Evaluation of Personal Factors of Workers Aff ecting Productivity in RMG Sector in Bangladesh

The readymade garment sector in Bangladesh is considered the backbone of earning foreign currency that includes a large number of workers and is mostly responsible for the economic growth of the country. Nevertheless, despite the remarkable growth of the RMG sector and its bright projection, impediments need to be overcome as well. Readymade garment industries in Bangladesh are currently facing some challenges to ensure fi re safety and better work environment for garment workers. Apart from several technical factors, personal factors of workers, e.g. education, age, training, work experience and motivation, might also have a substantial impact on the increase in productivity to compete in the global export market. Thus, it was vital to observe the impacts personal factors of workers have on the productivity of readymade garment industries. This study enabled an identifi cation of personal factors of workers which aff ect the productivity of readymade garment industries. The factors were examined through some critical analyses, e.g. hypothesis test, factor analysis and fi shbone diagram analysis. After the investigation of empirical data, principal factors were identifi ed and highlighted to improve the productivity in these industries.


Introduction
Productivity is one of the prime concerns in every production-oriented organisation. It typically represents the effi ciency of manpower employed in an industry. Apart from the quality and price, productivity has become the fundamental factor in the readymade garment (RMG) sector as retailers have been in the past couple of years continuously asking to decrease the production time. On the other hand, the industries must not only maintain but also increase the productivity of workers. According to Halder et al. [1], the owners should analyse the underlying factors that contribute to variation in the production of the RMG industry. Th e productivity in apparel industries is largely associated not only with monetary factors but also with work environment and other nonfi nancial incentives. According to Hossan et al. [2], the work environment and other incentives increase workers' focus on work, raising workers' income and employer's profi t. In addition, Ferdous [3] stated that on time payment of wages, increments on a regular basis, allowable facilities, treatment by production offi cers and managers, safe work environment, availability of healthy foods, a day care and medical centre are some of the key factors that also have a substantial impact on both workers' satisfaction and productivity. Several researches have been conducted in the fi eld of workers' productivity in diff erent industries and Kazaz et al. [4] suggested that basic motivational factors can also improve the productivity of workers in the RMG industries. Burton et al. [5] tried to fi nd out among the personal factors the eff ects of health risk and diseases on workers' productivity, and they reported that health risk and workers' productivity are inversely proportional, meaning that productivity decreases with increased health risk. On the other hand, Halkos and Bousinakis [6] examined the eff ects of stress and satisfaction on employees' productivity and they found that it was accelerated with increased satisfaction and decreased stress. Furthermore, Saha and Mozumder [7] studied the eff ects of work environment on the productivity of RMG industries in Bangladesh. According to them, ineff ective management was considered the foremost reason for bad work environment that subsequently leads to poor productivity. Again, Vanours and Stoeldraijer [8] observed that workers aged between 30 and 45 years are the most productive and stated that wage costs increase with age while productivity goes down with age. Day care facilities off ered to working parents also have an impact on productivity. According to Shellenback [9], about 29% of working parents in diff erent organisations witnessed a loss in productivity due to being absent from work as there were no child care facilities available in the work institution. Training is another signifi cant factor that can also infl uence workers' performance. It was reported by Degrip and Sauermann [10] that trainings are imperative to improve productivity and active involvement in trainings can increase workers' performance by 10%. However, all of the above studies did not bring out the impacts of all personal factors on productivity, especially in the RMG sector in Bangladesh. Th erefore, this paper focuses on the evaluation of eff ects of major personal factors of workers that lead to poorer productivity in the RMG sector in Bangladesh.

