Role Of Performance Appraisal To Human Resource Management

INTRODUCTION
This chapter discussed about the background of the study, statement of the problems, objectives of the study, the research questions, and significance of the study, scope of the study, limitations of the study, definition of terms and history of the case.
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
In any business organization, effective of human resources, required a complete knowledge of employer’s capabilities and effective record system.
To achieve these objectives, it has become necessary to regularly take stock of the experience at other levels of employment. This could be done with the help of performance appraisal.
Performance appraisal could be defined as “The process of measuring necessary level of organization members”. It is one of the most delicate issues in human resource management because an employee overall success in an organization depends largely on the outcome of performance appraisal. It is of importance to state here that some bosses take advantage of this to undermine the prospect of employee they have.
This is a proven performance appraisal system linking organization and employee’s goal, is of paramount importance because it can serve as a development tool to advice and motivate employees.
Furthermore, it could be as well assist employee to understand what is expected of them in a job and where they fit into in an organization.
The fact that there are scarcely few employees who would not like their manager to know exactly of their performance appraisal scheme a controversial subject.
In small organizations with few employees the level of interaction between the managers and their employees is as close that employees generally know what their bosses think of them.
However, in large organization such as UBA, the degree of interaction is so remote that many employees find it difficult to precisely know what their manager thinks of them.
In contemporary atmosphere of worldwide recession especially in Nigeria of downright economic growth characterized by massive unemployment and increasing number of employee redundancy, these organization (UBA) which are holding their own are likely to be much more interested in maximizing the effective use of existing personnel than hiring new staff.
It therefore follows, that if performance appraisal is properly utilized, it could go along way in assisting the management of the bank in its human resources planning and development.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Most organization and quite interested in determining the quality and level of performance of their employees in assessing the potential they demonstrate for further development and in identifying areas of weakness that they may required assistance and training.
The process of appraising the performance of employees is made difficult for the fact that criteria of effective and ineffective performance are frequently difficult to define, the areas of performance which an individual is responsible is often unclear, and evaluations tend to be base not in measurement of actual performance but on the perceptions and judgment of immediate boss. Some of the judgment characteristics of performance appraisal in organization are unavoidable because of complexity of managerial jobs and the difficulties inherent in clearly defining concrete of effective performance.
At the same time vagueness and ambiguity associated with the appraisal process can be caused by inadequate attention being paid by organization to design and functioning of performance appraisal system.
In this context, it is particularly doubtful of the extent to which the employees of UBA are usually satisfied after the appraisal exercise. This is because instances abound where a staff has spent over a years on one post without promotion.
One is tempted therefore to conclude that performance appraisal is not so effective in assisting management to select the right people for improvement.
Further, it appears that the general feeling among the UBA staff is that performance appraisal has not achieved the desired objective. This study implies that all is not well with the way performance appraisal is being conducted in UBA.
Bearing in mind that the nature of human being and the fact that they constitute the most difficult variables for managers to predict and control the research study will examine the performance appraisal system as it is practical in UBA with the hope that exposition of its pros and cons will assist the management to define an effective and result oriented performance appraisal.

1.3 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
1. To evaluate the strength of performance appraisal in support with data that could help the UBA management to make an effective use of its human resources.
2. To find out how effective is the use of performance appraisal as a tool for determining promotion, salary increase and training.
3. To find out whether the employees of the bank are usually satisfied with the way they are being appraised by their supervisor.

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
For the fact that in employees performance, the manager is always ready to make comments, the researcher is curios to ask some questions which is hoped would bring clarity to some doubt on the validity of performance appraisal as a tool for measuring employees performance.
The questions are:
1. Should employees be rewarded based on his/her scores in performance appraisal report?
2. Are employees aware of the method of approach to performance evaluation being used in management?
3. In what areas has the banks performance appraisal scheme created an impact on employees?
4. Do bosses influence performance appraisal report?

