The effect of workplace recreation activities on employee productivity: The case of tourism sector

With the advancement of industrialization and technology, recreation has come to the forefront with the characteristics of workplace engagement, productivity and motivation as well as useful activities that individuals participate in or perform in their free time. Therefore, the level of pleasure and satisfaction that individuals get from their jobs is important. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine whether there is a difference in the productivity of employees based on workplace recreation activities in terms of variables for recreation-oriented employee dimensions. In the study, a questionnaire was used among quantitative research tools. Recreation-oriented employee productivity was measured by using the "Recreation-Oriented Employee Productivity" scale developed by Mercanoğlu (2021) as a measurement tool. Organizational commitment, group dynamics, communication, motivation, well-being, stress relief, emotion, reward, job satisfaction and rest and renewal sub-dimensions that affect employee productivity were examined according to 6 demographic variables. How these 6 variables affect recreation-oriented employee productivity is examined. 312 employees from tourism enterprises in Antalya/Belek region participated in the study. Independent groups t test was used for comparison according to two groups and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used for variables with more than two groups. As a result of ANOVA, LSD multiple comparison method was used to compare between which groups the difference was between. As a result of the analyses, it was seen that the organizational commitment of the participants with less working years was higher according to the average working time among the recreation-oriented employee dimensions. When age was examined from demographic factors, it was seen that the scores of individuals' recreation-oriented employee productivity increased as age increased.