THE USE OF PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAPE COAST: PERCEPTION OF SENIOR ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF

ABSTRACT Performance appraisal is a mechanism for determining the performance levels of employees in any organization and based on it reward and training programmes are implemented. This study was undertaken to find out the perception of senior administrative staff oftheUniversity of Cape Coast on the use of performance appraisal in the University. It also sought to find out the various ways in which performance appraisal promotes career development and improves staff performance. A descriptive survey design was adopted for this study. Stratifiedsampling method and the lottery method of simple random sampling were used to select 210 samplesize out ofa population of 458 senior administrative staffof the University of Cape Coast. Questionnaire was the main instrument used. The questionnaire had both open ended and close-ended questions. 207 questionnaires were retrieved from respondents, representing98.6% return rate. Data collected were analysed using frequencies, mean, standard deviations and percentages. The findings revealed that 81.8% of senior administrativestaff perceives the University’s appraisal system mainly being evaluative in nature. The findings also revealed that 82% and 72.2% ofsenior administrative staff perceives the University’s performance appraisal system has little effect onpromoting career development and improving staff performance respectively since it is mainly evaluative than developmental. It wasrecommended that the University needs to adopt a performance appraisal system which appraisal reports of employees are discussed with immediate supervisors and based on for staff training programmes.