Performance Appraisal

Contents

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
1.2 Problem Statement
1.3 Purpose of the Study
1.4 Objectives
1.5 Research Questions
1.6 Scope
1.7 Significance of the Study
1.8 Procedure

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Theoretical Framework
2.3 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
2.4 Related Literature Review
2.4.1 Feedback and Implementation of Appraisal Schemes
2.4.2 Employees’ Attitudes to performance appraisal and its implementation
2.4.3 Problems with Performance Appraisal
2.4.5 The role of Performance Appraisal Design

CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Research Design
3.3 Area of Study
3.4 The Study Population
3.5. Sampling Techniques and Sample Size
3.6 Data Collection Instruments.
3.6.1 Self-administered Questionnaire
3.6.2 Interview Schedule
3.6.3 Document Analysis
3.7 Validity and Reliability
3.7.1 Triangulation of methods
3.8 Data Analysis

CHAPTER FOUR: PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Background Information

CHAPTER FIVE: Discussions, Findings, Conclusions and Recommendations
5.1 Introduction.
5.2 Discussion of the Results on Research Question one
5.3 Discussions of the Research Question Two
5.4 Discussion of the Research Question Three
5.5 Discussion of Research Question Four
5.6 Conclusions
5.7 Recommendations

References

APPENDICES

APPENDIX ONE

APPENDIX TWO

APPENDIX THREE

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my wife and my parents for their care and love. My the Almighty richly bless them.

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the efforts of the following persons without which this book would not have been possible.

Special thanks go to my children; Agatha, Daisy, Esther, my parents and more especially my wife for their great support and prayers.

I would also in a special way want to recognise my supervisors Mr. Babimpa Nuwagaba Edwin and Mrs. Ogbedeagn Priscilla Ebere for their tireless effort to make me accomplish this great task in a reasonable amount of time.

Above all I thank the Almighty God for the gift of life and all the blessings that have enabled me to reach this point in time.

Abstract

The study was carried out to investigate the effectiveness of Teachers’ Performance in Secondary Schools. The methods used include qualitative and quantitative approaches to collect and analyse data. The research study was carried out in Kabale Municipality where it was found out that performance appraisal is not generally well conducted. There is poor feedback management, where appraisal results are not used for staff promotion, professional development or determining remunerations. Poor feedback has also bred into negative results like demotion, abuse and reduced salary.

All the above have therefore resulted into staff failing to fill appraisal forms or when filled they fail to submit them to the Ministry of Education to use the appraisal results for staff promotion, job improvement and counselling sessions to improve staff competence.

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background

Performance appraisal is the assessment of the performance of an individual in relation to the objectives, activities, outputs, and targets of a job over a given period of time. In organizational setting, performance appraisal ; is defined as a structured formal interaction between a subordinate and supervisor, that usually takes the form of a periodic interview (annual or semi-annual), in which the work performance of the subordinate is examined and discussed, with a view to identifying weaknesses and strengths as well as opportunities for improvement and skills development (McNamara, 1999).

Moorhead and Griffin (1992) describe it as the process of evaluating work behaviors by measurement and comparison to previously established standards, recording the results, and communicating them back to the employee. It is an activity between a manager and an employee. Performance appraisal is therefore the assessment of performance of an individual in relation to the objectives, activities, outputs, and targets of a job over a given period of time. Performance appraisal is a powerful tool for performance management. Okumbe (1998) asserts that performance helps in evaluating how a worker succeeds in his present job and this is important for estimating how well he or she will perform in the future. This therefore helps in determining the strengths or weaknesses of the individual workers to increase productivity.

In companies, performance appraisal systems (PAS) began as simple methods for deciding whether or not the salary of an employee was justified. Later on, empirical studies showed that pay rates were not the only element that had an impact on employee performance. It was found out that other issues, such as morale and self-esteem, could also have major influence. That resulted in progressive rejection of emphasis of performance appraisal on reward outcomes, and in 1950s, in the United States, its potential as a tool for motivation and development was recognized. The general model of performance appraisal, as it is known today, began from that time.

Armstrong (2003) notes that performance management has risen from the old-established but somewhat discredited systems of merit rating and management by objective and that many of the more recent developments in performance appraisal have been absorbed into the concept of performance management which aims to be a much more wider, more comprehensive and more natural process of management. Performance appraisal has too often operated as a top down and largely discredited bureaucratic system owned by the personnel department and this has limited its intended value.

