Awissawella
Lankeshwara P

Department of Management and Finance, Faculty of Management, Social Sciences and Humanities, General
Sir John Kotelawala Defence University, Sri Lanka

ABSTRACT

In the current era of highly volatile business environment, organizations are facing emerging
achieving operational excellence with the intention to offer a competitive advantage and secure lasting
results for their customers. The most crucial factor that affects the organization performance is its employee
since human resources are considered as a source of sustainable competitive advantage. The workplace
environment gives an immense impact to the employees either towards the negative outcomes or positive
outcomes. The objective of this study was to identify the impact of workplace environment on the employee’s
performance. The study has utilized primary data and a sample of size 85 has chosen in accordance the
Morgan approach of sample selection including both managerial and non-managerial employees from
Brandix Intimate Apparel- Awissawella through the proportionate sampling technique, using already
developed questionnaire. Multiple Regression Model has been utilized as the main data analyzing technique.
The survey results revealed that the job aids, supervisory support and physical work environment as
positively influential for the employee’s performance and job aid as the most critical predictor. Implications
of the findings and recommendations are offered.

KEYWORDS: Employee’s Performance, Job Aids, Supervisor Support, Physical Work Environment

Corresponding author: P. Lankeshwara, Email: nishu.prabha@gmail.com

47
P. Lankeshwara

1. INTRODUCTION in doing their job, it could automatically

increase the employees’ productivity which
Achieving operational excellence is also leads to the performance (Sinha, 2001).
increasingly becoming a key area of focus in the
apparel industry. Any of the apparels try to According to the previous studies, there are
continuously engage in activities that could different points of view regarding the
improve productivity and service to a true employee’s performance. Some scholars have
excellent level. When concerning about the argued the job performance as a result of
Brandix Intimate Apparel, it also tries to behavior. Moto wildo & Scotter (1994) stated
achieve the operational excellence with the that performance is based on behaviors or
intention to offer a competitive advantage and activities that are associated with the goals of an
secure lasting results for their customers. For organization. Moreover, job performance is the
this purpose number of insights was drawn to action or behavior itself and not the result of
identify how their branches performed their actions or a consequence. Anzi (2009)
activities and whether they achieved the suggested that the organizations can improve
expected productivity. Finally it has identified job performance through controlling
that increasing efficiency and effectiveness in employees’ behaviors. According to the
the process is one of the key development areas. Borman & Motowidlo (1997), there are two
So this clearly implies that Brandix Intimate types of employees’ behavior that could leads to
Apparel largely concerns about the performance the employees’ performance as task
of their employees since the expected performance and contextual performance.
productivity of the organization mainly depend
on the performance of the employees. Stup (2003) illustrated that employers have to
get the employees task to be done on track to
Factors of workplace environment play an achieve organization goal or target and standard
important role towards the employee’s performance. By having such a procedure
performance. By having a proper workplace employers could be able to monitor their
environment, it helps in reducing the number of employees and help them to improve their
absenteeism and thus can increase the performance. Moreover, in order to motivate the
employees’ performance which will lead to the employees to perform their task well, employers
increasing number of productivity at the should implement a reward system based on the
workplace. Therefore, it is so important to find performance of the employees. And also on-the-
what factors of workplace environment causes job coaching, performance appraisals,
for the employee’s performance. counseling session, interviews and also the
performance improvement plans can be used to
According to the above evidence, objective of improve the employees’ performance (Stark &
this study was to identify the impact of Flaherty, 1999).
workplace environment on the employee’s
performance. Employees’ performance is the most important
dependent variable in an industrial and
organizational psychology. There are several
2. LITERATURE REVIEW factors which influence for the employees’
performance. Among those, factors of
2.1 Employees’ Performance
workplace environment play an important role
towards the employees’ performance.
Employee’s performance is depending on the
Normally, employees’ performance level is
willingness and also the openness of the
depending on the quality of the employees’
employees itself on doing their job. By having
workplace environment which are the job aid,
this willingness and openness of the employees

