The role of training in enhancing employees’ performance: a case of Telkom Kenya, North Rift region

Abstract

Telkom Kenya is a communications industry that has experienced great challenges due to unprecedented advancement of technology. The emergence of cellular and wireless telephones has made it to face great challenges to its traditional cable technology. Despite having enjoyed monopoly in the provision of telephone and telex services, it failed to recognize the advent of mobile phones and the wireless technology. Consequently, the huge losses could have made the parastatal suffer an impending privatization. This scenario might be related to the lack or inadequate training and development of its human resources. The study therefore sought to investigate the role that training plays in enhancing employees’ job performance to embrace and/or cope with new technologies during periods of change. The following four objectives guided the study; (1) to identify the role training plays in enhancing job performance, (2) to explore how training helps employees to grow within the organization in order to meet the future Human Resource needs from within, (3) to establish whether training is part of the measures adopted by the organization in order to improve employees ability to cope with challenges posed by new advances in technologies, and (4) to document ways by which training helps employees manage change by increasing their understanding of reasons for change. Similarly, the following null hypotheses were tested for significance at 0.05 level: (i) there are no measures adopted by Telkom Kenya to improve the employees’ ability to cope with the demands of new technologies, and (ii) there is no significant relationship between the measures used to improve the employees’ ability to cope with the demands of new technologies and adequate human resources adopted to meet Telkom’s expansion into new programmes. Data collected from respondents using Telkom Kenya Employees Questionnaire (TKEQ) were analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics with the help of computer package Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and presented in percentages and Chi-square (X 2 ). The findings of the study showed that several training measures were used by Telkom Kenya to improve the employees’ performance and ability to cope with new technologies. The study concludes that the employees felt that the forms of training seemed relevant in improving their performance of current duties but failed to prepare them to cope with new technological changes. In view of these findings, the study recommended that the organizations such as Telkom Kenya should prioritize employee training programmes tailored to prepare employees cope with new technological changes and put modern resources to benefit both the organization and its employees.