AN ASSESSMENT OF THE EFFECTS OF INFORMAL GROUPS ON EMPLYEE PERFORMANCE; A CASE STUDY ON GOVERNMENT EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTE IN SRI

Abstract

The groups are created formally and informally within the organization at different times and for different goals. Those groups have the negative and positive influences on the organization structure and function. In this work, the group concept in the organizations is studied and the influence of group behaviours within the organizations is discussed conceptually. This research investigated the effects of informal groups on employee performance. Under this purpose, the research questions were; what are the effects of informal groups on employee performance? How can educational institute effectively deal with informal groups? A descriptive survey design was used to describe the effects of informal groups on employee performance. Structured interviews and questionnaires were used to collect data. Fifty junior management & senior management employees were included to the sample. Study sought to identify the most popular types of informal groups in the institute. 92% of the respondents indicated that interest groups are common while 8% are friendship groups. Study sought to identify reasons for engaging into informal groups among the junior and senior management were diverse. Junior management belongs to groups for meeting and socialize with friends where as senior management belongs to group to discuss workplace grievances and sharing confidential matters. Research was found that the most common reason for belonging to informal groups is to socialise with friends and this constitutes 61% of the respondents. 23% of the respondents indicated the reasons to discuss workplace grievances and sharing common maters. Frequency distribution of senior management who agree that overall intuitional performance is heavily affected by informal groups. Furthermore, findings that 60% of the respondents indicated that informal groups negatively affect employee performance, while 35% indicated that informal groups positively affect performance and 5% indicated that informal groups have both negative and positive effects on employee performance. When respondents were asked how often they discuss ideas related to their jobs during informal group interaction, 30% indicated that they discuss very often, 50% sometimes discuss work related issues while 10% indicated that they have never discussed work related issues during their informal group interaction. Study sought to find out senior management’s perceptions on ways of dealing with or managing informal groups and the findings show that employees have different views on how the institute can manage informal groups.