Examination and Monitoring of Staff Commitment as a Tool for Appraising Performance in the Nigerian Banking Industry

Abstract

Management nowadays seems to lay more emphasis on monitoring activities in their workplaces. For banks, no doubt, these workplace monitoring efforts provide for adequate security, but its effective use by management as a strategy of performance appraisal, especially for staff promotional cases is still much desired. The paper therefore examined the relationship between constantly staff re-examination and monitoring and employees’ promotional opportunity with a view to enhance performance at workplaces. Data were collected through questionnaires administered on 74 staff members of selected banks located in the popular cosmopolitan city of Ota near Lagos using both convenience and multi-stage sampling methods. Frequency counts, simple percentages and regression analysis were employed to analyse the data collected. Results showed that 70.3% of the respondents agreed that feedback from monitoring records may greatly influence promotion decisions. However, regression results (R = 0.125, R2 = 0.016, p value 0.288) revealed that there is a very low positive  insignificant correlation between staff monitoring and promotional opportunities for employees in the banks, with staff monitoring having only 1.6% predictive effect on promotion decisions. This implies that feedback got from monitoring activities in the workplace was not used to make important decisions that affect employee promotional opportunity. The study concluded that despite staff general awareness of its adoption, the potentials of workplace monitoring as a strategic tool of staff performance appraisal are not yet defined and fully  realised. Management should therefore intensify efforts in this direction. Also, workplace monitoring should continue to take cognisance of employees’ privacy while engaging more seamless procedures through the use of latest technological instruments.

Keywords: Employees, Workplace Monitoring, Staff Commitment,, Performance Appraisal, Banking Industry.