Bratton (1988), stressed that, performance appraisal is a continuous and flexible process that involves managers and those whom they manage acting as partners within the required results. After the Second World war, Cole (1997) notes that an alternative approach to people management emerged. This approach focused attention on people as a way of improving organisational effectiveness, and was based not on personal experiences but observation.

Writers like Drucker (1954), were enthusiastic about appraisal. They argued that appraising a subordinate is part of a manager’s job. Indeed unless he does the appraising himself, he cannot adequately discharge his responsibility for assisting and teaching his subordinates.

Hence managers must strive to achieve results from the management of human, material, and financial resources all of which should be motivated by setting standards, measuring performance and taking appropriate action to improve performance by means of training and helping.

Noe etal (1996), define performance management as a means through which managers ensure that employees’ activities and outputs are congruent with the organisational goals. They say that performance management is central to gaining competitive advantage. They argue that, performance management has three parts; defining performance, measuring performance, and feedback performance information. First, a performance management system specifies which aspects of performance are relevant to the organisation, primarily through job analysis. Second, it measures those aspects of performance through performance appraisal which is only one method for managing employee performance. Third, it provides feedback to employees through performance feedback sessions so that they can adjust their performance to the organisation’s goals.

;Taylor (2002) asserts that performance management provides the mechanism by which an organisation can measure critical success factors. Performance indicators for performance planning include: Document the network management business objectives. This could be a formal concept of operations for network management or less formal statement of required features and objectives, create detailed and measurable service level objectives , provide documentation of the service level agreements with charts or graphs showing the success or failure in meeting these agreements over time, collect a list of the variables for the baseline including things like polling interval, network management overhead incurred, possible trigger whether the variable is used as a trigger for a trap, and trending analysis used against each variable, have a periodic meeting that reviews the analysis of the baseline and trends and have a what-if analysis methodology documented. This should include modelling and verification where applicable.

It should be also noted that performance appraisal is a part of a performance management which includes activities to ensure that goals are consistently being met in an effective and efficient manner,(McNamara,1999). Performance management includes many other practices besides performance appraisal, like employee performance improvement, performance development, training, cross-training, challenging assignments, career development or coaching.;

The system in the public service is not open to the extent that, staff does not participate in setting performance targets, and there seem to be a deficiency of teamwork where the staff are supposed to be fully involved in planning, and organising these appraisal programmes. However the factors that contribute to the low regard, with which appraisal is taken, have not been established. This stimulated the researcher into an investigation of Effectiveness of Teacher’s Performance Appraisal in Secondary Schools.

One of the most important and positive developments in the sphere of Human Resource Management in the recent years is the concept of performance management. For many years, the public service employees had to rely on a closed system of assessing individual performance- called Annual Confidential Report (ACRs).This instrument of managing performance fell far below the requirement of modern concept of performance management. The Public Review and Reorganisation Commission Report (1989-90) recommended a review of the appraisal instrument in order to provide a tool for effective assessment of staff performance. In their analysis they argued that assessment Part 11 of the analysis system (form) entitled Analysis and Assessment of Performance (ARC) was nothing but analysis of work habits for example; human relations, creativity, and judgement. The ARC did not measure the actual performance but only measured behaviour and personality of individual Public Officers. Although these behavioural and personality factors may be important, there was no guidance on how to assess these factors and what yardstick to use. Another criticism of the old system was that it was strictly confidential and it was kept away from access of those who were assessed. This scenario inevitably caused suspicion of favouritism, corruption, discrimination, and tribalism when it came to promotions especially those who would not make it.

1.2 Problem Statement

To increase efficiency, Uganda Public Service introduced performance appraisal system in 2000 where workers and supervisors agree on what to be accomplished for effective delivery. Much as this has been in practice little attention has been put on Performance Appraisal Scheme; more often than not the Ministry officials, Education service and head teachers have complained of the effectiveness of this scheme. In some cases, some teachers have been promoted without basing on Performance Appraisal forms hence casting more doubt on the effectiveness of Teachers’ performance appraisal report forms. In worse circumstances, even seemingly hard working teachers have been left out while doing the promotions. ;

Its implementation has remained a problem. Most employees do not participate, the filled in forms are not usually returned, and as a result the seriousness with which the appraisal is considered has reduced greatly. Some of the public staff takes it for granted and the information provided is incomplete. The system is not open to the extent that, staff members do not participate in setting performance targets and there seems to be a deficiency of teamwork. However the factors that contribute to the failure to embrace the appraisal system have not been explored. Yet if the situation remains unchecked, the use of appraisal may never be a reality, a situation that stimulated the researcher into investigating the effectiveness of teacher’s appraisal performance scheme in Secondary Schools.

