Perceived Relationship Between Career Development and Employee Commitment and Engagement at Nairobi City County Government
Abstract
Assessing workforce attitude is a business imperative. Committed and engaged employees
are invaluable assets to an organization as high levels of employee commitment and
engagement promote retention of talent, foster customer loyalty, and improve organizational
performance and stakeholder value. The development of employees for future positions
enables organizations to develop and place employees in positions compatible with their
individual career interests, needs, and goals. However, most of the previous studies done on
career development did not focus on public institutions. It is against these that the study
sought to establish the perceived relationship between career development and employee
commitment and engagement at Nairobi County Government.
A descriptive survey research design was adopted. The target population of this study were
443employees at Nairobi County government (Nairobi County Government Registry, 2015).
Stratified random sampling technique is used to arrive at the sample size. The researcher used
a questionnaire as the primary data collection instrument. Descriptive statistics involved the
use of absolute and relative (percentages) frequencies, measures of central tendency and
dispersion (mean and standard deviation respectively). Frequency tables and graphs used to
present the data for easy comparison.
The study found that career development practices (career planning, coaching, counselling
and mentoring) greatly affected employee commitment and engagement at Nairobi County
Government. The study concludes that that the County government has a policy that governs
career development for its staff, has put in place coaching practice in developing staff for
future positions as an organization. Career counselling which is also a fundamental human
resource policy is applied to a greater extent in the County. The study also concludes that
management suggests specific strategies to accomplish work objectives by providing junior
employee with specific guidance for achieving career goals. This study recommends that the
County government should formulation of appropriate career development policies to
adequately address the training needs. These include: policy makers in the County moving
with speed to give their HR departments’ full mandate to formulate HR policy on career
development function which sets guidelines and framework on how to successfully conduct
and implement the findings\surveys on career development. Assessment to effectively tackle
career development deficiencies and to ensure staff is clear on their career growth.
Publisher
University of Nairobi