Employees Involvement as Agent of Change Management and Performance of Local Governments in Eastern Uganda: An Empirical Study

Abstract

Performance of Local Governments is key in delivering essential services to the citizens of the Country. Citizen get health, education for children thus developing the human resource, roads to enable movement of people and goods to markets, and technical assistance for farmers. However, the citizens are not getting the appropriate levels of services: evidenced by poor health facilities, low grades in schools, impassable or no roads despite Government and donor funding. The question, therefore, is; how can Local Governments improve performance in service delivery? The study investigated the relationship between employee involvement and performance of Local Governments in Eastern Uganda. A cross-sectional study design was used involving both quantitative and qualitative approaches with a sample of 48. Stratified, simple random and purposive sampling techniques were used to select the respondents. Data analysis involved descriptive and inferential statistics of Spearman Product Moment Correlation and regression. The findings indicated a strong positive relationship (r=0.724**) between employees involvement and performance of Local Governments. Employees involvement accounted for 55% (Adjusted R2 = 0.550) of variance in performance of Local Governments in Eastern Uganda. The study concludes that there is a strong positive relationship between employees involvement and performance of Local Governments. It is recommended that the managers and practitioners of Local Governments in Eastern Uganda should involve employees as change agents so as to improve performance.