Perceived Effect of Career Development Programs on Job Satisfaction of Police Officers at the Administration Police Headquarters, Kenya

Abstract

How to create, navigate and sustain business competitiveness in a fast paced and technological or other market disruptions without negatively impacting on organization’s most valuable resource, its employees is the singular and omnipresent challenge in most organizations today. In order to achieve and overcome the above challenge, it’s imperative for progressive and dynamic organizations to have well-structured career development programs. This is primarily because, career development programs increasingly target twin objectives; organizational performance and employees’ expectations. A well-crafted and implemented career development policy with a vision to create a congruency of organization business objectives and employees career goals and expectations, puts the organization in the right pedestal to achieve employees’ job satisfaction. Hence making the organization the employer of choice and increasing the level of staff retention. While there exist tones of literature on employee satisfaction and its influences, there is sparse literature concerning the role of professional development practices or programs especially in security sector, more so from developing economies. The study examined this topic by enquiring the perceived impact of career development programs on job satisfaction at Administration Police Service (APS), headquarters, in Kenya. This study applied two theories, social cognitive as the anchor theory to explain the concept of career success while two factor theory to understand the concept of motivation. The study applied descriptive research design, Pearson correlation and regression analysis models. The total respondents or population under study was 319 employees of the Administration Police Service, Headquarters with a sample of 64 being selected by use of stratified random sampling method. A study questionnaire was utilized as an instrument during data collection. The analysis was effected by use of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software for inferential statistics. The study findings concluded that majority of respondents agreed that career development practices of training; career planning, career counselling, mentorship and coaching; and socialization are vital tools to job satisfaction. The study found that career development programs had a positive relationship with employees’ job satisfaction in APS. The respondents highlighted their expectations from employer in guiding them to navigate their career journey. The research findings show that career development practices in Administration Police Service also have significant relationship with job satisfaction. However, these programs should be well-structured and coordinated to achieve desired results. In summary the study found out that career development programs can be a useful organizational tool kit to create employees job satisfaction and achievement of business objectives. This is by aligning them with employees’ expectations in terms of careers to create job satisfaction