Factors determining effective employee selection in State Corporations in Kenya: A case of The Kenya Power and Lighting Company

Abstract

The Kenya Power & Lighting Company, PLC (KPLC) is a Company that transmits, distributes and retails electricity to customers throughout Kenya. In the recent past the organization experienced challenges in relation to employee performance, which led to two major staff reshuffles between 2014 and 2018 in an effort to find the right fit to serve the business need. Hiring employees with the right talent is key to any organization’s performance. The study therefore, sought to evaluate the factors influencing employee selection at KPLC. KPLC is a Government organization with both Public and Private Ownership providing a more representative institution. The objectives of the study were: to evaluate the need for special skills requirement in employee selection; to determine the impact of work experience in employee selection; to establish the effect of remuneration in employee selection and to examine the processes used in employee selection. This research was anchored on the Person Organization Fit Theory (2011) by Tomoki Sekiguchi, which emphasised on the extent to which a person and the Organization share relationship/similar characteristics to meet each other’s needs. This study used a mixed research method approach. The target population of the study was 4,472 staff of KPLC where stratified random sampling technique was used to select a sample size of 125. The sample size was determined based on the Cochran’s formulae. A pre-test and validation of the questionnaire was done before administering to the sampled group. Correlation and regression analysis were conducted at 95% confidence level and 5% significance level. The findings showed that there was a strong positive significant relationship between skill requirements, work experience, remuneration, processes and employee selection, as is indicated by the following parameters (Pearson’s r=0.994, p<0.000), (Pearson’s r=0.988, p<0.000), (Pearson’s r=0.973, p<0.000) and (Pearson’s r=0.987, p<0.000). From regression test, when all other factors are held constant, skill requirement, work experience, remuneration and processes improves employee selection by 91.1%,(β = .911); 22.8%,(β = .228); 26.5%, (β = .265) and 11.9%, (β = .119) respectively. Conclusively, the adjusted R² value was 0.890, implying that skill requirements, work experience, remuneration and processes account for 89.0% of the variance in employee selection. Hypothesis testing revealed that three of the stated null hypothesis i.e., skill requirements, work experience, remuneration have significant influence on employee selection (P=0.000<0.05), while the selection processes was proved to have no significant influence on employee selection, (P=0.136>0.05). This study recommends that KPLC should improve and strengthen the recruitment and selection procedure through formulation of policies and regulatory frameworks to guide recruitment and selection process, and by factoring such evaluation criteria as work experience, skill requirement and remuneration.