ABSTRACT
Performance appraisal
is a process of assessing or evaluating the performance of employees on their
job in order to identify their strengths and weaknesses so as to improve upon
their performance. The Ports and Harbour industry all over the world aim at efficiency.
As a result, performance appraisal plays an important role in determing the
performance of staffs at Ports and Harbours thereby contributing to the
efficiency of Ports and Harbour. The study was intended to assess how
management uses performance appraisal as a tool in Tema Port and its
contribution to its productivity and growth. The objective of the study were;
first, to find out the design and implementation of performance appraisal at
Tema Port. Second, to find out the importance of performance appraisal at Tema
Port. Third, to identify problems or challenges encountered when conducting
performance appraisal and fourth, to find out whether performance appraisal
contributes to the productivity and growth of Tema Port. Both primary and
secondary sources of data were used to gather information for the study.
Questionnaires were administered to employees at Tema Port and interviews were
also conducted to seek information for the study. Result from the study
revealed that only the human resource department was responsible for the design
and implementation of performance appraisal. Again, it was revealed that the
time feedback were given to appraises were not consistent. Furthermore, the
performance appraisal was characterized by biases and impartiality during the
appraisal process leading unacceptable ratings scores. It was recommended that
the Human Resource Department as Tema Port should involve other
stakeholders such as appraisers and
appraises during the design of appraisal and its implementation. This will make
both appraisers and appraises have vested interest in the appraisal programme
therefore attach all the seriousness it deserves. This will also go along way
to reduce the incidence of biases and impartiality since appraises are well
educated on the programme. Feedback should also be given to all appraises at a
specified period and in a conducive atmosphere. All supervisors should have a
formal training on how to appraise. Finally, the Human Resource Department of
Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority should endeavour to have a yearly appraisal
report to serve as an official document for performance appraisal.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE
PAGE PAGE
Declaration
i
Abstract
ii
Acknowledgements iii
Dedication iv
Declaration v
Table
of contents vii
List
of tables x
List
of figures xi
CHAPTER
ONE INTRODUCTION
1.0 Background
of the study 1
1.1 Statement
of the problem 4
1.2 Objectives
of the study 4
1.3 Research
questions 5
1.4 Rationale
for the study 5
1.5 Scope
of the study 6
1.6 Limitations
of the study 6
1.7 Definition
of terms 7
1.8 Organization
of the study 7
CHAPTER
TWO LITERATURE REVIEW
2.0 Introduction 8
2.1 Performance
management 8
2.2 Performance
appraisal 9
2.3 History of Performance Appraisal
12
2.4 Consequences
of performance appraisal 13
2.4.1 Some positive results of performance appraisal 13
2.4.2 Some negative results of performance appraisal 13
2.5 The Design of appraisal system
14
2.6 Performance appraisal process
16
2.6.1 Established performance standard 17
2.6.2 Communicate performance expectation 18
2.6.3 Measure actual performance 18
2.6.4 Compare actual performance with
standards 18
2.6.5 Discuss
result with employee 19
2.6.6 Initiate corrective action if necessary 19
2.7 Methods of performance appraisal 19
2.7.1 Graphic rating scale 20
2.7.2 Critical incident method 20
2.7.3 Essay – method 21
2.7.4 Behaviourally Anchored Rating scale
(BARS) 21
2.7.5 Behavioral
checklist method 22
2.7.6 Mixed
standard scale 22
2.7.7 Forced
– choice method 23
2.7.8 Results
method 23
2.7.9 Management
by Objective (MBO) 23
2.8 Factors that can distort the
effectiveness of performance appraisal 26
2.8.1 Leniency
error 26
2.8.2 Hallo
effect 26
2.8.3 Low
appraiser motivation 26
2.8.4 Similarity error 27
2.8.5 Central tendency 27
2.8.6 Inflationary
pressures 27
2.8.7 Attribution
theory 28
