Skills development for improved employee performance in South African municipalities

Sarah Sibiya () and Shikha Vyas-Doorgapersad ()
Additional contact information
Sarah Sibiya: University of Johannesburg, South Africa
Shikha Vyas-Doorgapersad: University of Johannesburg, South Africa

Insights into Regional Development, 2023, vol. 5, issue 4, 10-22

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 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 M53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://jssidoi.org/ird/uploads/articles/20/Sibiya ... n_municipalities.pdf (application/pdf)
https://jssidoi.org/ird/article/143 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ssi:jouird:v:5:y:2023:i:4:p:10-22

DOI: 10.9770/ird.2023.5.4(1)

Access Statistics for this article

Insights into Regional Development is currently edited by Manuela Tvaronaviciene

More articles in Insights into Regional Development from VsI Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Center
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Manuela Tvaronaviciene ().