Effectiveness of E-OPRAS in Assessing and Appraising Employees’ Performance at First Housing Finance Tanzania Limited

Abstract

Assessment of worker’s performance is a complicated process which must be done with a great degree of carefulness. In Tanzania currently most of the organizations and institutions use OPRAS as the means of assessing and appraising workers from time to time. However, this situation is still having a lot of grievances as some workers point out that it is not fair and biased method of assessing employees. This is due to the fact that OPRAS involves interaction between employers and employees on the table who discuss rating of employees’ performance in a certain period of time as per objectives set initially. As such it sometimes depends on the feeling of the employers on their employees upon rating worker’s performance. For this reason, some where there is a degree of nepotism eventually employees are not assessed and appraised fairly leading into either their demotion or promotion based on employer’s feelings. For the First Housing Finance Tanzania limited the assessment of employees is done through electronic OPRAS where there is no interaction between bosses and their subordinates. Such a situation has drawn an attention to the researchers to carry out this study to assess effectiveness of using electronic OPRAS in assessing and appraising employees’ performance at FHFTL in Dar-es salaam region. This study has inspected outcomes of exercising an Open Performance Review Appraisal System at First Housing Finance Tanzania Limited (FHFTL) and provided the means to be adopted by other related organizations invested in advanced technology in their day-to-day operations. The study deployed quantitative research approach to meet the targeted goal. A census technique was deployed to obtain respondents as the study took all 68 employees at First Housing Finance Tanzania Limited (FHFTL). Data were collected by using documentary review and questionnaires. The primary data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics through the Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) version 23.0 to get statistical distribution and the outcomes were conveyed in a form of numbers for quantitative presentations. Findings revealed that organizations invested in systematic and advanced technology that integrates all the activities related to the employees’ appraisal are the best means and practice of exercising fair means of assessing and appraising employees in the organization appropriately. Based on the findings of this study we therefore recommend that employers across the country through ministry of work should re-think new ways of gauging employees rather than relying on the old approach (OPRAS) alone to determine the actual altitude and effectiveness of the employees’ performance in the organizations. The study has suggested employing the system-integrated method that assesses employees’ performance accurately through electronic means.