Challenges faced by female employees in career development at Chemelil sugar company Kenya

Abstract

The concept of career development relates to the perception that every individual has about themselves in relation to their careers. Career Development involves the growth of the employee as well as the organization. The government of Kenya plays a major role in the implementation of the constitution and thus is expected to be impartial by ensuring that the 30% threshold for women employed in the state corporations is achieved. The study therefore focused on challenges faced by female employees in career development at Chemelil Sugar Company Kenya which is a state corporation. The study was based on the symbolic interractionism theory and the initiation/ modeling approach under social learning theory. The objective of the study was to establish challenges faced by female employees in career development at Chemelil Sugar Company.The study adopted a survey research approach focusing on a population of (810) permanent employees. The study used stratified sampling technique to come up with a sample size of eight hundred and ten respondents. Questionnaires with closed questions were distributed to the sampled respondents and later collected for analysis using descriptive statistics. The findings of the study were that the major challenges faced by female employees in career development at Chemelil Sugar were: education and training, lack of mentors, lack of access to informal networks and gender based discrimination. The study also established that the company had not employed the mandatory 30% of women in its workforce as per the requirements of the constitution. The study recommended that Chemelil Sugar Company should put in place measures to ensure that affirmative action is implemented and women are not only given a chance to work across the departments but are also supported in their career development, the government on the other hand should monitor to ensure that the current constitution is implemented and the 30% threshold for women in the state corporations is achieved in the spirit of building the nation.