Motivation and Employees Performance in County Assembly of Mandera, Kenya

Abstract

The introduction of devolution saw a great number of staff transferred from the national government to the County government. However, human resource management became a major challenge across all counties as most Counties lacked capacity. As a result there has been job dissatisfaction among employees of the county governments which can be detrimental to performance of both employees and county assembly at large. Hence there was need to implement strategies that can motivate employees in order to enhance their performance so as to get desired results from them. The general objective was to determine the effect of motivation on employee performance of in county assembly of Mandera, Kenya. The specific objectives were to: examine the effect of compensation package on performance of employees in Mandera County; to establish the effect of working environment on performance of employees in Mandera County; to assess the effect of job security on performance of employees in Mandera County; and to assess the effect of employee promotions on performance of employees in Mandera County. The study was informed by the equity theory, goal setting and the expectancy theory. The study adopted descriptive research design. The study population consisted of 150 employees in the County Assembly of Mandera. The population was grouped into departments of employees in the county Assembly. Stratified random sampling technique was used to select the sample. The study grouped the population into stratas, whereby from each stratum the study took a 30% sample. The sample size was 45 respondents. The study collected primary data through use of a questionnaire. The questionnaire had both closed and open-ended questions. The developed questionnaire was checked for its validity and reliability through pilot testing. The quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The quantitative data was analyzed by using descriptive statistics which included frequency distribution tables and measures of central tendency (the mean), measures of variability (standard deviation) and measures of relative frequencies. The inferential statistics included a regression model which established the relationship between variables. Data was presented using tables, charts and graphs. The study findings show that compensation package, working environment, job security and employee promotions have an effect on performance of employees. The study concludes that compensation management can affect job satisfaction and employees organizational commitment, employees’ will improve their performance if the problems identified during the research are tackled by the management and that Work environmental factors that influenced employee performance were physical environment factors, reward, management / leadership style, training and development and work-life balance. This study recommends that management and decision makers should endeavour to review compensation packages at various levels in order to earn employees’ satisfaction, organizations should enhance flexibility of working environment, reduce work noise distraction and enhance supervisor’s interpersonal relationship with subordinates. Organizations should have well recognized job pay package, job security, and reward system for their employees and organizations should be able to recognise employee who have done well at work, device mechanisms to retain and reward an employee for his years of service to the organization.