Impact of performance appraisal on employees job satisfaction in health institutions in Tharaka nithi county Kenya.

Abstract

Health institutions in Kenya face a lot of challenges that affect their employee’s job satisfaction; the satisfaction levels affect both the employees’ turnover decisions and patient outcomes. Health workers performance is congruent with a hospital's long-term or short-term survival. Top managers are responsible for developing, implementing, and monitoring performance appraisals. This study examined the Impact of performance appraisal on job satisfaction in health institutions in Kenya with specific reference to Tharaka Nithi County. The specific objective of this study was: To examine the effect of Management by Objective on employee’s job satisfaction in health institutions in Tharaka Nithi County Kenya. To examine the effect of rating scales on employee’s job satisfaction in health institutions in Tharaka Nithi County in Kenya. To examine the effect of Critical Incident technique on employee’s job satisfaction in health institutions in Tharaka Nithi County Kenya. To examine the effect of paired comparison on employee’s job satisfaction on health institutions in Tharaka Nithi County Kenya. In the study the following theories were discussed; Job demands- resources (JD-R) theory, The Affect Theory and The Dispositional theory they examined in-depth how methods of performance appraisal affect job satisfaction. The independent variables for this study were various methods of performance appraisal such as Management by Objective, Rating scale, Critical incident technique and paired comparison. The study used employees’ job satisfaction level as the dependent variable and various control variables such as age, gender, education level, cadre and experience. This study used case study research design and the sample size to represent the whole population was selected by the use of stratified random sampling. The study used primary and secondary data collected from a targeted population of 1055 hospitals employees. The study used Yamane formula to determine the sample size of 91 respondents. Data was collected through the administration of the questionnaires and analyzed using SPSS version 26.0. The data was presented in form of tables, frequency distributions, percentages, pie charts and bar charts. A pilot study was carried out using a sample of 15 employees from 3 different hospitals in Embu County who were not included in the final sample. The pilot study helped in establishing the overall reliability, validity and credibility of the data collection instruments that were used in the main study. The study was conducted from February 2024 to January 2025. The total budget for the research is approximately Ksh. 88,000 designed to efficiently cater for all expenses in various stages of the research. The results revealed a strong correlation between the independent and the dependent variables as shown by R value of 0.831. In addition, the regression model revealed that 69%, (𝑅2 = 0.690) of the variation in the job satisfaction was explained. The F-test results were F = 189.222, 𝑝 = 0.000 proved the significance of the model indicated by the study. Based on these findings employees should be involved in setting organizational goals. Conducting appraisals frequently and providing regular feedback in an organization enhance the levels of satisfaction employees.