Management Practices and Employee Productivity in Garissa County Government, Kenya

Abstract

Despite the role of the employees in the counties, a 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 the productivity of employees in the Garissa County government. The specific objectives of the study were; to identify the effect of goal setting, career planning, competency-based evaluation and continuous feedback on employee productivity in the County Government of Garissa. The study was anchored on human capital theory, reinforcement theory and goal-setting theory. The descriptive and exploratory research design was used. The total respondents targeted were 2611. Questionnaires wereused 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 in tables and figures. The findings of this study would be of great relevance to county management as it highlights the relationships that exist between organizational performance management practices and employee productivity. The study findings indicated that employees in Garissa County had the necessary skills and power in handling the tasks assigned where a majority of the respondents agreed that proper and effective resources were not provided and thus study concluded goals in the organizations are motivators and enables employees to improve on service provision.The study findings also indicated that employees were oriented on their desired field of work to enable them to plan for their careers and that the employees were able to attend to the duties allocated to them comfortably and thus career planningwas vital in ensuring that employees grow their talent in an attempt in supporting organizational overall goals.The findings indicated thatthe majority of the respondents agreed thatthere was effective feedback on information regarding customer service delivery collected from employees. The findings reported that continuous feedback reports enabled the county to work on improving the employee’s skills and knowledge. 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.The study recommends that the county government should focus on developing goals that are realistic and achievable and that the employees should be equipped with necessary skills and focus oncompetence-based evaluation to improve by the county managers through training, workshops and seminars. Employees working in the county should ensure that they enhance their career planning by ensuring that they work in departments that relate to their qualifications and skills. The study recommended that the directors of communication and other relevant directors in the Garissa government should ensure that there is continuous feedback on matters related to employee competence and areas that need improvement in the county.