Methodology
Th e study was performed in four RMG industries in Bangladesh, i.e. Style Garden Ltd, Fakir Apparels Ltd, AJI Apparels Industry Ltd and MIM Dresses Ltd, which vary in their workforce, production capacity and product category (woven or knit fabrics). Th e aim of this study was to identify and examine the impact of personal factors of workers on the productivity in the RMG sector in Bangladesh. We wanted to establish to what extent personal factors have adverse eff ects on productivity, how important some specifi c personal factors are to enhance workers' productivity. Furthermore, we wanted to obtain various aspects related to personal factors of workers and productivity in the garments sector that improve the understanding of concepts. Th e survey was divided into two sections. In the fi rst section, demographic data was collected and in the second section, several questions were posed to respondents to state their agreement with each of the statement on a fi ve-point rating scale (1-strongly disagree, 2-disagree, 3-neutral, 4-agree, 5-strongly agree). In this survey, the following questions were incorporated into the questionnaire: 1. Th e questionnaire was completed using face-to-face interviews within 30 days in 4 diff erent garment factories in Dhaka and nearby places. Th ere were a total of 8,356 workers in four garment factories; however, we completed around 112 questionnaires and aft er eliminating those with unusual errors, we retained 100 questionnaires. 65% of them were answered by skilled workers, the second most dominant group of respondents being semiskilled workers (24%). Th e sample was unbalanced in terms of gender ratio, as 32% was male and 68% female.
Most respondents were aged between 20 and 25 (78%) and 18% were older than 25. To have enough time to go through the whole questionnaire and answer all questions, including those that require more time, we conducted the interviews at respondents' convenience. Several researchers have used the factor analysis in their investigations for data exclusion, e.g. BASHIR et al. [11] used the factor analysis in their study to identify the key obstacles that were responsible for preventing productivity enhancement programmes in the manufacturing industries in Oman. Following this work, Rocha and Gonçalves [12] also used the critical analysis to identify the essential indicators of productivity in the red ceramic industry in Brazil. Th ese researchers used the factor analysis in their study to reduce data to form diff erent clusters from highly correlated factors which were then labelled accordingly. Additionally, the principal component analysis (PCA) is another dimension-reduction tool and a statistical technique to emphasise variation and bring out robust patterns in a dataset. It is frequently used to investigate and visualise data more easily. Nevertheless, this study was restricted to the factor analysis only. Bartlett's test of sphericity was used to test the null hypotheses that the variables in the study are not correlated with each other. In other words, the null hypothesis states that the population correlation matrix is an identity matrix. In an identity matrix, all diagonal terms are 1 and all off -diagonal terms are 0. Th e test statistics for sphericity is based on a chi-square transformation of the determinant of the correlation matrix. A large value of test statistics will favour a rejection of the null hypotheses. If this hypothesis cannot be rejected, the appropriateness of factors is questioned. Another useful statistics is the Kaiser Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy. Th is index compares the magnitudes of observed correlation coeffi cients to the magnitudes of partial correlation coeffi cients. Small values (below 0.5) of KMO statistics indicate that the correlations between pairs of variables cannot be explained by other variables and a factor analysis may not be appropriate. It is quite evident from Table 2 that the factor analysis is appropriate. Here, the KMO value is 0.633, i.e. between 0.5 and 1.0, and the approximate chisquare statistic is 605.475 with 105 degrees of freedom, which is signifi cant at the 0.05 level. Th erefore, the null hypotheses can be rejected and alternative hypotheses that all variables are correlated with each other can be accepted. To analyse the variables ranging from V 1 to V 15 , the factor analysis was used for data reduction. Th is analysis depicts the most important personal factors that can infl uence the level of productivity in the RMG industry of Bangladesh. Table 3 shows that only 5 factors were extracted, as the cumulative percentage is greater than 65% at this point and eigenvalue is greater than 1.0 (it is recommended that factors with Eigen values greater than 1.0 be retained), which indicates the analysis adequacy using derived factors. Th e extracted 5 factors can be interpreted in terms of variables that prioritize high coeffi cients. It can be seen in Table 4 that component or factor 1 has   (0.719). Th e assurance of getting on time wages or salary, good ventilation and lighting facilities in the organisation, baby day care facilities off ered within the company and appropriate attitude of supervisors satisfy workers to a great extent; therefore, this factor was refl ected as "Overall satisfaction". Moreover, factor 3 has negative coeffi cients for political turmoil (-0.726), effi ciency of co-workers (-0.531), and biasness and discrimination in the workplace (-0.646). Since political instability, poor cooperation of workers in the vicinity and unfairness of the management hinder pleasant work life, this factor in this study was identifi ed as "External hurdles". Apart from this, factor 4 has very high coeffi cients for institutional knowledge (0.782), trainings, workshops and technical experience (0.725), and