Perceived factors affecting performance of customer service staff in water resources management authority
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Date
2012-11Author
Nyambura, Susan
Type
ThesisLanguage
enMetadata
Show full item recordAbstract
In an organisation, people are the key resources through which all other objectives are
achieved. Without united human efforts no organisation can achieve its goals.
Employee performance is considered as one of the important factors of production. It
has become commonplace to say that the management of human resources is and
should be a partner in developing and implementing an organisation’s strategy.
Organisations today are grappling with revolutionary trends; accelerating product and
technological change, international competition, deregulation, demographic changes,
and a shift towards a service society. These trends have increased dramatically the
degree of competition in virtually all industries. Organisations will either be forced to
become competitive high-performers or will be phased out by their competitors.
The public sector institutions in Kenya is characterised by poor customer service
leading to a lot of dissatisfaction and loss of revenue. This has prompted the need to
draw more attention to customer care and redefine service quality from the customer’s
perspective. Fletcher identified challenges of having an efficient customer service as
dependent on staffing policies, motivation, remuneration and ability of staff to adopt
new technologies.
This study focuses on identification of the perceived factors affecting the performance
of customer service staff at Water Resources Management Authority. The study
included administering questionnaires to a hundred and fifty staff of Water Resources
Management Authority comprising of front office staff, enforcement/commercial
services staff and management. Completed questionnaires were then edited for
vi
completeness and consistency and then analysed/interpreted using descriptive
statistics.
The research findings were that the performance of customer service staff at Water
Resources Management Authority is low due to lack of training opportunities for all
staff members, lack of training tailored to the needs of the staff, lack of recognition of
staff performance and uniform compensation of all staff regardless of their
performance. This has contributed to low motivation of customer service staff
negatively affecting their performance.
Publisher
University of Nairobi School Of Business, University Of Nairobi