48
 A study on the impact of workplace environment on employee’s performance

supervisor support and also the physical According to the Gagnon & Michael (2004),
workplace environment. These three factors when the employees have supportive
determine how the employees’ get engaged or relationship with their immediate supervisor it
attached to the organization (Chandrasekar, tends to committed to higher performance and
2001). satisfaction. Many authors suggested that
employee perceived support form supervisor
make the employee more satisfied and
2.2 Job Aids and Employees’ Performance performance oriented in the organization.
Several studies about supervisor’s role in
Job aids are performance support tools which training programs based on a sample of 45
are used on the job and step-by-step trainees in UK organizations (Axtell et al.,
descriptions of how to do a task. The purpose 1997), and 100 technical employees in North
of a job aid is to guide and facilitate Kuching City Hall, Malaysia generally showed
performance and as well as to support the work that properly implemented supervisor’s role in
activity (Saklani & Jha, 2011). According to training programs had increased job
Pipe (1986), job aid is being used by the performance in the workplace.
employees as to support them in term of giving
direction or procedure. Moreover, Nijman (2004) illustrated that when
there is a very good communication skill
As a performance support tool, job aids cause especially during the training program, the
to enhance the performance in three ways as employees will probably increase their
external support, extrinsic support and intrinsic competency and job performance.
support. External support means that the
employees need to take leave from work and 2.4 Physical Work Environment and
look for the source as for their reference to their Employees Performance
job. The second way is through the extrinsic
support. An extrinsic support means that the job A physical work environment can result a
aid is being given within the system itself. The person to fit or misfit to the environment of the
final way is called the intrinsic support. An workplace and it is also known as an ergonomic
intrinsic support is an insider or software that is workplace. There are some factors of physical
being used as for the efficiency of workflow work environment which help employees to
(Cavanaugh, 2004). perform their job more effectively and which
leads to enhance their job satisfaction, such as
lightings, the floor configuration, office layout
2.3 Supervisor Support and Employees and also the furniture layout (Brill et al, 1985).
Performance
According to the Vischer (2007), physical work
Supervisors in any organization play a vital role environment is one of the most important factor
in affecting employees’ attitude and behavior. which influences on work performance.
They are the first line managers who have the Evidence accumulated that the physical work
responsibilities of leading the subordinates in environment in which people work affects both
their group task and the groups in the job performance and job satisfaction. McCoy &
organizations (Elangovan & Karakowsky, Evans (2005) explained that if employees
1999). Many scholars suggested that there is a dissatisfy with their working environment and
positive relationship between the support form once the employees become stressors at the
supervisor and the beneficial outcome such as, work place, the employees tend to do their
job commitment, employee retention and work very slowly. This will directly affects for
moreover performance. the employees performance and as well as for
the overall productivity of the organization.

49
P. Lankeshwara

3.3 Population and Sample

According to the Vischer (2007), employees
affect by the environment of the place they are The study area was Awissawella branch of
working and by having a good environment, the Brandix Intimate Apparel and there were 114
employees could apply their energy and their staff members. Sample of size 85 has chosen in
full attention to perform work. accordance the Morgan approach of sample
selection including both managerial and non-
managerial employees through the
3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY proportionate sampling technique.

3.1 Conceptual Framework 3.4 Data Analysis

The Correlation and Regression Analysis have

The following figure indicates the conceptual been conducted to identify the relationship
frame work of the research. between work place environment and
performance of employees. Before conducting
Independent the Correlation Analysis, Cronbach's alpha test
has done in order to understand whether the
variables multiple likert questions in the questionnaire
Dependent are reliable.
Factors of workplace
Variable
environment
Employee’s 4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
 Job Aids
 Supervisor
Performance 4.1 Data Presentation
Support
4.1.1 Employee’s Performance and
 Physical Work Demographic Profile
Environment
Employee’s Performance by Age
Figure 1. Conceptual Framework

Source: Researcher’s own conceptualization,

2015

3.2 Data Collection

In the present study, both Primary and

Secondary data was utilized. The main data
collection has done using an already developed
questionnaire, designed to collect the data from
employees by using likert scale as strongly
agree, agree, neutral, disagree and strongly
disagree. Secondary data was collected from
company documents, articles and through the Figure 2. Employee’s Performance by Age
internet.
Source: Survey Data, 2015

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 A study on the impact of workplace environment on employee’s performance

In the view of age of the employees, it was very Employee’s Performance by Ethnicity
important demographic factor regarding the
performance of employees.

According to the figure 2, within the age group

19-25 and 26-30 majority of the employee had
positive attitudes regarding their performance
level. Within the age group more than 30 years,
half of the employees agreed with their
performance level and the rest had neutral
attitudes toward their performance level.

