An Investigation of the Impact of Retrenchment on Service Delivery at the University Of Nairobi: A Case of Students' Welfare Authority

Abstract

The study was designed to investigate the impact of retrenchment on quality of service delivery at the University of Nairobi Students Welfare Authority (SWA).This is because retrenchment is inevitable due to the depressed economic growth world wide. Companies are reacting to trying economic times by reorganizing administrative departments, and terminating appointments. These retrenchment happenings affect service delivery either positively or negatively. This study adopted a survey design and used a stratified sampling technique to select 55 males and 38 females to participate in the study. Data were collected by use of questionnaires and interview guides. Since the data was not enormous, it was analyzed mainly by use of descriptive statistics constituting frequencies and percentages by use of by MS Excel 2003. The findings were presented using frequency tables, pie charts and bar charts. The results of this study indicate that service delivery at the University of Nairobi has improved. The current employees reported that the working environment had improved because of contracted services and computerization of operations after retrenchment. It was observed that non-teaching staff at the University of Nairobi were frustrated as thE workload had increased after retrenchment while salary had remained unchanged. The study recommends a feedback system on retrenchment to be put in place at the University of Nairobi to serve as a corrective measure to address issues like low morale and frustrations among the remaining employees. The study further recommends that for retrenchment to be effective, managers need to follow the sequential steps of identifying the need, planning, implementation, monitoring evaluation and feedback. It is recommended that a similar research be carried out to establish the effects of performance contracting and quality management systems on service delivery at the University of Nairobi.