Career development, rewards system and employee commitment in selected manufacturing firms in Uasin Gishu County, Kenya

Abstract

Employee commitment has been established as a determinant of career development both in public and private firms. Notably, studies on employee commitment and career development practices have not been exhaustively investigated. There is, therefore, inadequate knowledge on rewards system as a potential moderator between career development and employee commitment, thus the need to interrogate these relationships. Therefore, the focus of this study was to examine the moderating effect of rewards system on career development and employees’ commitment in selected manufacturing firms. The objectives of the study were to determine the effect of: career planning on employee commitment, career training on employee commitment, career mentoring on employee commitment and career succession planning on employee commitment; and the moderating effect of rewards system on these relationships. The study was underpinned on Herzberg’s Two Factor theory as the main theory, supported by Controlled Commitment Continuum and Greenhaus Model of Career Development. The study was guided by post-positivist paradigm and adopted the explanatory research design. The study targeted 25 manufacturing firms in Uasin Gishu County which had 7893 employees. Out of these, 4 firms were selected thus a study population of 3617. A sample size of 435 respondents was selected based on Slovin’s formula of sample size determination. To pick the sample from the population, stratified and simple random sampling techniques were employed using the table of random digits. The data for the study were collected using a structured questionnaire. In data analysis, descriptive statistics such as standard deviations, means and frequencies were used while inferential statistics were obtained by carrying out hierarchical regression analyses. The findings of the study revealed that career planning has a positive and significant effect on employee commitment (β 1 =.419, p<0.05). Career training, career mentoring and career succession planning were found to have positive and significant effects on employee commitment (β 2 =.285, p<0.05, β 3 =.189, p<0.05 and β 4 =.252, p< 0.05). The findings further revealed that there was positive and significant effect of rewards system on employee commitment (β 5 =.451 p<0.05). Additionally, the findings revealed that there was positive and significant moderating effect of rewards system on career planning, career training, career mentoring and career succession planning on employee commitment (β 6 =.78, p<0.05), (β 7 =.93, p<0.05), (β 8 =.67, p<0.05) and (β 9 =.51, p<0.05) respectively. The study concludes that career planning, career training, career mentoring and career succession planning affect employee commitment. It is also concluded that rewards system is an enhancing moderator on the relationship between career planning, career training, career mentoring and career succession planning and employee commitment. The study recommends that manufacturing firms should allow their employees to embrace career planning prospects in fast tracking their career goal progress, self-management and professional abilities. Management should also ensure that there is continuous skills improvement and acquisition of knowledge through training. Career mentoring should be encouraged to allow retention of talent and continuity while mechanisms should be devised in the identification of successors to high posts for future leader jobs by assisting employees to grow in their careers. Future studies should be carried out on the same topic using longitudinal research design which would mitigate these constraints by exploring more methods to obtain more data.