Influence of External Director Recruitment on Employee Work Output: A Study of Volta River Authority of Ghana

Abstract

Many factors influence employee work output. Literature and academic studies have over the years identified different kinds of factors that influence employee work output. Factors such as employee/employer ability and skills, organizational resources, leadership, compensations, job design, employee/employer attitudes and motivation were some major influencers of employee work output. However, there are other factors such as employee recruitment, that can also have effects on employee work output. Recruitment whether internal or external, can influence work outputs in different ways. More importantly, when it comes to director recruitments, the organization’s policy on recruiting internal or external candidates to fill these positions may have important effects on employee morale and consequently work outputs. This focus of this study was to assess the influence of external director recruitments on work outcomes in the Volta River Authority of Ghana. It aimed at identifying the modes of announcing vacant director positions, understanding how employees feel about external director recruitments and the identify the impacts of external directors on employee work outcomes. Using the purposive and the simple random sampling techniques, data was collected from a sample of a total seventeen management and lower level staffs of the Services Branch of the Volta River Authority in Accra. The data was analyzed and the results show that the organization uses advertisements and consultations mostly to fill vacant director positions. It also found that employees were divided on how they feel about external director recruitments. However, majority indicated that it affects the morale of existing employees who equally qualify for that position. finally, the study found that external directors do have some influence on employee work outcomes.