Alignment of Human Resource Practices With Business Strategies at Geothermal Development Company in Kenya
Abstract
Human resource practices and business strategy drive organizations towards the achievement of the main goal. Human resource practices such as recruitment and selection, training and development, promotion among others as well as identification and categorization of business strategies play a very important role to contemporary organizations in the 21st century. However, despite this significance of the two, little research has been undertaken on the alignment of human resource practices with business strategies in companies in Kenya. This is a gap that researchers should seek to fill toestablish how human resource practices should be aligned with business strategies in a company. This study was therefore commissioned to investigate alignment of human resource practices with business strategies at Geothermal Development Company. This study could be instrumental to Geothermal Development Company, other companies operating in Kenya, the Government of Kenya and future researchers for policy development purposes and for future references and citation. The theoretical foundation of this study was supported by resource based theory and human capital theory. This study used case study as research design because the unit of analysis is one organization namely Geothermal Development Company. Primary data was collected using interview guide. Interview guide consisted of short questions linking human resource practices with various aspects of business strategy. There were two respondents were the Manager in charge of HR development and Manager HR planning, resource and performance. Data was analyzed using content analysis because it was qualitative in nature. The study established that Geothermal Development Company had four broad based business strategies namely: below five year strategy (with four main objectives under it), five year strategy, ten year strategy and twenty year strategy. The study further established that GDC business strategies were aligned with human resources practices in form of actions and strategies to drive the achievement. Findings revealed that every category of the GDC strategy had HR actions and strategies aligned to it to support implementation and the achievement. The critical analysis indicate that all the GDC business strategies were broken down into manageable chunks and each category aligned with HR actions and strategies that facilitate the implementation and realization of the said objectives. This GDC human resource practices alignment with business strategies could be the source and an indicator of the many geothermal development projects the company have carried out and achieved in its endeavour to improve power generation in Kenya. The study therefore strongly recommends that companies align their human resource practices with the business strategies to guarantee effective implementation of the strategies and improve the chances of achievement of such strategies. This study further suggests that future studies be undertaken on this discipline with focus on other companies operating in Kenya to add to the body of knowledge.
Publisher
University of Nairobi