1.3 Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the study was to establish the effectiveness of Teacher’s Performance Appraisal in Secondary Schools.

1.4 Objectives

The study was carried out along the following objectives:

(1) To examine the effect of performance related feedback on implementation of the teachers’ appraisal results.
(2) To establish the effect of teacher’s attitude on appraisal scheme implementation.
(3) To examine the problems met in performance evaluation.
(4) To examine the role of appraisal in encouraging staff for a better performance.

1.5 Research Questions

(1) Does performance related feedback have an effect on implementation of teachers’ appraisal results?
(2) What effect do employees’ attitudes towards appraisal have on its implementation?
(3) What problems are faced during performance evaluation?
(4) What role does appraisal design play in encouraging staff for a better performance?

1.6 Scope

Basically the study was carried out amongst selected Schools in Kabale Municipality. The study aimed at gender sensitivity in the selection of participants given that Ministry of Education and Sports uses all categories of teachers both men and women.

The content scope will particularly investigate teachers’ attitudes towards appraisal schemes, the effect of feedback on implementation of the appraisal schemes, problems met while conducting performance appraisal and the role of appraisal design.

The time scope of the study covered the period between 2008 to 2009. This period was selected because the researcher feels that since the scheme was introduced in 2000, the time gap is enough to assess its effectiveness.

1.7 Significance of the Study

The research findings will help policy makers especially those of the Ministry of Education and Sports to adopt more realistic policies regarding the management of appraisal.

The researcher also hopes that the results of the study will be useful to future researchers who will be interested in undertaking a study in a related area.

The results will contribute to the existing theories on employee’s performance management.

There is also hope, that the study will be a source of great experience and a contribution to the academic career of the researcher.

1.8 Procedure

The researcher secured a letter of introduction from the Department of Post-graduate Studies Kabale University. Data was collected from the selected schools of Kabale Municipality, analysed and a research report written on the findings of the study. The researcher used the qualitative and quantitative approaches to collect, tabulate and analyse data.

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Introduction

This chapter presents the findings of other scholars on the subject under investigation. It presents the theoretical review, the conceptual framework and the views of other scholars presented in line with the objectives and research questions of the study.

2.2 Theoretical Framework

This study was enshrined in many theories advanced by different scholars some of which include;

Maicibi, (2005), stresses that performance appraisal is an important technique that can be used by any management (organisation) if the organisation really wants to achieve its set objectives. According to Craig (1996), it has three main objectives, to measure ; performance fairly and objectively against job requirements, ; to increase performance by ; identifying specific development goals so that the workers may keep pace with the requirements of a fast placed organisation. In view of the above, Eliza (1996) argued that in many organisations, the appraisal system has been mishandled. She stresses that the worker should not walk blindly into performance appraisal. Past counselling sessions, feedback and proper design are crucial. The appraisal should be a joint effort because no one knows the job better than the person performing it.

Two categories of appraisal namely the formal and informal appraisal have been identified. (Cole 2000). According to Cole, informal appraisal is the continuous assessment of individual worker’s performance by his superior or manager in the normal course of work. He says this kind of assessment is of an adhoc nature and is as much determined by intuitive feelings rather than factual evidence of results. He adds that, it is a natural by- product of the day-to-day relationship between managers and subordinates.

Writers like Maicibi (2005) argue that informal appraisal is a system in which subordinates go into informal discussions with the superodinate; with the good aim of assessing habits and qualities of subordinates. He says that through this method, the management can collect a lot of information that is useful for purposes of promotion, advancements, transfers, termination or lay offs or training and development of staff. Formal appraisal on the other hand is a system set up by the organisation to regularly and systematically evaluate employees’ performance. Cole (2000) says this type of appraisal involves assessment of an employee’s performance in some systematic and planned way. It serves to determine how well an employee is working and decides on ways to improve performance. It therefore calls for an intermediate feedback in order to be effective. Armstrong (2003) emphasizes that the importance of giving a timely feedback to an employee is to develop and maintain a motivated workforce.

