Employee performance in South African public service organisations dropped significantly following the Covid-19 outbreak, as most public employees were asked to work from home to control the spread of the virus. This posed difficulties for most public employees in meeting the desired standard of service delivery to South African citizens. The Ability, Motivation and Opportunity (AMO) theory has been identified by previous scholars as a theory that provides a platform for guiding employees towards optimal performance. The objective of this study was to explore how AMO theory could be used to enhance public service employees' performance in South Africa amid the Covid-19 outbreak. To achieve this objective, a systematic literature-review-based methodology was adopted, which aided an in-depth literature analysis of the AMO theory and its implementation. Information on how public servant employees could be guided towards optimal perf