2.8.8 Recency
error 28
2.8.9 Management
attitude 28
2.9 Effective performance
appraisal system 29
2.9.1 Requirements for effective appraisal
system 29
2.9.1.1 Relevance 29
2.9.1.2 Sensitivity 29
2.9.1.3 Reliability 30
2.9.1.4 Acceptability 30
2.9.1.5 Practicability 30
2.9.2 Training
of Appraisers 30
2.9.3 Appraisal
feedback to employees 31
2.9.4 Motivation 32
CHAPTER
THREE METHODOLOGY AND ORGANIZATIONAL PROFILE
3.0 Introduction 34 3.1 Sources of data 34
3.1.1 Primary
data 34
3.1.2 Secondary
data 34
3.2 Population 35
3.3 Sampling 35
3.3.1 Sampling
Technique 36
3.4 Data
collection instrument 36
3.5 Data
Analysis 37
3.6.0 Organizational
profile of Tema Port 37
3.6.1 Vision of Port in Tema 38 3.6.2 Mission of Port of Tema 38
3.6.3 The services of Tema Port 38 3.6.4 Board of Directors 39
3.6.5 Management
Team 39
3.6.6 Tema
Port Departments 39
3.6.7 Staff
of Tema Port 40
3.6.8
Organizational Structure 40
CHAPTER FOUR DATA PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
|
4.0 Introduction
|
|
41
|
|
4.1 Employee
Profile
|
|
41
|
|
4.2 Profile
of Junior Staff
|
|
41
|
|
4.3 Profile
of Senior Staff
4.4 Design and
Implementation of Performance appraisal Importance of
|
|
43
|
|
Performance
appraisal
|
|
45
|
|
4.5 Importance
of Performance Appraisal system to Tema Port
|
|
52
|
|
4.6 Challenges
encountered when conducting performance appraisal
|
|
54
|
|
4.7 Contribution of
performance appraisal to the productivity and growth
|
55
|
CHAPTER
FIVE SUMMARY OF FINDINGS, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
5.0 Introduction 58
5.1 Summary
of findings 58
5.1.1 Lack of involvement of stakeholders in the design and
implementation
of
performance appraisal 58
5.1.2 Challenge faced by supervisor during
appraisal 58
5.1.3 Contribution
of performance appraisal 58
5.1.4 Lack of consistency in providing
feedback 59
5.1.5 Importance
of performance appraisal 59
5.2 Conclusion 59
5.3 Recommendations 60
5.3.1
Performance appraisal policy 60
5.3.2 Involvement of stakeholders
60
5.3.3 Provision of feedback 60
5.3.4 Fairness
and impartiality during appraisal 61
5.3.5 Training
of all appraisers 61
5.3.6 Involvement of subordinates in setting
target 61
5.3.7 Appraisal
report 62
References
Appendix A
Appendix B
Appendix C
Appendix D
Appendix E
LIST OF TABLES
Table
4.1 Appraisers 35
Table
4.2 Appraisees 36
Table 4.3 Gender
status of Subordinates 42
Table 4.4 Age
Status of Subordinates 42
Table 4.5 Number of years
at Port (subordinates) 43
Table 4.6 Gender
Status of Appraisers 44
Table 4.7
Age of Appraisers 44
Table 4.8 Number of years
at Port (Appraisers) 45
Table 4.9 Number of times
appraised in a year 46
Table 4.10 Whether supervisors play role in designing
performance appraisal 47
Table 4.11Whether supervisors set targets for
subordinates 49
Table 4.12 Subordinates’ opinion on
performance appraisal 53
Table 4.13 Contribution of performance appraisal
(Subordinates) 55
Table 4.14 Contribution of performance appraisal
(Appraisers) 56
LIST OF FIGURE
|
Figure
2.1 The performance appraisal process
|
|
17
|
|
Figure
4.1 Whether employees have ever been appraised
|
|
46
|
|
Figure
4.2 Whether supervisors have ever had formal training
|
|
48
|
|
Figure
4.3 Involvement of subordinates in setting targets
|
|
50
|
|
Figure
4.4 Whether Supervisors provide feedback
|
|
51
|
|
Figure
4.5 Duration of appraisal feedback
|
|
52
|
|
Figure 4.6 Whether
performance appraisal motivate subordinates
|
|
52
|
|
Figure
4.7 Perception of performance appraisal (supervisors)
|
|
54
|
|
Figure 4.8 Challenges
during performance appraisal of subordinates
|
|
55
|
Figure 4.9 Performance of Tema Port in
relation to appraisal for the past 4 years 57
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.0 Background
of the study
The importance of performance appraisal
in contemporary business organizations cannot be overemphasized. Some view it
as potentially "the most crucial aspect of organizational life” (Lawrie,
1990). Performance appraisal has increasingly become an integral part of the
human resource function of any profit - making organization.
Performance appraisal when practised
effectively, to a larger extent can contribute to growth of an organization.