Employee’s Performance by Marital Status

Figure 4. Employee’s Performance by Ethnicity

Source: Survey Data, 2015

Figure 4 shows the employee’s performance

according to the ethnicity. Referring to the
figure, more than half or 67% of the Sinhala
employees were satisfied with their
performance level and Tamil employees were
equally in neutral and agree level.

When considering the Muslim employees,

figure shows that majority (73%) have positive
Figure 3. Employee’s Performance by Marital attitudes and also 20% were in strongly disagree
Status level regarding their performance.

Source: Survey Data, 2015 4.1.2 Employee’s Performance and Socio

Economic Profile
According to the figure 3, it illustrates
performance of employees according to the Employee’s Performance by Education Level
marital status. There was no highly considerable
difference between attitudinal concerns on Figure 5 explains the performance of employees
performance level of married and unmarried according to their education level.
employees.
According to the figure, the education levels
Majority of the unmarried employees (70%) and A/L category and diploma category, the
married employees (67%) have recorded majority (56% and 78%) were in satisfied levels
positive attitudes regarding their performance and the most important thing is the employees
level while less than ¼ of the unmarried and who are qualified higher education level are
married employees have neutral and negative totally satisfied with their performance level.
attitudes towards their performance level.

51
P. Lankeshwara

among strongly agree, agree and neutral level

of attitudinal concern on performance of
employees whose service period is more than 3
years.

Overview of the Level of Perception on Job

Aids

Figure 5. Employee’s Performance by

Education Level

Source: Survey Data, 2015

Employee’s Performance by Period of

Service
Figure 7. Overview of the Level of Perception
on Job Aids

Source: Survey Data, 2015

Figure 7 shows the employee’s attitudinal

concerns on their job aids provided by the
organization. Majority of the employees (85%)
were at the satisfactory level about their current
job aids level. Only 10% of the employees have
recorded neutral attitudes and very small
portion (5%) had dissatisfied perception on the
job aids.

Overview of the Level of Perception on

Supervisor Support

Figure 6. Employee’s Performance by Service According to figure 8, it explains the

Period employee’s attitudinal concern on supervisor
support. Majority of the employees (70%) have
Source: Survey Data, 2015 recorded positive attitudes and 30% of the
employees had neutral attitudes regarding their
According to the figure 6, it illustrates majority supervisors support. Further, no one was
of the employees whose service period is less disagreed the attitudinal concern on supervisor
than one year and 1- 3 year had positive support.
attitudes towards their performance level and
there was no highly considerable difference

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 A study on the impact of workplace environment on employee’s performance

In contrast, very small portion of the employees

(5%) have recorded negative attitudes regarding
their physical working environment and 15% of
the employees were at neutral level.

Overview of the Level of Perception on

Employee’s Performance

Figure 8. Overview of the Level of Perception

on Supervisor Support

Source: Survey Data, 2015

Overview of the Level of Perception on Figure 10. Overview of the Level of Perception
Physical Work Environment on Employee’s Performance

Source: Survey Data, 2015

Figure 10 illustrates the level of the employee’s

performance. Majority of the employees (70%)
were at the satisfactory levels about their
current job performance level. Only small
portion (15%) had dissatisfied perceptions on
their job performance level.

According to the overall picture, it is possible to

conclude that employee’s performance level of
Brandix Intimate Apparel- Awissawella was at
satisfactory level.
Figure 9. Overview of the Level of Perception
on Physical Work Environment 4.2 Data Analysis
Source: Survey Data, 2015 4.2.1 Reliability Test (Cronbach's Alpha)

Figure 9 explains the employee’s attitudinal

concern on physical work environment. Within this study, in order to measure the job
aids, supervisor support, physical work
According to the figure, higher portion of the environment and performance of employees,
employees (80%) satisfy with their physical several questions were applied and each
working environment. question had 5 scales from strongly disagree to
strongly agree.

53
P. Lankeshwara

Results of the Reliability Test According to the results of the Pearson’s

Correlation Analysis, job aids, supervisor
Table 1: Reliability Statistics support and physical work environment were
significantly correlated with the performance of
Dimension Cronbach’s Number employees as the P values of those three
Alpha of item variables were less than 0.05 significance level.

