Effect of Human Resource Planning and Leadership Styles on Performance Contracting in Public Organizations in Kenya

Abstract

Performance contracting is a term which is gaining a lot of popularity among government departments as it helps its employees to account for their input in the organization. This study investigated the effect of human resource planning and leadership styles on performance contracting in public organizations in Kenya with a focus on Tharaka Nithi executive county government. It was guided by the following specific objectives; to investigate the degree to which human resource planning affect performance contracting in Kenyan public organizations and to evaluate how leadership styles relate to performance contracting in Kenyan public organizations. The study was anchored on expectancy theory and the agency theory. The target population was 300 Tharaka Nithi county employees. Using stratified random sampling method, the study employed a descriptive research design with a sample size of 172 respondents, according to the administrative county government of Tharaka Nithi. The study used a self-administered drop-and-pick questionnaire as its main instrument to gather primary data from the sampled respondents. Data was analyzed using SPSS software where both descriptive and inferential statistics were produced. Tables and figures were used to display the quantitative results, while thematic presentations were used to display the qualitative data. The results of the study showed that both human resource planning and leadership style had major effect on performance contracting in the county government. Specifically, the effectiveness of performance contracting was found to have a positive and substantial association with these characteristics. This suggests that better performance contracting in county government results from an increase in the efficacy of these variables, and vice versa. The study recommends that best practices be outsourced from excelling county governments in Kenya as reported by council of governors’ report of 2022 on both human resource planning and leadership styles and implement the results consistently while cascading them down to the lowest levels of staff. If properly followed, these suggestions would result to the county governments’ ability to function successfully.