In 2000, more detailed appraisal form was introduced by the Ministry Of Public Service and all staff were sensitised on how to use the instrument. According to the appraisal instrument that is purported to be used now, areas that are measured include; personality behaviour, performance and achievement of goals. This is in line with Taylor (2002), who argued that these are measured either quantitatively or qualitatively. Therefore if it were really done, Taylor’s view indicates that it is a way of ensuring adequate performance.

Noe etal (1996), define performance management as a means through which managers ensure that employees’ activities and outputs are congruent with the organisational goals. They say that performance management is central to gaining competitive advantage. They argue that, performance management has three parts; defining performance, measuring performance, and feedback performance information. First, a performance management system specifies which aspects of performance are relevant to the organisation, primarily through job analysis. Second, it measures those aspects of performance through performance appraisal which is only one method for managing employee performance. Third, it provides feedback to employees through performance feedback sessions so that they can adjust their performance to the organisation’s goals.

2.3 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Source:self-developed (2010)

The figure represents the appraisal as a Human Resource Management tool. The appraisal scheme has to be applied to achieve performance results. Workers are evaluated against job knowledge, quantity and quality of work, cooperation, loyalty, attendance, honesty and initiative. Performance appraisal is affected by feedback on appraisal, employees’ attitudes and other factors. Appraisal implementation is associated with timely performance reviews, employees’ re-direction performance briefings, employees expressing their job disturbances, feelings and examination of employees’ challenges.

The feedback that is made during and after appraisal and the employees’ attitude has a big bearing on the whole process of appraisal implementation. In addition, once the appraisal is not properly handled or abused by any of the stakeholders, problems will arise and this greatly affects the management of the organisation. On the other hand, if performance appraisal is done properly it will have very positive effects on the employees and thus the performance of the organisation.

2.4 Related Literature Review

These are written information ; that could have a relation or relevance to the topic of research the effectiveness of teachers’ performance appraisal in secondary schools in Kabale Municipality.

2.4.1 Feedback and Implementation of Appraisal Schemes

The concept of feedback in performance management was highly internalised by performance data on an individual in group derived from a number of stakeholders on their performance. They argued that, data is usually fed back to employees in form of ratings against various performance dimensions. According to Ward, performance data in a feedback process can be generated for individuals from the person to whom they report, their direct reports, their reports, their peers or colleagues in other parts of the organisation.

Handley et al (1996), expressed that for performance measures to be effective, it is important for employees to have feedback on what is measured and the possible effects of measures. He concluded by saying that, feedback may be presented direct to individuals or to their supervisors or both. However, he warned, that expert counselling and coaching for individuals as a result of feedback may be provided by a member of human resource department or an outside consultant.

Research conducted by the Ashridge management research group in Handley et al (1996) found that one of the reasons why feedback is important is to support a number of Human Resource processes such as appraisal, resourcing and succession planning. This has a bearing to the research conducted by Armstrong (2003), where they found that the 51 organisations covered by the research used feedback to help in assessing development needs.

London and Beathy (1993), offers three important roles for the need to give employees feedback on their performance appraisal. They argued that, feedback is a powerful organisation intervention to increase “awareness” of the importance of leader behaviour, work unit results and customer expectations, as well as increasing employee participation in leadership development and work effectiveness. All of which are results of a successful appraisal system. They also stressed that feedback on the appraisal, recognises the complexity of management and the value of input from various sources and also that feedback calls attention to important performance dimensions which may hitherto have been neglected. ; Armstrong (2003) on the other hand, notes that, feedback is often synonymous and may be presented to the individual (most commonly), to the individual’s manager (less common), or to both the individual and the manager. Some organisations do not arrange for feedback to be anonymous; it depends on the organisation’s culture. The more open the culture, the more likely is the source of feedback to be revealed.

Feedback on performance appraisal has been many times mishandled and has tended to reduce the meaning of performance appraisal, (Nayarana et al 1997). Areas on which it has been mishandled include; management not going frank or giving honest feedback, people being put under stress in receiving the feedback , lack of action following the feedback and too much bureaucracy. He commented that these can be minimised and if not avoided completely by careful design, communication training and follow up. This is often achieved by making feedback anonymous and getting the third party facilitator to deliver the feedback and that bureaucracy should be minimised.

