Relationship Between Employee Empowerment And Performance Of The City Council Of Nairobi

Abstract

Local authorities in the country have been known for poor performance. In recent times, the trend has changed due to the introduction of performance contracts where employees must set and meet work targets from their supervisors, thus the need to be enabled to perform. The local authorities' service provision would be largely improved with the implementation of employee empowerment in these local authorities. This study sought to establish the extent to which CCN has put in place employee empowerment programs and to determine the relationship between employee empowerment practice and the performance of the City Council of Nairobi.

Since this study sought to establish the relationship between employee empowerment and performance of the City Council of Nairobi, a case study design was deemed the best design to fulfil the objectives of the study. This design was preferred because data was obtained from one organisation. The population of interest comprised all the employees of the City Council of Nairobi. The City Council of Nairobi was picked since it is the largest local authority in Kenya and is, therefore, more likely to engage in the best human resource practices. A sample of 60 employees, 4 from each of the 15 departments were the respondents for the questionnaire. The respondents were selected randomly. The study used both primary and secondary data. The primary data was collected through a structured questionnaire administered on a drop and pick basis. Data on performance as measured by return on assets (ROA) was collected from secondary sources. The analysis was done mainly using descriptive statistics such as mean scores, frequencies and percentages. Pearson product moment correlation technique was used to establish the strength and significance of the relationship between empowerment and performance.

Generally, the employee empowerment score in the City Council of Nairobi shows that the employees are empowered to a large extent. This is given by an average score of 3.546. The study found that there is a very strong positive correlation between employee empowerment and performance. The study also concludes that employee empowerment has a large positive influence on the performance of the City Council of Nairobi