According to Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners (2002),
"growth is an increase in the success of a business or a country's economy
or in the amount of money invested in them". Any profit-making
organization will seek to achieve growth in terms of sales, profit or expansion
through performance.
Growth has been ingrained in Americans as
"the path of success". Organizational growth cannot be a reality if
the performance of its workers is not appraised for an improvement or
reinforcement of performance. According to Donegan (2002), "success will
to a larger extent depend on the organization's ability to evaluate progress
and also hold accountable those charged with executing certain tasks".
This is exactly what performance appraisal seeks to do. It aims at evaluating
the performance of the worker against standard set thereby taking corrective
actions if necessary.
In many organizations performance
appraisal is used for the purpose of administering wages and salaries after
feedback had been given to the worker. The appraisal also helps management to
identify individual employee's strength and weakness. The latter will lead to
training and other measures to correct inefficiencies.
Performance appraisal may be viewed as an
overall measure of organizational effectiveness. Organizational objectives are
met through the efforts of individual employees. Teaching employees how to do
their jobs and evaluating their performances are strategic human resource
function and for that matter should not be relegated to the background.
"Maximizing performance is a
priority for most organization today", Mathis et a1 (2004). It is then
obvious that performance appraisal as a management tool is cardinal to
contributing to organizational success. If employee performance is improved,
the organization raises it performance in terms of meeting it objectives. On
the other hand, if employee performance is not improved it adversely affects
performance hence organizational productivity.
Perfom1ance appraisal cannot exist
independently. It needs to be closely linked to set standards by managers and
supervisors. This will in the end have direct effect on the main goal of the
organization. There is the need therefore to have a well-defined appraisal
system in organizations to enable management know how well individual workers
are performing on their job and if there is the need to improve performance or
reward performance.
Globally, performance appraisal is used
and this has led most organizations to spend quality time in conducting
performance appraisal. According to Torrington and Mackey 350 organizations
have a formal appraisal system for senior management, compared with 251
organizations for middle management, 189 for clerical staff, and 92 for manual,
unskilled and semi skilled workers. Over a quarter of the respondent
organizations carried out no appraisal at all. It is interesting to note that
140 organizations said that they had increased the time that they spent on
appraisal over the previous three years, compared with 112 organizations that
spent the same amount of time, and only 29 organizations where the time spent
had decreased. In my understanding, it points out to the fact that many
organizations in the world today had realized the tremendous need for
performance appraisal systems. If it is done well could yield the desired results
for the organization.
The Provisional National Defense Council
(PNDC) Law 160 established the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) - Tema
Port on July, 1st 1986. Since its establishment perfOTIl1anCe
appraisal is being used as a management tool to assess and improve performance
of its employees thereby increasing the overall output of the Port in terms of
productivity.
It is a well known fact that the growth
and success of an organization to a very large extent depends on the
performance of its employees which could be measured by performance appraisal.
It could therefore be said that performance appraisal is a key elements in
today's competitive era of business in which Tema Port is not left out.
Performances of Port workers at Tema at
the various levels are very important and contribute to achieving the goals of
the Authority. The Port therefore expects every worker to contribute towards
the achievement of its goals. This is evident by management showing much
commitment in the use of performance appraisal by putting in place mechanisms
for instance logistical support and time to ensure the success of the scheme.
Additionally, the Port of Tema has a training department which apart from other
training purposes organizes training programmes for employees who are
underperforming to correct deficiencies after being appraised. This goes a long
way to improve the skills, knowledge and competences of employees to perform
their task effectively and efficiently. The human resource department and the training
department collaborate to conduct appraisals of the Port which is carried out
annually. Before the process commences, appraisals forms are distributed to the
various departmental heads for assessment or evaluation of subordinates. The
completed forms are submitted back to the human resource department for final
review and decision making.
Just as any other industry, it is
important to note that the Ports and Harbour industry worldwide aim at
efficiency and as a result of the role performance appraisal plays in
organizations, the researcher attempted to find out how management uses
performance appraisal as a management tool to assess and improve the
performance of its workers thereby contributing to the productivity, growth and
success of Tema Port.
1.1 Statement
of the problem.
Performance has played significant roles
in organizational productivity. However, it is pathetic to note that most
organizations have not been practising a sustainable performance appraisal
system to enhance efficiency.
