An investigation of staff performance management systems and productivity in the Department of Home Affairs: case of Richards’s Bay office

The provision of services in the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) has received negative publicity from the media and individual community members who have accessed the services provided by the institution. The staff in the DHA have been criticized for their low productivity and deemed unprofessional by local communities being serviced. The developments of a White Paper acknowledge these challenges with regards to staff productivity and performance by highlighting that the Department currently operates with low qualified staff who are also demoralised by undertaking routine low level work. This study investigates the staff performance and productivity in the Department of Home Affairs, Richards’s Bay in order to identify the challenges that have led to poor performance, taking into account the performance management system (PMS) implemented as a tool to address it. It adopts a qualitative research methodology, through structured interviews, with employees of the DHA as primary participants and clients as secondary participants. The study analysed the importance of the PMS as it is the mechanism used in the public sector to ensure efficient productivity of employees. It revealed major challenges with the implementation of a PMS, notably insufficient employees’ knowledge due to poor performance planning and training. This has had a major impact on staff performance and productivity. The study also revealed that the employees were demoralised due to an ineffective performance appraisal process. The relationship between employer and employees was found to be broken due to poor communication and the centralisation of services was found to have created a challenge with regards to provision of effective and efficient service delivery. The poor performance planning and less training, ineffective performance appraisal, poor communication and centralisation of services is one of the challenges that contributed more to ineffective staff performance and productivity.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Zululand

Year dc:date.issued

2020

Author dc:creator

• Thusi, Xolani

• staff performance
• staff performance management systems
• the Department of Home Affairs

Licence

• https://devspace.unizulu.ac.za/bitstreams/aca9f560-67a4-4105-9a1b-20a80f4a33e2/download