Exploring Leave Management Practices and Relationship with Performance of Administrative Staff: Evidence from a Tertiary Institution in Ghana

Effective leave management encompasses integrated processes that involve employees, supervisors and human resource managers. This study explored leave management practices and relationship with the performance of University administrators, using a Technical University as a case study. This became necessary due to the systemic challenges associated with the current leave management practices. The purpose of this research was to solicit the views of staff on the leave management practices and how it affects performance. Using Yamane (1967) sample determination formula, a total of 96 University administrators were conveniently selected from a population of 200 to participate in the study. A self-administered questionnaire was adopted as the primary instrument for data collection. The analysis of the results focused on the cause-effect relationship between leave management and staff performance using regression. The hypothesis that there is no linear relationship between the predictor and dependent variable was rejected. The study, therefore, concludes that there exists a linear relationship between the predictor (Leave system) and the dependent variable (Staff performance). The study further established that the leave application process at the University is more manual than electronic and also bureaucratic. It is also unevenly distributed over the year but rather heavily tilted towards the last two quarters of the year where majority of staff (86%) take their annual leave. It is, therefore, recommended that management institutes measures to enhance the efficiencies in the leave management practices by automating the processes to reduce bureaucracies, errors, and also ensure yearly even distribution of the leave.