Reframing performance management praxis at the Harare city council

Abstract

Orientation: The study is a response from the complaints arising from the performance deficiencies of Harare City Council (HCC) employees. This brought into focus the need to reframe the performance management (PM) practises to match or exceed the stakeholder expectations. Research purpose: The study sought to understand factors that could improve employee performance at HCC in line with the requirements of the performance tool. Motivation for the study: The study’s findings may assist the management at HCC to improve manpower utilisation towards the achievement of the city’s service delivery objectives. Research approach/design and method: This is a qualitative study that used the interpretivist approach to understand the lived experiences and perceptions of employees towards the PM. Purposive sampling was used to identify 10 participants who were interviewed following a semi-structured questionnaire. Main findings: The study revealed that the implementation of PM is facing hindrances because of factors in both the internal and external environment. Therefore, collective effort is required to overcome the challenges and improve implementation of the PM at HCC. Practical implications: Line managers should explore available reward options to enhance employee motivation, adopt an inclusive approach in addressing the institutionally created barriers to the PM and further attend to other challenges inhibiting employee performance. Contribution/value-add: The discovery of the inadequacies of the PM at HCC provided a new insight of perceptions towards PM at HCC. Therefore, the study was able to recommend practices that support the improvement of the PM implementation.

Keywords

• employee motivation
• inclusion
• learning transfer
• institutional factors
• organisational effectiveness