Performance management
Productivity amongst nurses and midwives in Botswana
In-service training key to productivity in Botswana
Authors:
K. Balogi; T. Fako; N Forcheh
Publisher:
African Sociological Review, 2002
This study, published in the African Sociological Review, analyses the productivity of nurses and midwives in Botswana. The authors found that productivity was 70 per cent productive, based on the frequency with which the studied nurses and midwives performed a set of routine activities. Positive influences in productivity included: involvement of workers in decision making; reliance on supervisors; and reliance on peers and co-workers. Where productivity fell (as well as where it was high) the traditional explanations for these outcomes, such as salary, transport facilities, and the valuation placed on their services by their employers, did not apply.
The authors highlight that, although education has been shown to be a good predictor of productivity, the results demonstrate that the most productive nurses were not those with the highest levels of education. However, those who did not attend any form of in-service training for a prolonged period of time were far less productive than those who had attended training. The authors also conclude that midwives were the most productive category of nurses, in terms of amount of tasks and frequency with which they were performed. They argue that this highlights the importance of midwifery training in the efficient delivery of the Botswana Primary Health Care system.