Robbins (2008), notes that managers are often uncomfortable discussing performance weaknesses directly with employees. Given that almost every employee could stand to improve in some areas, managers fear a confrontation when presenting negative feedback. He (Robbins) adds that many employees tend to become defensive when their weaknesses are pointed out. Instead of accepting the feedback as constructive and a basis for improving performance, some employees challenge the evaluation by criticising the manager or redirecting blame to someone else. A survey of 151 area managers in Philadelphia for instance found out that 98% of these managers encountered some type of aggression after giving employees negative appraisals. Also employees tend to have an inflated assessment of their own performance.

2.4.2 Employees’ Attitudes to performance appraisal and its implementation

An attitude is an internal state of a person that is focused on objects, events, people that can exist in the people’s psychological world (Nayarana et al 1997). He stresses that, in organisations employees have attitudes towards job security or uncertainty, prestige of the product and so forth. ; This affects all the performance evaluation actions because they are not certain of consequences. ; The current researcher views this idea as not an exception to the issue of appraisal schemes. He concludes by saying that managers in organisations need to know and understand employees’ attitudes towards their actions for effective management and administration.

Performance appraisal schemes have come to the fore in recent years as a means of providing a more integrated and continuous approach to the management of performance than was provided by previous isolated and often inadequate merit rating. Nayarana, (1997) further believes that performance appraisal is based on the principle of management by agreement or contract rather than management by command. It can in fact play a major role of providing for an integrated and coherent range of human resource management processes which are mutually supportive and contribute as a whole to improving organisational effectiveness.

An attitude is defined by Chandan (1996) as a perception with a frame of reference. It is a way of organising a perception. In other words, it is more or less a stable tendency to feel, think, perceive and act in a certain manner towards a situation. Empolyees’attitudes towards appraisal has three elements in that it leads to measurable outcomes. These are employees’ feelings about appraisal, their thoughts and behaviour on the implementation of the scheme. He stresses that some people may have a positive attitude towards appraisal which is good but in most cases, the attitudes are characterised by complaints and dissatisfaction. The actual experience with performance appraisal is not encouraging. People’s perceived feelings about the intention and the likely results of appraisal have always limited its implementation, (Chandan, 1996). As such employees have always evaluated their superiors less favourably and as a result typical managers have limited their contact with subordinates. This view coincides with Bailey (1993) who argued that managers always resist conducting performance appraisals because of the following perception towards the appraisals. They do not like giving negative feedback because of fear of employees’ reactions and fear of not being able to defend the rating. They usually feel that, the use of appraisal schemes tend to interfere with the work of coaching.

As already noted from Chandan, the structure of a persons’ attitude comprise three vital components; affective component, cognitive and overt. ; Affective component refers to the emotions associated with the attitude object. According to him, it is an emotional component that develops as a conditioned response by association with stimuli that have either punishing or rewarding effects. The cognitive component represents the beliefs of a person about an object.

The belief may be based on a variety of learning experiences, rumours misunderstandings or any other information. Therefore the cognitive component is very important and consists of the individuals’ perception, beliefs and ideals about the project.

An attitude could be defined as a learned predisposition to respond in consistently favorable or unfavorable manner with respect to a given object (Kreitner and Kinicki, 1992).

Moorhead and Griffin (1992) propose two views of attitudes: Firstly, Dispositional view holds that attitudes are stable dispositions toward an object. According to this, attitudes have three basic components: affect (emotional feeling toward the object), cognition (perceived knowledge about the object) and intention (intended behavior toward the object). Secondary, ;Situational view contends that attitudes evolve from socially constructed realities. They add that attitudes are formed throughout the time, can be changed and may be influenced by a manager.

One of tools for initiation of attitude change is performance appraisal. However, there is an important finding: a result of research of 5,000 middle-aged male employees shows that their job attitudes in general seem to be very stable over five-year period. Employee’s attitudes are crucial for an organization, since they usually lead to desired behaviors.

Moorhead and Griffin (1992) discuss two primary job-related attitudes: job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction. It is an individual’s attitude toward his or her job. When this attitude is positive, employees are said to be satisfied. Dissatisfaction exists when the attitude is negative. These attitudes arise from the following factors: Firstly, organizational factors, such as pay, promotion opportunities, work itself and working conditions; Secondary; group factors which include coworkers and supervisor; and Thirdly; personal factors, such as needs, aspirations and instrumental benefits.These two attitudes are very important, because they influence how well employees, and accordingly an organization perform. Job satisfaction usually leads to desired actions: low turnover of employees and low absenteeism. If effects of factors mentioned above lead to job dissatisfaction, that means that employee incline to higher turnover and absenteeism.

