| dc.description.abstract | Retrenchment of employees is a process undertaken by an organization to reduce the workforce of an organization to improve the operational efficiency. It is usually designed to improve efficiency productivity and/or competitiveness. Retrenchment represents a strategy implemented by managers that affects the size of the firm’s workforce and its processes. The purpose of this study was to investigate the process of implementation of staff retrenchment program in Rift Valley Railways Western region, Kisumu. The researcher used a content analysis to analyze the views of the respondent by extracting the themes and subthemes from the response. In carrying out the retrenchment, the organization set up a retrenchment committee to undertake the retrenchment process. The retrenchment committee had a representative from all the departments in the organization, the management of the organization and a representative from the trade union. The task of the committee was to establish the severance fee for the retrenched workers, the communication protocol of the retrenchment process, the selection of the employees to be retrenched and the procedures for selecting the employees. The criterion that was used to select the employees for retrenchment was age, experience, discipline of the employees, experience and the excess employees in the departments. Voluntary retirement was also sought to get employees for retrenchment. The retrenched employees were paid a one month salary for every year worked, ten thousand shillings for transport of belongings, a golden handshake of 120,000 shillings. The retrenchment process led to loss of staff. Retrenchment of old employees also led to a work force of young and inexperienced employees. In the case of the dissatisfied employees, the employees were given a chance to report their displeasure in a Complaints Committee. The appeal goes through the complaints department through the legal advisor and then to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for deliberation. Once the CEO has studied the complaint it is passed to the Appeals Committee which comprises of the CEO, the department head and the legal advisor.
The Appeal Committee investigates the complaints of the complainant. If an appeal is effective the right decision is followed considering the rights of the employee. The study recommends that future researcher should include the views of victims of retrenchment, members of trade union and the surviving employees as well as the human resource department. The study also recommends that future researchers should investigate the contribution of the retrenchment on the performance of the organizations. | en |
