The paper is on the Implications of employee participation in decision making for the performance of local government administration in Nigeria. Three local governments in Enugu state were selected for the study. The paper is an empirical research using survey design approach with a population of 1972 drawn from Enugu East (526), Enugu North (746), and Enugu South (649) local government areas. A sample size of 331 employees was used. The instruments used for data generation was structured questionnaire and frequencies and percentages were used for analysis. The findings of the study include that employees’ participation significantly increases the quality of service delivery, reduces work error, increases job satisfaction, enhances better policy implementation, and better directs employees’ efforts towards organizational goals. Challenges facing employees’ participation include assumed poor knowledge and skill of employees; lack of trust of employees by top management that limit their participatory space; management unwillingness to share information with junior staff; and the traditional top-down decision making approach to management.
Keywords: Decision Making, Employees, Implementation, Local government Administration, Participation, Performance