2.4.3 Problems with Performance Appraisal

For many years employers have been evaluated against standards of personal traits.

These range from ten to personal characteristics such as the ability to get along with people, leadership analytical competence, industry, judgement and initiative. The list may also include such work-related characteristics as job knowledge, ability to carry through an assignment, production, or cost results or success in seeing that plans and instructions are carried out (Bitner, 2000). However there are practical problems of the trait approach to appraisal. This is because the valuation cannot be objective and as such employees who receive less than the top rating feel that they have been unfairly dealt with.

Other scholars such as Porter ; et al (1990) have described trait criteria as nebulous and as such , raters are dealing with a blunt tool, and have argued that subordinates are likely to be vague about what qualities they are being rated on.

He (Porter), further argues that since the principal purpose of appraisal is to provide a basis upon which to plan for improvement, trait evaluation provides for tangible things to discuss, little on which participants can agree as facts and therefore little mutual understanding of what is required to obtain improvement.

The Public Review and Reorganization Commission Report (1989-90), measuring and managing performance are two most difficult issues Public Officers would face under the new approach to performance appraisal because appraisers usually tend to blame the appraisees when they observe poor performance while appraisees also blame external factors for poor performance. This tendency is called actor/observer bias. According to the report, Managers would be required to understand what motivates their human resources as the balance of power moves towards employees and commitment replaces command and control as the driving philosophy in organizations that have adopted this new approach to performance appraisal .Learning to use the New Staff Performance Appraisal Instrument as a tool for improving performance but not as a tool to apportion blame is yet another challenge, the report emphasizes.

Even if the system is well designed, problems can arise if the raters (usually supervisors) are not co-operative and well trained. (McGregor, 1957).Supervisors may not be comfortable with the process of evaluation, or what Douglas McGregor called “Playing God”. This is often because they have not adequately trained, or have not participated in the design of the programme. He emphasizes that, inadequate training of raters can lead to a series of problems in completing performance evaluations, including; problems with standards of evaluation, halo effect, leniency or harshness, recency of events error, contrast effects and personal bias

First impressions (primacy effect): The appraiser’s first impressions of a candidate may color his evaluation of all subsequent behavior. In the case of negative primacy effect, the employee may seem to do nothing right; in the case of a positive primacy effect, the employee can do no wrong .In most of the traditional performance evaluation systems, raters judge past performance and attempt to report their judgments using any of the performance techniques. Because performance evaluation is used for making decisions that affect the employees, the rater is placed in a difficult and somewhat antagonistic role. (Ivancevich, 1998).

The Halo effect occurs when one aspect of the subordinate’s performance affects the rater’s evaluation of other performance dimensions. If a worker has few absences, his supervisor might give the worker a high rating in all other areas of work. Similarly an employee might be rated high on performance simply because he had a good dress sense and comes to office punctually.

;The rater’s bias is in the other direction, where one negative quality of the employee is being rated harshly. For example, the ratee does not smile normally, so he cannot get along with people. This is called horn effect.

;Depending on rater’s own mental make-up at the time of appraisal, raters may be rated very strictly or very leniently. Appraisers generally find evaluating others difficult, especially where negative ratings have to be given. A professor might hesitate to fail a candidate when all other students have cleared the examination. The Leniency error can render an appraisal system ineffective. If everyone is to be rated high, the system has not done anything to differentiate among employees.

An alternative to the leniency effect is the central tendency, which occurs when appraisers rate all employees as average performers. For example, a professor, with a view to play it safe, might give a class ;grades nearly equal to B, regardless of the differences in individual performance. Stereotyping is a mental picture that an individual holds about a person because of that person’s sex, age, religion, and caste. By generalizing behavior on the basis of such blurred images, the rater grossly overestimates or underestimates a persons’ performance. For example, employees from rural areas might be rated poorly by raters having a sophisticated urban background if they view rural background negatively. For recency effect the rater gives greater weight age to recent occurrences than earlier performance. For example, an excellent performance that may be six or seven months old is conveniently forgotten while giving a poor rating to an employee’s performance which is not so good in recent weeks. Alternatively, the appraisal process may suffer due to a ‘spill over effect’ which takes place when past performance influences present ratings.

