dc.description.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 | en_US |