EFFECTS OF PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL ON EMPLOYEES' PRODUCTIVITY (A CASE STUDY OF DANGOTE FLOUR MILL)

INTRODUCTION In any evaluation of the condition necessary for the growth and survival of an organization, the role of employee performance appraisal is a strategic factor. It is believed that both the individual and the organization need to know how well actual performance is contributing to the accomplishment of the job plans, the staffing plan, and ultimately the overall strategic plan of the organization. In addition, the individual employee requires feedback relative to his or her own goals development, as well as that relative to management’s expectations. Employee Performance appraisal is a formal and systematic assessment of an employee to determine the degree to which the employee is performing his/her job effectively. It is usually made in a prescribed manner of specific intervals such as quarterly, bi-annually or even annually. Each employee at one time or the other wants his immediate boss or more still his employer to assess his on-the-job performance, and where necessary give him guidelines or advice for improving his efficiency. An effective performance review system serves these general purposes. In other words, as Nwachukwu 1985 puts it, “the essence of performance appraisal is to give information for the promotion, demotion, transfer, pay increase, training and development and discharge of an employee”. Secondly, it provides employees with constructive on how they are performing in their jobs as viewed by their managers, thus leading to increased productivity. Therefore, in any organization, manpower remains the most prominent and the most valuable assets among other factors of production. It is this reason performance appraisal is given recognition as a tool to improve organizational activities.
1.2STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM Since the study seeks to examine employee performance appraisal as management tool for increased productivity in Dangote Flour Mill Plc. It therefore attempts to identify various employee appraising techniques, some common appraisal problems and how proper performance appraisal can enhance increased productivity in Dangote Flour Mill Plc.
1.3OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY The purpose of writing this project is to investigate into how employee performance appraisal can enhance increased productivity in Dangote Flour Mill Plc. The study will among other things try: •To find out the various employee performance appraisal techniques used. •To examine the implications of employee performance appraisal and productivity. •To provide bases for reward employees in relations to their contribution to the organization. •To identify some common appraisal problems of employees and how proper appraisal can enhance increased productivity. •To make some used recommendations to management.

1.4STATEMENT OF HYPOTHESIS A hypothesis is a conjectural statement of relationship between two or more variables. They are always in declarative sentence form, and they relate either generally or specifically, variable or variables. They are particularly necessary in the studies of this nature where cause and effect relationships are to be discovered. H1:Performance appraisal techniques provide formal management procedure used in the evaluation of work performance in the organization. H0:Performance appraisal techniques do not provide formal management procedure used in the evaluation of work performance in the organization. 1.5SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY •The study is of vital importance to organization’s effectiveness, hence the result will be useful to the organization in developing effective and efficient performance appraisal plans and programmes` to aid the organization in its goals attainment. •The importance of this study therefore is to research into those benefits that performance appraisal could bring to the organization, employer and the employees alike. •The study could also be valuable as source of reference to students of management studies who mighty carry out similar or further research in this area.

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURES Studies have shown that no organization can develop without the existence of systematic appraisal. A good performance appraisal is the one that helps employee to know his or her stand in the company. Performance is the degree of accomplishment of the tasks that make an individual’s job. It is often confused with efforts which refer to energy expended. However, performance is measured in terms of results and combination of three factors – efforts, ability and direction makes the quality of performance. According to Rue and Byars (1982: 13), effort refers to how hard a person works, that is, the amount of energy (physical or mental) used by an individual in performing a task, while ability is concerned with personal characteristics used in performing a job. And direction refers to how well the person understands what is expected of the job. Peter Drucker (1983:41) in his book, Management: Tasks, Responsibilities and Practices, opined that it is the “test of an organization to make ordinary human beings perform better than they seem capable of”. Wendell French (1979:7) in discussing performance appraisal, observed that it is an attempt to provide data about past, present and expected future performance so that appropriate decision can be made. He also argued that although appraisal tends to be taken place somewhere within the organization at any moment in time. Systematic performance appraisal of an individual employee is likely to occur at intervals throughout the person’s employment. According to Rue Byars (1982:161) performance appraisal is a “process that involves communicating to an employee how he is performing the job and ideally involves establishing plan for improvement”. He viewed the use of performance appraisal in organization as promotion and demotion, transfer, layoffs, discharge, counseling with employee, human resource planning and wage and salary administration.