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The whole process of performance appraisal exercise involves reviewing the past to enable proper projection to be made of the future.
The study there is as important as the objective and growth of any business organization. Business as are known cannot generate organization to operate profitably, both employers and employees must work in an understanding and satisfying atmosphere so that one will not be seen as an obstacle to the other.
This study will therefore uncover ways of reducing friction that may occur in the union between managers and subordinates as well as ushering in a peaceful industrial harmony in the organization.
The UBA Plc will find the study particularly useful in human resources planning of the company. This study will also serve as an insight for management on the proper use of performance evaluation on their subordinates.
Finally, the study can motivate other interested researchers in this subject thereby given them the driven force to venture into a fresh field of study.

1.7 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The study will be restricted to the head office division and some areas like promotion salary increase, training and reward for hardworking.
To make the research work more reliable and valid, the sample size will cut across all categories of junior staff, officers, managers, and few management staff of the bank.

1.7 LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
The major limitation is the short period with which to complete this project.
Furthermore, to cover next 200 branches of the bank all over the country will be a difficult task for the researcher. Also the field needed to conduct and implement the research study is inadequate to secure the research material needed for the study.

1.8 DEFINITION OF TERMS
In order to achieve clearness and avoid misconception, an attempt will be made here to define some terminologies in this study.
 MOTIVATION: This refers to the process of initiating and directing behaviours. An individual produces and sustains behavious when he or she finds it rewarding to do so, that is when the behaviour accomplishes an objective which satisfies a need.
 SUPERVISOR AND SUBORDINATES: The term supervisor is used to denote the person doing the appraising and the term subordinates is used to refer to the employees whose performance is being appraised.
 VALIDITY: This refers to the degree of measuring instrument, measures what is intended to be measured. A valid performance appraisal system must specific performance criteria that are job related and important as well as being easily determine through job analysis so that employees contribution to the organization be evaluate based on the degree to which they perform those criteria and attain those result specified in the job analysis.
 MANAGEMENT: This is the controlling of organization and control of human activities directed towards specific aims and objectives.
 SALARY: This is payment for regular employment paid per month or per week.
 MANAGERS: This refers to those who undertake as the activities of planning, organizing, controlling and directing men, material, machine and money I a such a way that will lead to effective and efficient achievement of organization goal.
 OBJECTIVES: The ends towards which any activities is aimed at the point of planning.
 ORGANIZATION: This is a statement that enables people to work to together in order to achieve a common objective.
 MANAGEMENT BY OBJECTIVE: Management by objective are programmes that are based on managerial planning, and appraisal which enables each manager to set objective in variable terms and also helps is assessing higher worker performance against the achievement of these objective.

1.9 HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT: This is used to influence individual employees and the job they perform. The intention is to match the abilities and motivation of employers with the requirement and reward for job.

BRIEF HISTORY OF THE CASE STUDY
United Bank for Africa (UBA) was founded by the British and French Bank Limited Industry. It was establish in 1949 when the British and French Bank Limited started to do business in Nigeria.
Eventually the United Bank for Africa was incorporated to replace the British and French Bank Limited in 1961, right after Nigeria government. UBA was said to be the third largest bank in Nigeria until it was merged with the country’s fifth largest bank.
As for today the United Bank for Africa offers its banking services to over 7million customers, apart from its headquarters, the UBA also maintains a total of 750 branches across New York, Paris, London and in other 19 countries all over Africa.
In 1970, the UBA was included on the Nigeria stock exchange, proving UBA’s fast development into a pan-Africa Bank full service financial institution. The United Bank for Africa has successfully established itself as a dominant bank in Nigeria as well as one of the key players in Africa.
Also the UBA has gained recognition for its exponential growth during the late 1990s as well as for its comparatively high inflow of investments coming from international finance player.
In 2000, the UBA was listed as the best domestic bank in Nigeria by Euromoney, the frontline finance and economic magazine in Europe. In addition to that recognition, the UBA was also awarded as the emerging global Bank by the pan-Africa magazine in 2007.