NATURE AND SCOPE OF STAFF WELFARE

NATURE AND SCOPE OF STAFF WELFARE

Definition

Staff welfare has been defined variously writers. Armstrong and Mudis defined it as “item in the total package offered to staff over and above salary, which increase their wealth or well being at some cost to the employer. In the words of Yoder Ethel, “it is wide variety of services provided by companies for staff families. But Nwachukwu from his own perspective sees it as “addition entitlements given to staff by management to supplement their wages.

Naylon and Torrington view it as “a volumetric provision on the point of the staff. The definition adopted for this paper however is that of French and several who define it “as something of value, apart from agreed regular monetary payment of salaries and wages given by an employer to a staff.

(M. Armstrong and H. Murlism A Handbook of Salary administration) London: Koran page Ltd 1980, P. 140. Dale Yoder, Ethat, Handbook of Personnel Management and Labour relations (New York: Mcgraw Hill Book 10), 1958 p. 21 C. C. Nwachukwu Personnel management: Concepts and situations. An unpublished research project, University of Ngieria, Nsukka. Naylon and Torrington, Administration of personnel.

Staff welfare have been commonly referred to as staff benefits or services. This distinction here is that benefits are where direct monetary reward accrued to the individual worker e.g pension leave pay and salary advance, while service involve no direct and unidentifiable monetary benefits e,g staff club recreation facilities arrangement of reception hall and Christmas parties, other yet refer to it as fringe benefits.

As mentioned earlier, staff welfare exists in all cultures, even during slave period and in all organization and had existed at all time export that they take different shapes and form and attract different names. It is in the recognition of their workers need fulfillment functions that they are variably called welfare benefits, welfare services, employee income, they are being referred to as supplementary benefits, supplementary compensation or pay, and expenses, they are beginning to be indirect compensation and non tax benefits.

2.2 NATURE AND SCOPE

Although the term staff welfare, in itself implied a voluntary provision on the part of the employers, the administration of the sate benefit schemes and certain legal requirements concerning other benefit upon the employer.

In addition to such obligations, however a large number of companies provide staff services for which there is no legal requirement in the past, they used to be tury bits and pieces of goodies that occasionally feel from the high table of paternalistic employers, hence they are known to be fringe (i.e marginal) benefits.

2.3 GROWTH OF STAFF WELFARE

The growth of staff welfare scheme has been tremendous particularly since World War II and apparently no end is in sight. The expansion is world wide and so frightening that the scheme have been “compared to the mythological animal that immediately grew two heads when one was chopped off from nowhere, it was the leaved era of paternalism that first saw a widespread adoption of such benefits as company housing and company stores. This era did not last long as it fell into disrupt, supposedly as a result of the employee’s/staff desire for industrial adulthood. Alter it was a news era of new paternalism that developed after the depression of the 1930’s and the World War II.

Edwin B. Flippo: Personnel Management (New York: Mc Graw Hill) 1971: p. 549, since then, government legislations staff awareness, unions demand, among others have continued to escalate the development and growth of these benefits.

REASON FOR GROWTH

Flippo in his book summarized the sources of the rapid growth of such programmes as:

(i) Labour Union demands

(ii) Changed employee attitude

(iii) Government requirements

(iv) Competition that forces other employers to mater benefits to attract and keep labour.

(v) Period wage control which freeze wages but permit the offering of services as a substitute for wage increases.

(vi) High company income tax, deductible expenses items of recent, the package has grown hydroheaded in form and monstrous in relative size and in apprehension, that it is beginning to be called the “hidden pay roll”.

Managers and employers do not play dominant role in administering all benefit and services and may not do little more than to comply with prescribed public regulation. So, public policy plays a leading role in expanding several important types of fringe provision. It has long emphasized the advancement of economic security and qualified benefits such as public pensions, pail vacations, industrial ill health and accident.

Staff union on the other hand has supported all of these public intentions and has in addition sought paid sick leave, health and welfare activities increased payment to workers etc. the unions have pursued these benefits with vigour for the best interest of their members.

Even though managers and employers may sometimes appear as opposed to all fringe they have invented and advanced on their own. This is in recognition of the fact that many benefits offer possibilities of implementing their policies to improve staff morale, to encourage wide participation and understanding, to reduces absenteeism and to assist staff in identifying their personal goals and interest with those of the organization. Hence, employers have come to regard fringe benefits as costs of production which are charged along with other firms of remuneration.

C. THE COST OF STAFF WELFARE

In many companies today, a substantial proportion of the total labour costs concerns staff welfares, in addition to basic wages or salaries. These benefits in the staffs view, represent an extra income, additional security .