Effectiveness of performance appraisal systems in public institutions, a case of the ministry of finance and economic affairs

The present study discusses the effectiveness of performance appraisal systems in public institution. The existing problem is the poor management of employees 'performance appraisal in public institutions, In Tanzania. The goal was to look at the effectiveness of the instruments of employees 'performance appraisal in the Ministry. It focused on general knowledge of the performance appraisal practices, employees' involvement in performance appraisal process, and the conformance of Performance Appraisal practices to the performance policies. The system now used by the Tanzania government to evaluate the performance of its employees is TFN 832 or OPRAS. Given the nature of the research problem, the case study methods of qualitative approach were used in this study. The research was carried out in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs in Tanzania, and it drew its sample from employees from the Ministry. The researcher used questionnaires and carried out a documentary analysis as the means of obtaining data and elaborations from the respondents. In order to achieve its aim, self administered questionnaires were distributed to 88 respondents, out of those respondents, 82 returned their filled in questionnaire which is 93.2 percent of the total respondents. The study results revealed that employee performance appraisal at the Ministry is not very well utilized. The new system for appraising public employees which was introduced in 2004 has not produced expected results. Majority of employees were not yet taught on how to fill the forms, not involved in discussion with supervisors, and not given enough time to prepare for the meeting, as the results, there is no feedback provided to employees after filling the forms. So far, the instructions for filling the forms are not well understood, and the Ministry action plans are poorly translated into an employee performance appraisal system. The available appraisal system is not used by Ministry's management for making important employees' decisions. Poor management commitment and cumbersome appraisal forms were among the factors believed by the respondents to be the factors that hinder the effectiveness of OPRAS. It was recommended that OPRAS forms should be decentralized to fit a particular organization's environment, communication between employees and management should be improved and Performance Appraisal should be used to make administrative decisions like disciplinary actions, promotion and training.