INVESTIGATING EMPLOYEES FRINGE BENEFITS: LESSONS FROM THE TEACHERS AND CIVIL SERVANTS OF KWARA STATE

Abstract

Employees’ welfare is central to the attraction and retention of workers in both the private and public sectors of the economy. The study examines fringe benefits: Lessons derived from the basic school teachers and the civil servants in Kwara State. The study adopted a survey research design with the use of structured questionnaire to collect data. Purposeful sampling technique was used to sample 100 teachers and 80 civil servants. The method of analysis used was Man n-Whitney U-test. The result of the study showed that there is no significant difference in the fringe benefits between teachers and the civil servants of Kwara State. This was confirmed by the P-value of .381 (38.1%) which was greater than the 0.05 (5%) level of significance. Furthermore, it was found that meal, utility and special allowances had significant differences. This led to the conclusion that teachers in the basic schools of the state were not equally motivated by fringe benefits/ allowances as the cause of leaving for the mainstream of the public service. The researchers recommend that government should ensure parity in the fringe benefits payable to both the teachers and the civil servants of the state. Also, when the need arises for adjustments to be made to the fringe benefits, the modifications should be on equal basis. This is to reduce the turnover rate of teachers dropping the teaching for the civil service or other opportunities.