Title:
FLEXITIME AND SERVICE QUALITY OF MEDICAL EMPLOYEES IN TEACHING HOSPITALS IN NIGERIA: A STUDY OF TEACHING HOSPITALS IN NORTH CENTRAL NIGERIA

Authors:
Victor Utor (Ph.D) and Vivien Anna Ugba

Abstract:
This paper studied the relationship between flexitime and service quality of medical employees of teaching hospitals in Nigeria concentrating on those in North Central Nigeria. It discussed the need to ensure and aid medical employees in discharging quality healthcare services that meet the patients’ perception by way of having control over their job. The study employed a survey design, using a sample of 373 medical employees and patients of six teaching hospitals in North Central Nigeria. A 5-point Likert scale questionnaire was used for data collection, and data analysis was conducted using Pearson’s Product moment correlation and Regression with the aid of SPSS version 23. The study found that flexitime had a significant positive relationship with four dimensions of service quality namely; reliability, responsiveness, empathy and assurance. Flexitime however showed significant negative relationship with tangibility, another dimension of service quality. Overall, the study demonstrated that flexitime significantly impact service quality of medical employees. The paper provides practical implications for society, all medical outfits, government, policy makers and managers of public hospitals by way of supporting medical employees through giving them control over their job to enable them balance work and personal life which in turn improves the quality of health care service delivery and by extension improvement in the quality of life of the society. The study validates and strengthens view that health systems studies are emerging as factual interdisciplinary fields of investigation where ideas from several different viewpoints are combined into conceptual frameworks to address health problems and contributes to expanding knowledge on the consequence of employee support through the use of flexible practices such as flexitime in the work place to boost the performance of medical employees in terms of service quality. The study further reinforces and validates the Psychological work control theory and its significance to flexibility studies and made recommendations to help manage employees in the healthcare outfits for optimal service delivery therefore aiding to close the research gap with similar researches on service quality improvement among employees in healthcare organisations.

Keywords:
Flexitime, service quality, teaching hospitals, medical employees.