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.