There are an estimated 300 state-owned enterprises in South Africa with nine reporting to the Department of Public Enterprises (Chabane, 2010). The remaining institutions report to various national ministries, provinces and municipalities. The problem faced by these institutions is related to performance management practices that do not assist these institutions to be effective, efficient, responsive and accountable service delivery arms as per the guiding principle of their establishment. The current performance management practices in these institutions prevent the institutions from achieving set goals and targets and being able to operate efficiently in a highly competitive environment. Performance management is a broad field and includes any activity that organisational leaders may undertake which is designed to ensure that personal and organisational goals are consistently achieved. In reality, most of the day-to-day activities of individual employees, teams, and business units make some contribution to the performance management effort. The objective of this study was to evaluate the use of performance management system in state development agencies in the Eastern Cape Province and recommend a framework for performance management that can be implemented to improve productivity. The empirical study was conducted, using a questionnaire with a semi-structured question design. The results of this study suggest that performance management is still a top down approach that results in sub-units and individual employees (not) taking ownership of the process. Another shortcoming in the implementation of performance management is related to the unavailability of easy-to-use technology for collecting performance information. Furthermore, a majority of the agencies do not use a strategy map which is an additional procedural framework through which the score card can be applied as a system to strengthen the management of the organisation’s strategy. State development agencies should find ways to improve their performance management systems to ensure that these are effective, efficient, responsive and accountable service delivery arms as per the guiding principle of their establishment. Despite all the shortcomings identified, the majority of the respondents agreed that performance management is a method of management designed to ensure that organisations and all its components work together in order to optimise the organisational goals. It is recommended that in order for the institutions to be effective and efficient delivery arms of government, a lot of work needs to be done to reengineer the implementation of performance management as a day-to-day management tool to drive the strategy of the organisations. This includes: Taking advantage of technology and adopt easy-to-use computer-based programmes to collect performance data. These systems can be linked to the company intranet and allow all employees to update performance information in an effective and efficient manner. Focus on their reward and recognition process. The reward and recognition should be linked directly to performance not a status, job grade or seniority. Reward and recognition should be given as soon as possible after outstanding performance. In doing so, institutions should move away from secrecy about performance evaluation results and remuneration, and towards an environment of more openness (transparency). Lastly, institutions should make strategic management a core competency. This new management discipline has been adopted by the local government sphere. This means organisations should look at creating a position of strategic manager at a senior management level in their organograms.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nmmu/vital:8815 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Mashologu, Thukela Eustice |
| Publisher | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Faculty of Business and Economic Sciences |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Masters, MBA |
| Format | x, 86 leaves, pdf |
| Rights | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University |
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