Employees’ coping strategies in an environment of irregular remuneration: case of the Grain Marketing Board

Abstract

The study aims to analyse the causes of irregular remuneration, employee coping strategies in an environment of irregular remuneration and identification of the most and least effective coping strategies. Irregular remuneration is caused by various factors such as mismanagement of funds and economic meltdown. Without elimination of the causes of irregular remuneration employees are forced to engage in various activities for survival by trying to eliminate the problem or employing strategies that allow them to co-exist with the problem. These strategies that employees will implement to cope in an environment of irregular remuneration are individual in nature for example corruption, deskilling and they can be collective in nature for example strikes and slow downs. The Grain Marketing Board was used as a case study and a purposively selected sample of sixty employees was made use of to elicit information through interviews and questionnaires. The most effective coping strategies revealed by this research are strikes, corruption, entrepreneurial activities and slowdowns whilst the least effective coping strategies identified are deskilling and collective bargaining. With the negative results attached to employees implementing coping strategies the researcher listed a couple of recommendations that can aid in dealing with irregular remuneration and its causes such as reconstruction of the regulatory law so that the Grain Marketing Board is independent from political interference, Grain Marketing Board to be left to function according to the detects of the market so that it can be profitable and clear definition of heavy penalties against unethical activities at the workplace to discourage unethical practices.