Job Aids 0.953 3 When concerning the correlation coefficient, all

Supervisor 0.919 4 the three variables have recorded strong degree
Support 0.885 3 of positive correlation with the employee’s
Physical Work 0.924 2 performance.
Environment
Performance Of 4.2.3 Regression Analysis
Employees
Model Summery
Source: Survey Data, 2015
Table 3: Results of the Model Summery
According to the results of reliability statistics,
Figure Value
Cronbach's Alpha value of each variable was
greater than 0.7. Therefore, it is possible to
conclude that all the questions were reliable to R 0.946
measure the explanatory variables (job aids, R2 0.895
supervisor support and physical work Adjusted R2 0.875
environment) and the dependent variable Standard Error of Estimation 0.462
(performance of employees).

Source: Survey Data, 2015

4.2.2 Pearson’s Correlation Analysis
R-square tells how much of the variation of the
With the intention of identifying the influential dependent variable is explained by the
factors for the employee’s performance and independent variables. According to the results,
determining the nature and strength of the from the total variation of employee’s
relationship between the explanatory variables performance 89.5% has explained by the job
and response variable Pearson’s Correlation aids, supervisor support and physical work
procedure has been utilized under this section. environment.
Table 2: Results of the Correlation Analysis
Then only 10.5% of variance of employee’s
performance has explained by other influencing
Dimension Correlation P- value factors, which were not covered by this study.
Coefficient
The adjusted R square explains extent to which
Job Aids 0.919 0.000 the model is fit for the population. The adjusted
Supervisor 0.857 0.000 R square of the study was 0.875 and it indicates
Support 0.882 0.000 that the higher portion of the model (87.5%) is
Physical Work fit for the population.
Environment

Source: Survey Data, 2015

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 A study on the impact of workplace environment on employee’s performance

Analysis of variance (ANOVA) According to the coefficients table, job aids and
supervisor support were significant as the P
Table 4: Results of the Analysis of Variance values of those two variables were less than
0.05 significance level.
Model SS DF F Sig
Regression 29.130 3 45.427 0.000 Physical work environment has recorded as an
Residual 3.420 16 insignificant explanatory variable with the
Total 32.550 19 employee’s performance due to higher P value.

Based on the results of the above analysis, the

Source: Survey Data, 2015
equation of the regression can be depicted as
follows.
The above table 4 has revealed that 32.550 from
total sum of squares, 29.130 can be explained by
Y = -3.375 + 1.227X1 + 0.721 X2
regression and 3.420 are explained by residual
value. Hence, the model is statistically
Where,
significant as relatively large portion of model is
explained by regression. As per the above
Y = Performance of Employees
information P value is 0000. Therefore, the
X1 = Job Aids
statistical evidence of the model supports to
X2 = Supervisor Support
reject the null hypothesis (P value < 0.05). It
concludes that the overall fitted model can be
value represents the extent to which the value
applied significantly for predicting the
of the independent variable contributes to the
performance of the employees.
variance of the dependent variable.
Summary of the Coefficient Table The constant have the unstandardized β value as
Table 5: Results of the Coefficient Table -3.375. It indicates the value of the employee’s
performance, when all of the independent
Predict factors remain constant.
Coefficients

or
Standard

value of job aids suggests that, if job aids

Error

Beta

Sig.

component is increased by one unit, employee’s

(β)

performance will increase by 1.227 units when

ant
nst
Co

-3.375 0.616 -5.480 0.000 all of other variables remain constant and as
same as coefficient of the supervisor Support
Aids
Job

1.227 0.352 0.712 3.485 0.003 indicates, when it increase by one unit,
employee’s performance will also increase by
0.721 units.
Supervisor
Support

0.721 0.289 0.396 2.498 0.024

Job aids have the highest value as 1.227 and it
has become the most influential factor for the
employee’s performance. Further, all the
environment

explanatory variables which is in the regression

Physical

-0.192 0.429 -0.111 -0.448 0.660 equation positively influence for the
work

performance of the employees.

Source: Survey Data, 2015

55
P. Lankeshwara

5. CONCLUSION AND FURTHER WORK Hence, it should continue and improve the
supervision towards the subordinates in order to
5.1 Conclusions create a significant relationship in between the
supervisor and the employees.
According to the findings of graphical
representation, demographic factors such as Physical work environment is not significantly
age, marital status and ethnicity have shown affecting the employees’ performance. Hence
considerable variation regarding the the physical work environment at Brandix
performance of employees. Under socio Intimate Apparel- Awissawella branch need to
economic profile, education level and period of improve, because favorable work environment
service and attitudinal concern on job aids, allow workers to perform better, improve
supervisor support and physical work productivity, maximize quality in their
environment have emerged as significant performance.
factors with employee’s performance.

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