Insights into Regional Development

Enter to ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND
SUSTAINABILITY CENTER page

Enter to ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND
SUSTAINABILITY ISSUES page

Navigation

Membership:

Recommended tools:

Get Mendeley Web Importer:

Join a global community of researchers using Kudos:

Received: 2023-07-15 | Accepted: 2023-10-18 | Published: 2023-12-30

Title

Skills development for improved employee performance in South African municipalities

Abstract

This study explores skills development for improved employee performance in South African municipalities. This study was motivated by the need to expedite local government service delivery, hampered by municipal employees' poor capacity and skills over the years. Many municipalities need help to fulfil their service delivery obligations because of the requisite skills' scarcity, absence, and shortage. The study explores the skills development of municipal employees (focus) in South African municipalities (locus). It does not focus on one chosen municipality but looks at the situation holistically from a broader perspective. The study aims to find answers to the research question: what are the causes of skills shortage on employee performance in South African municipalities? A qualitative desktop study was adopted to find answers to the guiding question, and various secondary documents were analysed to gather information. The human capital theory was used as a framework for the study. The findings show that most local government employees' skills are outside the dictates of the current era. The study recommends interventions, among other things, improving local government skills development funding, adequately implementing monitoring and evaluation practices, developing soft skills for the current fourth industrial revolution era, and performing regular municipal skills audits.

Keywords

employee performance, Fourth Industrial Revolution, local government, service delivery, skills development, South Africa

JEL classifications

J24 , M53

URI

http://jssidoi.org/ird/article/143

DOI

DOI 10.9770/ird.2023.5.4(1)

Pages

10-22

Funding

This is an open access issue and all published articles are licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Authors

Sibiya, Sarah

University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa https://www.uj.ac.za

Articles by this author in: CrossRef | Google Scholar

Vyas-Doorgapersad , Shikha

University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa https://www.uj.ac.za

Articles by this author in: CrossRef | Google Scholar

Journal title

Insights into Regional Development

Volume

Number

Issue date

December 2023

Issue DOI

DOI 10.9770/ird.2023.5.4

ISSN

ISSN 2345-0282 (online)

Publisher

VšĮ Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Center, Vilnius, Lithuania

Cited

Article views & downloads

HTML views: 379 | PDF downloads: 159

References

Al Mehrzi, N., & Singh, S.K. 2016. Competing through employee engagement: A proposed framework. International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, 65(6), 831-843. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPPM-02-2016-0037