Research studies show that employees are likely to feel more satisfied with their appraisal result if they have the ; ; ; ; chance to talk freely and discuss their performance. It is also more likely that such employees will be better able to meet future performance goals. (Barie,etal,2001).;

Barrie and Sow (2001), claim there must be standards of comparison. People need to know how well they are doing at their jobs and where they could improve. It is important to keep in mind that appraisals do not equate to criticism. It may be necessary to explain the importance of completing tasks within timelines or changing the technique of doing a task.

Unfortunately, many performance appraisals only frustrate the employee by adding more tasks to what appears to be an already overloaded agenda,” they assert”.

2.4.5 The role of Performance Appraisal Design

In many organizations, appraisal results are directly or indirectly linked to remuneration. That means, the better performing employees get pay increases, bonuses, promotions; while those poorer might get some counseling, or in extreme cases, demotion, dismissal or decreases in pay. (McNamara, 1999).Oberg lists goals of performance appraisal programs, which are: help for supervisors to do a better coaching job; motivate employees by providing feedback on how they are doing; provide data for management decisions such as salary increases or decreases, transfers or dismissals; improve organization development by identifying people with promotion potential; and establish a research and reference base for personnel decisions.Performance appraisal should be a continuous and flexible process that involves managers and those whom they manage acting as partners within a framework that sets out how they can best work together to achieve the required results, (Armstrong, 2003). He also stressed that, many of the more recent developments in appraisal have also been absorbed into the concept of performance management, which aims to be a much wider, more comprehensive According to Martin (2000), there are three kinds of performance appraisal, that is; comprehensive review, progress or periodic review and continuous monitoring. In the first one, appraisals should be conducted once a year with discussions frequently taking place. Other scholars such as Fatrell (1998) argue that a case should be made against any rigid schedule of appraisal performance reviews. He notes that there is no universally applicable time frame for the final comprehensive review. It depends on the nature of the task, past company practices and other situational factors. They note that once, twice or three times may be appropriate for a particular organisation or a person who is new in a job.

Martin also argues that formal comprehensive reviews should be supplemented by frequent progress or periodic reviews. He observes that these reviews should be short, and relatively informal for purposes of keeping communication open between the superior and subordinates.

Furthermore, priorities can be re-arranged and objectives can be renegotiable if warranted by changed situations. It is also certainly inappropriate to pursue obsolete or even inappropriate objectives that were agreed upon in an environment of uncertainties.

Continuous monitoring of performance works in such a way that when performance deviates from plan, one does not even wait for the next periodic review, instead the superior and the subordinate discuss the situation so that corrective actions can be taken at that time in order to prevent deviation from developing into a major problem.

Webster (1993) defines performance as the capacity to achieve desired results. In the world of performance management, it is important to distinguish between the unsatisfactory performers, the person operating at the minimum acceptable level and the person performing adequately but at a lower level than they are capable of (Bill, 1998).

With unsatisfactory performance, the member of staff is functioning at a level which is deemed unacceptable under their contract of employment. With a minimum performer, the member of staff is contributing sufficiently to avoid disciplinary action taken against him/ her. It is unlikely that simple financial inducements can effectively address the issue, particularly where under performance can be caused by a number of factors, including level of motivation, inability or willingness to address the changing requirements of the job or mismatch between the competences of the individual and the needs of external clients. Heads will need to attempt to rectify this problem through a combination of informal appraisal, team working and staff development.

Many scholars have come up with a number of views on the relationship between nature of appraisal schemes and implementation. For instance, Janaro (1989) notes that where appraisal schemes are introduced, unauthorised breaks (or time of the job) are minimised. Other potential benefits of the nature of appraisal schemes may include increased morale and productivity, as well as reduced fatigues and boredom not excluding morale in employees’ participation.

Surveys that use appraisal schemes in particular by Margaret (2002), have revealed the following advantages: productivity was increased in almost a half of the organisations, absenteeism was reduced by more than 75%of the organisations, lateness was reduced in 84 % of the organisations, turnover was reduced in more than 50 % of the organisations and employee morale increased in almost all the organisations.

