Impact of training on employee performance in the public sector: a study of land adjudication department in ministry of lands in Kenya

Abstract

Many governments have been reported to have failed to deliver proper public services to their citizens. In the developing countries, this have been reported to be due to poor governance, inappropriate policies and lack of training leading to many years of neglect of public service delivery. As a result of these, many grievances and complaints have been directed towards public sector employees for their ineffectiveness and inefficiency. To restore faith of the citizens in their government, the government of Kenya formulated a Public Service Training Policy which was entwined in the Public Service Recruitment and Training Policy of 2005. The quality of human resource is considered as an asset to any organization and as a result, training has become an issue that has to be faced by any organization. Most organizations, meet their needs of training in an adhoc and haphazard way while others set about identifying the training need, they design training activities in a rational manner and finally asses the results. The study adopted a cross-sectional survey research design. It sought to determine the impact of training on employee performance in public sector organization using land adjudication department in the Ministry of lands. A total one hundred and sixty (160) land adjudication officers were targeted for the study and one hundred and twenty six (126) were sampled for results. It assessed the training and development processes of the department of land adjudication, examined the effect of such training to the recipient, and established the challenges faced by the trainees and providers of training alongside establishing how the challenges were mitigated. The study adopted a conceptual framework which focused on in service training types and their contribution to performance. A questionnaire was used to collect primary data from the employees of the Ministry of Lands. The results indicated that the Ministry of Land Employees were not well informed about training programme in the organization. Most of the employees were of the view that training was an effective tool for organization success. The finding revealed that training practices methods and activities at the Ministry are not in line with the best practices regarding the planned and systematic nature of the training process as is generally known. It was recommended among other things that the process in training is dually followed and that the department of land adjudication should help its staff identify their career paths and guide them in the pursuit of higher education.