Factors Influencing Transfer Of Knowledge From Training To Work By County Public Service Employees In Vihiga County, Kenya

Abstract

Devolution is very new in Kenya, resources having been channeled to the counties less than five years ago to facilitate better and efficient public service, which is closer to the people. The counties are therefore sorely responsible for the employees’ welfare and development but must, at the same time, justify funds allocated for capacity building. Now, these employees, previously under either the national government or the defunct local authorities are suddenly thrust into a different organizational set-up, and must adapt, willingly or otherwise, to the county situation and system of governance! Given this scenario, it is not clear whether these employees be able to translate knowledge gained in training to the work place? Based on the foregoing, the researcher sought to find out what may affect the transference of knowledge by such employees as they return to work after training, taking Vihiga County as a case study. The literature review highlighted some of the theories associated with learning and cited studies, both local and international that had already been done. However, none of them had been done on employees who find themselves thrust in such a situation as that in which the county employees find themselves in, due a change in the constitution, therefore creating a contextual knowledge gap. The research design adopted was the descriptive survey. The tool used to collect the data was a questionnaire. The data was fed into the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) for analysis. The recommendations of the study were that the three sets of factors be enhanced by a higher involvement of the organization in terms of increase in quality of management-employee interactions. The organization’s concern over its employees resulted in greater awareness of the employee to translate the skills gained in training. At the same time the respondents seemed to agree that the organization had created a conducive environment for this transfer to take place. In conclusion, the study confirmed the key factors to be the extent to which the knowledge gained is understood, expected monetary reward and overall organizational purpose for training, in that order. The study was timely and recommended that to the management that despite the past differences in the background of the employees in terms of how they found themselves in the counties, the employees require support and enhancement of the factors to further improve and ensure a committed and efficient public service.