Influence of performance appraisal on employee motivation at county government of Kisumu, Kenya

Abstract

Public service employees’ motivation has emerged as a complex issue globally, locally and in Kenya. A systematic review of staffs’ motivation is revealed by factors such as financial rewards, career development, continuous education resource availability and recognition. The county government of Kisumu department of roads, transport and public work honored its employee through recognition awards for the 99% of roads done, 2020-2021. The individual employees were awarded for showing dedication, responsibility and results. The other departments within the Kisumu county government (governance, finance education, health and county assembly) have never had such recognition, a show of selective implementation of performance reward system by county departments. The general objective was to study performance appraisal and employee motivation in county government of Kisumu. The current study sought to study the effects of performance appraisal on employees’ motivation at county government of Kisumu, Kenya. Specifically the study sought to; determine the effect of appraisal system criteria, appraisal feedback and continuous improvement on employees’ motivation at county government of Kisumu. The study was anchored on goal setting theory and expectancy theory. The researcher adopted a correlational research design to study the relationship between the variables. The target population of study consisted of 876 employees of county government of Kisumu drawn from the 8 departments and consisting of supervisors and junior staffs. Stratified random sampling was used to draw a sample of 375 respondents from the population. Primary data was obtained using structured questionnaire. A pilot study was conducted in Vihiga County. A Cronbach Alpha coefficient of 0.813 was obtained thus implying the study instrument was reliable. Validity was ascertained through expert review (lecturers) at the department of business in Maseno University. The primary data collected was analyzed using regression analysis. The findings shows that performance appraisal accounts for 55.7% variance in employee motivation, which is also significant (R Square=.557, F (3, 268) =112.314), p<.05). The overall model coefficients also shows that appraisal system criteria (B=.383, p<.05), Appraisal feedback (B=.313, p<.05) and Continuous improvement (B=.221, p<.05) have positive and significant effect on employee motivation. An examination of the model coefficient results shows that continuous improvement had a significant contribution to employee motivation (β=.319, p<.05) and significantly accounted for 32.7% variance in employee motivation, appraisal system criteria had a positive and significant effect on employee motivation (β=.309, p<.05) and accounted for 36.6% variance in employee motivation, finally appraisal feedback positively and significantly influenced employee motivation (β=.292, p<.05) and also accounted for 41.5% variance in employee motivation. This implies that performance appraisal, entailing employee training, appraisal system criteria and appraisal feedback positively enhanced employee motivation and consequently their work. It was concluded that appraisal criteria has a positive influence on employee motivation, system appraisal feedback has a positive influence on employee motivation and employee training has a positive influence on employee motivation. It was recommended that the county improves its appraisal criteria, enhances its appraisal feedback and increases the number of employee trainings. This means that all the constructs defining performance appraisal had a positive and significant effect on employee motivation. The research is significant to academicians the field of research, practitioners in human resource field as well as institutions