Influence of Sports and Physical Activities on Job Performance of Working Professionals

The often-said statement “A fit employee is a productive employee” is the basis of this research. The purpose of this study is to address the interplay among individuals who participate in sports or physical activities and their perceived job performance. Job performance is one of the most salient aspects of individuals working in an organization. With organizations emphasizing the need of inculcating various co-curricular activities to increase workplace productivity, it is important to understand if participation in sports/ physical activities does aid in doing so. Thus, the objective of the study is to find the correlation between participation in sports/ physical activities and job performance and also to see the difference in the effect of sports on job performance between government sector employees and non-government sector employees. The data was collected from three different groups of the working population (Government employees, non-government employees, and individuals who have taken sports as their profession) within the age range of 20-60 years. The Individual Work Performance Questionnaire (IWPQ) by Koopman (2013) was used for assessing the job performance levels among individuals, while the SQUASH (Short Questionnaire to Assess Health enhancing physical activity) developed in 2008, was used to measure the physical activity level of the individuals and their participation in any form of sports. Correlation was conducted between the two data sets followed by t-tests. The results concluded that there is a strong positive correlation between participation in sports and job performance and that the government employees had a better job performance compared to the non-government employees owing to their greater amount of time spend in engaging in a sport of physical activity. Also, the participants associated with sports were seen to have a better work performance as compared to those who were not associated with any sports and physical activities. Thus, this paper suggests organizations promote and incorporate fitness programs and yearly inter as well as intra sports tournaments as a part of their routine.