The Influence of Job Training Management on Employee Performance in Kenya: a Case of Machakos County Government

Abstract

The role of training entails ensuring that the organization has the people with the correct mix of skills, through providing appropriate learning opportunities and motivating people to learn, and thus enabling them to perform to the highest levels of quality and service. Those who sought for part-time programs were disengaged after their studies as management claimed their programs were not relevant to the job. The few ones who were remained had no promotion to match their added skills and competencies. This it is believed to have led to high labor turnover in the organization. The study was therefore assessed the role of training on the human resource of Machakos County and how this affects worker performance. The specific objective of the study was; Identify the major purposes of training and development in the county, ascertain the training and development policy, identify the training and development practices and processes and find out whether training and development schemes have positive effect on the performance of workers and productivity. The target population for this study was the staff of Machakos County. Simple random sampling and stratified sampling procedure was used. The simple random sampling was used to identify the schools for the study while stratified random sampling was used to identify individual respondents. The questionnaire method was used for gathering of primary data. The sources of data were both primary and secondary. The primary data was collected from the field by use of questionnaires and interviews schedule, while secondary data was from literature review of publications, Internet, journals, and textbooks. The data gathered was analyzed through descriptive statistics such as frequency tables; central tendency to present descriptive data. The findings indicated that county’s nature of work depends mainly on high technological and sophisticated equipment. This makes continuous training and development of its human resource crucial and vital, taking into consideration the rapid technological advancement. Machakos County certainly had a well-established policy to invest in the training and development of employees, however the processes involved are not being duly followed. It also organizes training programs from time to time for its employees to update their knowledge and skills and to ensure that maximum efficiency exist in the county. Employees realized the need for change in attitude and want to develop themselves through formal education in order to be abreast with modern technological advances self-sponsored themselves to acquire these skills. It is an undeniable that in recent times many organizations have come to the realization of the importance of the role of training and development programs as it increases the organization’s staff efficiency, skills and productivity. Everyone involved should agree exactly to what the trainees are lacking, for instance what skill is needed, and what attitudes need to be changed toward work performance.