safetyand security-related knowledge (0.624). Th e essential knowledge from academies, trainings and workshops make workers skilled, as they get technical experience along with safety and security knowledge; thus, this factor was called "Skills". Lastly, factor 5 has a very high coeffi cient for the age of workers (0.683) and work experience (0.860). Th e age and job experience of workers are essential to resolve critical problems that impede the productivity of manufacturing industries. Th is factor was labelled "Age and work experience". Previous statistical analyses revealed that some specifi c personal factors of workers enhance the level of productivity in the RMG industry. A further discussion on these extracted factors follows below: i) Motivation: From the analysis, it was clear that there are also other parameters apart from monetary benefi ts that catalyse workers to perform at their best level. It became evident during the survey that the workers of MIM dresses are relatively satisfi ed, since they are given various rewards and incentives, and regular promotion; moreover, they are pleased as they meet their production target. Regular increments also make workers think in a positive way. Th e arrangement of such nonmonetary motivation helps workers consider the company as their own and they see their whole future in the betterment of that company. As a result, the productivity of motivated workers increases substantially. ii) Overall satisfaction: It has been found that most workers are semiskilled and their institutional knowledge is also not extremely high. Furthermore, workers' expectation in the RMG sector is greatly associated with due payment of their salary and wages. Again, the majority of workers are female in these factories and married workers prefer having baby day care facilities in their workplace for them to be able to concentrate fully on work. Th e suff ocated environment and improper supervision are two major factors according to respondents that inhibit workers' performance level more signifi cantly. In Style Garden Ltd, workers were found to be considerably satisfi ed and engaged in the production process, as the factory has a good ventilation arrangement and proper supervision from the management. Th us, due time paid salary and wages, presence of baby day care facilities, work environment and proper supervision play a substantial role in the improvement of productivity of RMG industries. iii) External hurdles: It was also found that except for the above stated personal factors, there are some other factors that can infl uence productivity. Th e political environment imposes a major threat for the garment industry in Bangladesh. Sometimes, consequences are so severe that people are compelled to go out to earn their livelihood by risking their life during political turmoil. Th is way, they always remain in an insecure position that can harm their productivity; nevertheless, it was established that the political situation does not have that much of an infl uence on the job as does not the absence of assistance from ineffi cient co-workers. Discrimination and biasness in the workplace hurt the moral philosophy of workers and hence lower their productivity in the workplace. iv) Skills: Skills always give an extra advantage to the workers in the RMG industry. Th e level of productivity particularly depends on how skilled the workers are. Skills mainly come from some intermediate factors, e.g. institutional knowledge, trainings or workshops, and technical experiences, which are imperative for performing any specifi c work. Additionally, it is also important for a worker to have knowledge about the safety and security issues which are highly associated with that particular job. Productivity means how effi ciently the lowest input can be transformed into the highest output, so it can be considered as one of the most infl uential personal factors. v) Age and work experience: It was common while surveying workers that persons from the eldest age group, with more experience in that particular factory and in other garments, were applauded by others as they do their work more eff ectively and effi ciently. Usually, they give fi rst hand guidelines to other workers who have just joined the company and motivate them to work productively. It was found out that the productivity of workers depends on how experienced they are, where age is also a point of consideration.
Aft er the factor analysis, fi ve personal factors were extracted and labelled accordingly. Th e fi shbone diagram (cf. Figure 1) also helped exhibit root causes that resulted in poorer productivity in four RMG industries in Bangladesh. Figure 1 shows a fi shbone diagram that identifi es principal causes of poorer productivity in the RMG industries, such as motivation, overall satisfaction, external hurdles, skills, and age and work experience.

Conclusion
Th e RMG sector in Bangladesh has been facing its unprecedented growth in comparison to previous decades and now is the right time for the RMG sector to introduce Bangladesh as an industrialised country to the world. Nevertheless, the problem is that Bangladesh can hardly capitalise its human and other resources which would give it a much needed competitive advantage towards other rival countries. Th erefore, it is essential to boost up the productivity of the RMG industries to the highest level through the reconciliation of all adverse issues that can have even a slim negative impact on this giant sector. Th is study mainly emphasised major personal factors of workers that aff ect industrial productivity. However, other technical matters are also accountable and have a substantial infl uence on the productivity in the RMG factories. Henceforth, this research article becomes very much noteworthy for the people of the RMG sector to identify the key