Another reason for the effectiveness of appraisal is the improved attitude of workers towards their employer. When appraisals are done, workers feel that it is an expression of management’s concern for them as individuals. A research study dealing with managers revealed that 25 % of each day’s work was wasted, that is, it was considered to be non productive, (Golem an, ; 2001). Some of that time was lost in waiting for meetings to begin, but much of it was spent on the activities such as day-dreaming, taking excessively long lunch periods, shuffling papers and engaging in social conversations. A survey of over 1000 personnel managers revealed that they believe that 18% of their employees spend an hour each day in socialising and that another 46% spend an hour each day engaging in non-work activity.

There seems to be little doubt that appraisal has an effect on workers’ performance .But a serious problem existing for organisations in interpreting any such changes in workers’ performance since there could have been other factors other than appraisals that could have led to change. Besides, all the studies were done outside Uganda and therefore do not fit the local situation. The researcher has tried to close these gaps by conducting a primary study.

As stated by Purcel (1983), the concept of performance appraisal has been one of the most important and positive developments in the spheres of human resources management in recent years. He defines a well–designed performance appraisal as a process or means for measuring outputs in the shape of delivering performance compared with expectations expressed as objectives. In this respect, it focuses on targets, standards and performance measures or indicators. But it is also concerned with the inputs, skills and competences required to produce expected results.

In his own words about a good appraisal scheme, Beer (1976) notes that when using the appraisal system, individuals can be protected against unfair assessments and ratings by providing for their manager’s manager (the so called grand parent), to see and comment on the completed report. These comments could be shown to individuals who should have the right to appeal through a grievance procedure if they are still unhappy about the appraisal report. In a related view, Brown (1998), highlights on the following points to note when designing an appraisal system that can easily be implemented; they include; uncouple evaluation and development, where appraisal systems should avoid mixing of the roles of judge and helper. He emphasizes that, open problem solving dialogue required for building a relationship and developing subordinates should be scheduled at a different time from the meeting in which the superior informs the subordinates about the implication of the appraisal. Secondary, is choosing appropriate performance data. The behaviour rating scale incident methods and various MBO techniques usefully guide the appraisal discussion toward specific task behaviour or accomplishments, feedback which is both less threatening and more helpful to the person who wants to improve performance is all important.

It should be also noted that performance appraisal is a part of a performance management which includes activities to ensure that goals are consistently being met in an effective and efficient manner. ; Performance management includes many other practices besides performance appraisal, like employee performance improvement, performance development, training, cross-training, challenging assignments, career development or coaching (Daniels, 2010).

;There are scholars who consider performance appraisal useless and evil. Daniels says: The research on performance appraisals has never shown that they improve performance. Furthermore, he claims that the only reason why they are so prevalent in the workplace is that they are a way to document poor performance in other words, a step in the firing process. Furthermore, he suggests that the best performance appraisal is one that is done every day.;

From the above scholarly expressions, the appraisal schemes are an important organisation management tool that needs a lot of attention. Performance appraisal measures performance fairly and objectively through a proper feedback process which ensures performance management where managers and employees aim at having the activities and outputs that are congruent to the organisation objectives. Ever since performance appraisal was introduced in the Public Service, it leaves a lot to be desired.

CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY

3.1 Introduction

This chapter highlights on the research design that was used, area of study, population of study, sample selection methods and size, data collection methods, validity and reliability, procedures of data collection and proposed data analysis methods.

3.2 Research Design

The study basically adapted a case study using both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The case study was chosen by the researcher for easy access since he works in Kabale Municipality in the teaching service.

Qualitative approaches used include interviews and document review. This approach is recommended by Amin (2005) where soliciting people’s perception is required. The researcher used frequency tables and charts during data analysis. Various approaches were adopted to enable the researcher use frequency tables, and charts for data analysis. These approaches were adopted to enable the researcher get and analyse relevant information concerning people’s attitudes, and the processes of the appraisal system employed in secondary schools. According to Meyer (1999), these designs are used when the study aims at collecting first hand qualitative data for a big number of respondents drawn from different sections of the survey population. When the design was used, data was collected using mainly interviews and questionnaires and analysed using descriptive analysis. The design was therefore used because data was collected from different categories of respondents drawn from different categories of teachers in secondary schools.

The collected data was qualitative in form of views and opinions from selected respondents. The data was analysed using descriptive techniques. ;

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