Effectiveness of Training and Development on Employees' Performance in South African Municipalities With Special Reference to Umzumbe Local Municipality

South Africa is a developing country, and organisations are always in the process of having to improve operational, functional, as well as human resource components. Organisations focus on continuous improvement and as a result training and development of skills and knowledge of its personnel has become an important area. Training and development is key in any organisation and therefore should be a priority for any organisation. Lack of training and development leads to employee demotivation, as well as, an increase in labour turnover with the municipality (Muhammad, 2010). The main objectives of this study were to assess the influence of training and development on employees' performance, and to understand employees' perceptions towards training and development at Umzumbe Local Municipality. The qualitative research approach was used, and the data was collected using semi-structured interviews, which was analysed by applying the thematic analysis tool. The non-probability purposive sampling was employed for proper selection of the participants. Fifteen participants from different units (middle and lower structures) within the municipality participated in this study. The results of the study reflect that it is critical to proper align the objectives of the training and development programmes with the needs of employees so to better capacitate and motivate them to execute their duties efficiently. Furthermore, the results has shown that the municipality must have proper measures to ensure that the training and development programmes are in line with the needs of the municipality. This study recommended that municipality must conduct the skills audit in order to develop relevant training and development programmes for the employees. Furthermore, municipality must have measures in place that will assess the impact or benefit of training and development programmes on the performance of the employees.