The Extent of Adoption of Strategic Human Resource Management Practices Among Cement Manufacturing Companies in Machakos County, Kenya

Abstract

The adoption of strategic human resource management practices enables strategic decisions to be made by management that have major and long term impact on behavior, profitability and success of the organization. This is can be achieved by ensuring that organizations have skilled, committed and well motivated employees to achieve their objectives. Cement companies are expected to play a vital role in realizing vision 2030 which realizes millennium development goals. Despite this noble role, a closer look at the operations of cement companies reveals that they face challenges related to strategic human resource management practices. The objective of this study was to establish the extent of adoption strategic human resource management practices among cement manufacturing companies in Machakos County. The study included strategic human resource management practices such as human resource planning, recruitment and selection, training and development, performance management, compensation, employee relations and employee termination. The study adopted a cross-sectional descriptive census survey design .The study population consisted of 5 cement companies in Machakos county. The study was carried out through a survey because of the cross-sectional nature of the data collected. Primary data collection was done through the use of a structured questionnaire and the respondents included the heads of human resource departments. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and presented in percentages, simple tables, charts and bar graph. The study found out that the cement manufacturing companies in Machakos county have adopted strategic human resource management practices to a great extent and recommends that the same studies be conducted on other manufacturing firms.