IMPACT OF ORGANIZATIONAL POLITICS ON JOB SATISFACTION OF PUBLIC WORKERS IN TANZANIA:

Abstract

In many public sectors in Tanzania, including the Arusha City Council, the unequal and inadequate promotional opportunities, especially those in the lower levels, advocate bitterly about the organisational politics in promotion processes that a ect the workers' job satisfaction. The above agitation has generated problems, strike actions. later tss, absenteeism, ineffective services delivery and paying much attention to carrying out persona., tasks. Based on these facts, the researcher investigated the impact of organisational politics on job satisfaction of public workers in Tanzania: A case study of Arusha City Council. The study used a descriptive survey research design and a quantitative research approach. Data were collected using questionnaires from a total of 132 respondents. The study adopted the stratified random sampling techniques data were analysed using descriptive statistics with the aid of SPSS version 22.0. Findings revealed that, to a large extent, there is positive organisational politics in Arusha City Council. However, it was revealed that the issue of promotion and involvement in decision-making among workers was a problem. Therefore, lack of promotion and not being involved in decision-making among workers affect the job satisfaction of public workers in Tanzania. Moreover, findings revealed that the existing organisational politics had an effect on workers' job satisfaction in Arusha City Council despite some challenges in the aspect of workers' promotion and decision-making involvement that need to be addressed for workers to be satisfied with their job. The study found that there are myriads of ways that can be used to promote workers' job satisfaction through organisation politics in Arusha City Council. The conclusion was made that organisation politics in Arusha City Council was good and enhanced workers' job satisfaction in a number of ways. The study concluded that lack of promotion and workers not being involved in decision-making was among the factors that affect the job satisfaction of public workers in Tanzania. Moreover, the study concluded that there are myriads of ways that can be used to promote workers' job satisfaction through organisation politics in Arusha City Council. It was further concluded that the non-monetary motivational factors such as recognition, promotion, relationship as well as working conditions were effective means to motivate workers and make them satisfied in their job in the study area. The study recommends for improvement of promotion policies at Arusha City Council so that fair and timely promotion for qualified workers can be done. It is further recommended that workers need to be trained or given awareness on how best they can use the existing promotion criteria and the decision-making channels. This is because workers who are not aware may not know the policies, criteria and procedures. The recommendation is made that Arusha City Council should strive to strengthen the suggested ways that can be used to promote workers' job satisfaction through organisation politics in Arusha City Council, includes; having implementable policies, recognising worker's efforts from time to time, a performance appraisal should be fair to all workers, the relationship between workers and supervisors need to be strengthened, promotion criteria need to be well known, promotion criteria need to be attainable, opinions from the workrs need to be part of the decision-ers need to be respected and that workers making process.