Assessing the effectiveness of the performance management system of Makerere University

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of the performance management system with a specific focus on performance appraisal process of Makerere University. The key objectives of the study were: I. To examine the performance appraisal process at Makerere University. II. To analyse the challenges of implementing the performance appraisal system at the various academic units of Makerere University. III. To identify possible ways of improving the performance appraisal system of Makerere University. The study adopted a cross-sectional research design and employed both a quantitative and qualitative approach. The population from the 9 colleges of the university and 1 school stands at 4500 as of 2013. To acquire a representative sample from the vast population of over 4000 university employees, the sample size comprised of 102 respondents, of which 72 valid responses were used in the analysis. Among the key observations identified in this study, the results showed that during the appraisal process, results are never discussed and communicated with each employee, even when the appraisal process is concluded, there are no serious decisions ever made nor are employees given added training to improve their performance and take corrective action. Results showed that the employees perceive performance appraisal as time wasting. Several recommendations were therefore suggested to improve the performance appraisal process at the university which include: promoting the practice of giving feedback to the employees after every performance appraisal exercise, training the employees of the performance appraisal benefits to prevent resistance and streamlining the performance appraisal. It was further recommended that Makerere University should harness the strong points to improve the performance appraisal system and try to work on the weak areas (implementation of the performance appraisal system) to make Makerere University performance appraisal process result oriented, that would reduce substandard employee performance.