Organizational Performance Management Practices and Employee Productivity in Garissa County Government, Kenya

Abstract

Employee productivity is significant to the success and resources utilization in the county level since the employees take care of all other non-human resources for the purposes and achieving the set of objectives. Despite the contributions of the employees in the counties, scanty of studies have been carried out to determine the effect of organizational performance management practices on employee’s productivity. Therefore, this study aimed to establish the effect of organizational performance management practices on productivity of employees in Garissa County government. The specific objectives of the study were; to identify the effect of goal setting, career planning, competence based evaluation and continuous feedback on the employee productivity in County Government of Garissa. The study was anchored on human capital theory, reinforcement theory and goal setting theory. The study was carried out in Garissa County. Descriptive and exploratory research design was used. The total respondents targeted were 2611. Stratified sampling was used to classify the respondents and simple random sampling was used to sample 347 employees working in the County Government of Garissa. Questionnaires were used to collect primary data. Validity was sought from experts and reliability was tested using Cronbach alpha and a test score of 0.7 was the threshold. The data collected was analyzed by inferential statistics and descriptive statistics. SPSS was used to generate both descriptive data and inferential data which were presented into tables and figures. The findings of this study would be of great relevance to the county management as it highlights the relationships that exist between organizational performance management practices and employee productivity. The first objective on effect of goal setting on employee productivity, majority of the respondents agreed that employees had the necessary skills and power in handling the tasks assigned. Majority of the respondents agreed that proper and effective resources were not provided. The study concluded goals in the organizations are motivators and enables employees to improve on service provision. The second objective was on the effect of career planning on employee productivity. Majority of the respondents agreed that employees were oriented on their desired field of work to enable them plan for their careers. The study findings presented that majority of employees were able to attend to the duties allocated to them comfortably. The study concluded that career planning was vital in ensuring that employees grow their talent in an attempt in supporting organizational overall goals. Influence of competence based evaluation on employee productivity was the study’s third objective. The results presented that majority of the respondent agreed that employee communication skills had improved over time in the County. The study concluded that competence of employees was vital in explaining the productivity of employees in the county. The study recommended that competence based evaluation should be improved by the county managers through training, workshops and seminars. The fourth objective was to establish the effect of continuous feedback on employee productivity. The findings indicated that majority of the respondents agreed that there was effective feedback on information regarding customer service delivery collected from employees. The findings reported that the continuous feedback reports enabled the county to work on improving the employee’s skills and knowledge. The continuous feedback in the county is significant in ensuring that every department contributes towards the common objectives. The study recommended that the directors of communication and other relevant directors in the county government should ensure that there is continuous feedback on matters related to employee competence and areas that need improvement in the county.