Human resource training and employee performance in public universities in Kenya

Abstract

Public universities are labour intensive institutions which depend on people for effective service delivery. Human resource development has served the needs of organizations to provide employees with up-to-date expertise. Employee superior performance occurs because of good quality training program that leads to employee motivation and their needs fulfillment. However, public universities in Kenya have been continually to lag behind the private universities in terms of human resource training which has affected their performance. The purpose of the study was to examine the impacts of human resource training on employee performance in public universities in Kenya. The study adopted human capital theory and human resource management theory in the development of the literature. The study utilized descriptive research design with target population comprised of public universities which are charted and constituent colleges. Stratified random sampling methods were used to select respondents from top management, middle management and low cadre employees. Questionnaires and interview schedule formed source of primary data while document review provided secondary data. The validity of the research instrument was done using content validity while coronach alpha was used to test reliability. SPSS version 20 was used to carry out both descriptive and inferential analysis. Descriptive statistics entailed percentages and frequencies while inferential comprised of correlation and regression analysis. The findings were presented in form of charts and table. The findings stimulate future research on training and employee performance for academicians and for policy makers; it brings out training practices that add value to employee performance. The university management also benefit from the findings.

Key Words: Training delivery approaches, Training Evaluation, Training needs assessment and Employee Motivation