Effect of feedback and rewards on employee performance: City of Johannesburg Municipality’s case

Background: The major challenge of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality Council has been poor service delivery attributable to the poor performance management systems. Aim: This study aims to determine how feedback and rewards affect the work performance of the employees in terms of work quality, quantity, and efficiency. Setting: This article was guided by the responses from employees of the municipality to assert how feedback and rewards have helped to improve their work performance. Methods: The stratified sampling method was adopted in the study. The sample of 371 employees was allocated to the different strata of the population using allocation proportional to size, while participants from each stratum were identified using the simple random sampling method and interviewed using structured questionnaire. Results: The study showed that paid leave was the only type of reward the employees received. The respondents disagreed that employees were fairly rewarded for their performance; that the reward system facilitated attracting and retaining the right kind of people, and that the managers have regular meetings to discuss their performance progress. Feedback and rewards do not jointly significantly ( p > 0) predict work quality but are significant predictors of work quantity and work efficiency. Conclusion: The study concluded that managers should be trained to link praise, recognition, cash, and non-cash rewards to specific results and all levels of accomplishments should be rewarded while ensuring effective feedback delivery. Contribution: The study highlighted how managers' effective and efficient feedback and reward appraisal and management can enhance the productivity of the organisation.