THE IMPACT OF PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL ON STAFF PRODUCTIVITY (A CASE STUDY OF DELTA LINE)

CHAPTER ONE

OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY

For growth and survival of any organization the role of performance appraisal is a strategic factor that cannot be over emphasized. It is believed that both the individual and the organization need to know how well, actually performance is contributing to the accomplishment of the job plans, the starting plan and ultimately the overall strategic grand plan of the organization. In addition the individual employee requires feedback related to his or her own goal, development as well as the related management expectation.
Performance appraisal is a structured formal interaction between subordinate and employee. The relationship between performance appraisal and organization is that, it can bring positive impact to the performance of the employee. Performance appraisal can also be seen as a developmental process since it seeks to identify the strength and weakness of the employee as a guide for further development. It is usually made in prescribed manners at a specific intervals such as quarterly, biannually or to asses employee on his or her job performance and when necessary, giving guidelines and advice to the employee for improving efficiency and effectiveness.
An effective performance appraisal review system service these general purpose in other words the essence of performance appraisal is to give information for promotion, pay increase, training and development. It can also be used to discharge employee. Furthermore it provide employee with constructive feedback on how they are performing their jobs as viewed by their manager thus leading to increase in productivity. Flipo (1980- 2004) identified the following three appraisals as follows
1.       A casual and unsystematic approach
2.       The traditional and higher systematic measurement of
-        Employee’s characteristic
-        Employee’s contribution
-        Both
3.       Mutual goal setting through a management by objective programme (MBO) that effective performance appraisal system have the potential to provide opportunity for manager and employee to communicate and agreed upon what is expected to each of them and to plan performance based on the overall objectives of the organization. Legal implication often dictate the need for jobs to be defined explicitly for objectives to the set and agreed manager and employee performance based on the criteria that include more than just the judgement of the manager but also include the judgement of individual.

1.2     STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
This is to assess the extent to which performance appraisal impact on employee performance in Delta Line Ltd.
As we all know the primary aim of every established company including the Delta line ltd, is to maximise profit, and this could easily be attained through staff productivity, to assess if the company has adequate appraisal system that can lead to promotion, pay increase training and development. Therefore it was due to the above, that this study is been carried out.

1.3     OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The specific objectives of this study include;

To describe the various performance appraisal techniques used by the organization.

Technique used in Delta line limited.

Problems associated with different approved techniques.

To determine some common performance appraisal problems of the employees and how it could be solved.

To determine the extent to which performance appraisal impact on employee’s performance at Delta line limited.

1.4     RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The following research question will help in achieving the objective of the study

What is the relationship between performance appraisal and employee’s productivity?

What are the techniques used in performance appraisal?

How effective are the techniques in ensuring increase in productivity?

What are the problems of performance appraisal?

1.5   STATEMENT OF HYPOTHESIS

A hypothesis is a conjectural statement of relationship between two or more variables. They are always in declarative sentence form, and they relate either generally or specifically, variable or variables. They are particularly necessary in the studies of this nature where cause and effect relationships are to be discovered.

H1:   Performance appraisal techniques provide formal management procedure used in the evaluation of work performance in the organization.

H0:   Performance appraisal techniques do not provide formal management procedure used in the evaluation of work performance in the organization.

1.6   SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

• The study is of vital importance to organization’s effectiveness, hence the result will be useful to the organization in developing effective and efficient performance appraisal plans and programmes to aid the organization in its goals attainment.
• The importance of this study therefore is to research into those benefits that performance appraisal could bring to the organization, employer and the employees alike.
• The study could also be valuable as source of reference to students of management studies who mighty carry out similar or further research in this area.

1.7   SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The study would squarely concentrate in analyzing performance appraisal techniques in Delta line limited. The researcher has related the study only to the areas that are related to the topic such areas are: performance appraisal, techniques for performance appraisal.

1.8   LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

In a developing country like Nigeria, students are normally faced with grave shortage of relevant facts necessary for their research work and mine is not an exception.

However, confidence and ability are best assets every human being must possess. The following are some of the constraints encountered during this project work.

• Insufficient Textbooks and High Price Tags: In Nigeria nowadays, in purchase good and comprehensive textbooks for reading to further research on a typical issues. It will cost an average of three thousand naira and an average student cannot lay their hand on it as a result of the economic situation.
• Time Factor: In this part of the country and due to classroom lecturers, it often hinders someone to concentrate more one it project writing because part of the time are used in classrooms and to further participate in classroom group discussion and assignments.
• Finance: This project work involves huge financial expenses such as photocopy, typing and movement from one point to another to gather information. The financial problems not only hindered movement but also discourse ones enthusiasm in learning.
• Personal Limitations: Personal time available for recreation resting and washing are partly engulfed by this study in attempt to beat the expiration time for submission.

1.9. DEFINITION OF TERMS

• Performance Appraisal: It is a process or series of formalized discussions with an employee about performance over a specified period of time.
• Manager: A person with the task of planning, organizing, directing, coordinating and controlling organization’s resources to attain the objectives of the organization.
• Productivity: It is the “quantity or volume of the product or service that an organization provides” (Decenzo and Robbins, 1989).
• Effectiveness: This is concerned with the art of getting the right things done, in the right way, at the right time and for the right purpose.
• Efficiency: It is concerned with achieving an objective or producing product at the least cost to enhance organization achieves the main objective.
• Organization: An enterprise established by a person or group of individuals; government in order to provide goods and services for the satisfaction of human needs.
• Management: This is the process of planning, organizing, directing and controlling both human and non-human resources effectively and efficiently towards the attainment of organizational goal.