Some organizations though invest so much
in other factors of production such as machinery, information technology, funds
etc but unfortunately place little value on manpower. In this regard, little
attention is directed to improving the human capital which is the anchor of
every organizational success story. Improving manpower requires that
performance appraisal becomes an essential tool to assess the individual
employee and should be based on consistent feedback such that an appropriate
reward system could be ascribed or measures for correction could be put in
place.
Lack of performance appraisal system in
most organizations unfortunately makes assessment of individual employee
extremely difficult and m that vain most organizational targets are not
periodically achieved hence lack of direction and low productivity.
In this regard
therefore, it is imperative that a consensus effort is made by every
organization to have a performance appraisal policy in order to' evaluate the
performance of individual employees in conformity with the overall objective of
the organization.
1.2 Objectives of the
study
The objectives of the study are classified into General
and Specific.
1.2.1 General objective
The main objective underlying this study
is to assess the performance appraisal situation at Tema Port.
1.2.2 Specific objectives
a) To
find out how the design and implementation of performance appraisal is done at
Tema
Port.
b) To
evaluate the importance of performance appraisal system at Tema Port.
c) To
identify the problems encountered when conducting performance appraisal at Tema
Port.
d) To
find out whether performance appraisal contributes to productivity and growth
at Tema
Port.
e) To
provide some recommendations towards improving performance appraisal system at
Tema
Port.
1.3 Research Questions
i.
What performance appraisal system is in place at
Tema Port?
ii.
What is the role and importance of performance
appraisal to the growth at Tema Port? iii. Is
performance appraisal contributing to the productivity and growth at Tema Port?
iv. What problems are encountered
during performance appraisals at Tema Port?
1.4 Rationale for the study.
Managers must be able to determine
whether or not their workers are doing an efficient and effective job, with a
minimum of errors and disruption. They do so by using perfonl1ance appraisal
(Nickels, et al 2002). According to Mullins (2002), "The underlying
objective of performance appraisal is to improve performance of individuals
leading to improvement in the performance of the organization as a whole".
An effective appraisal scheme therefore offers a number of potential benefits
to both the individual and the organization. It is important therefore that,
for the desired benefits of performance appraisal to be achieved, the
challenges that it poses during the process need to be identified and
addressed.
The role of GPHA-
Tema Port in the economic growth and development of the nation cannot be a mere
exaggeration. Just as a seaport is the lifeline of any country, so is the Port
of Tema which provides about 90% of Ghana's export and import services. It is
in this regard that the researcher attempted to undertake a study to assess how
management of Tema Port evaluate the
performance of its workers thereby contributing to its productivity and growth
and also essentially, providing revenue to the state. The study also offered
some suggestions and recommendations to the Authority. This will help
management to take good decisions and identify strategies that will help
improve worker performance to enhance growth.
1.5 Scope of the
study
The study is
concentrated on an assessment of performance appraisal. This was limited to
only Tema Port and it covers all the departments. Tema Port has 14 departments
namely Personnel! Administration, Marine Operation that is fire and safety,
Port Operations that is monitoring and control, Marine Engineering, Materials
department, Management Information System (MIS), Security, Finance, Audit and
Mechanical Engineering.
1.6 Limitations of the
study
Every research
studies certainly have some limitations. The major limitation to this research
work was finance. This limitation informed the researcher to concentrate the
work at only Tema Port. Also, time factor was another limitation that is
combining lectures with the research work. Finally, the researcher had to visit
the Port of Tema several times before retrieving the questionnaires
administered.
1.7 Definition of terms
Performance
appraisal: Refers to the process by which employees are evaluated on the
task assigned them after a given time in order to find out their strengths and
weaknesses.
Under-performing employees: Refer to
those employees who perform below average or those employees who normally do
not meet targets set for them.
Growth: This
refers to the general improvement of performance of the organization.
Appraisers: They are managers,
superiors, or supervisors who have employees working directly under them.
Appraises: They
are employees or subordinates who are appraised.
1.8 Organization of the
study
The study is organized into five
chapters. Chapter one is the Introduction of the study. This is made up of the
background of the study, statement of the problem, objectives of the study,
rationale for the study, scope of the research, limitations of the study,
research questions, and definition of terms and organization of the study.
Chapter two dwells mainly on the
literature review, while chapter three consists of the research methodology and
the organizational profile. Chapter four involves the analysis and discussion
of results. Finally, chapter five concerns summary of findings, conclusion and
recommendations.
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