SYSTEMATIC APPROACH TO TRAINING AND EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE OF MURANG’A COUNTY GOVERNMENT, KENYA
Wacheke M. W. - Masters of Business Administration, Kenyatta University, Kenya
Dr. Rosemarie W. - Department of Business Administration, Kenyatta University, Kenya
ABSTRACT
Many public sector organizations engage in training of staff and have departments, units and sectors in charge of training. The County government of Murang’a is one such organization that has been practicing training since its beginning and particularly for the past five years. However, for about five years now it appears training in the county government is unsystematic, and several of its employees such as accounts clerks, secretaries, drivers and support staff have not qualified for any form of training nor is there any systematic process of staff training in place. Owing to this the service delivery by employees in the county government has declined and the employees are not effective and efficient in their roles. The study sought to determine the systematic approach to training on employee performance in Murang’a County government, Kenya. The specific objectives were to determine the effect of the training needs analysis, training design, training policies and training programs evaluation on performance of employees in Murang’a County. The study was anchored on the following three theories; resource based view theory, social learning theory and human capital theory. The study used a descriptive research design. The population of study was all county government employees Murang’a County’s 7 Sub-counties. The sample was developed using stratified random sampling technique, the sample size was 10% of the total population. The primary data was collected by use of self-administered semi-structured questionnaire. Validity of the questionnaires was ensured through face content and construct validity while reliability was confirmed using the Cronbach’s alpha with a threshold of 0.7. Data analysis was done by use of both descriptive and inferential statistics. Descriptive analysis was done using mean scores and standard deviation and inferential statistics was measured using multiple regression with 0.5% level of significance using SPSS version 21 software. Data was presented using tables, charts and graphs. The study established that systematic approach training had a positive and significant effect on the performance of employees in the County Government of Murang’a. It was concluded that the county government to a moderate extent employed training needs analysis as a systematic approach training to improve the capacity of new and existing employees in their operations. The study concludes that the county government to a significant extent has enhanced training design development, customization, facilitation and policy reinforcement. The study concluded that the county had training policies in place but their implementation, monitoring and feedback were below expectations and evaluated its training programs however not continuously and was mainly reactionary instead of being a learning one to enable draw feedback and come up with areas of improvement. The study recommends that the county government of Murang’a needs to involve employees in training needs assessment to improve the relevance of the trainings .The study recommended that there is need for continuous monitoring and evaluation of the training programs to ensure optimal performance. The county government needs to come up with friendly and relevant training policies that can enhance capacity development among the new, existing and stakeholder staff.
