A study on management staff reactions to promotion on merit: a case study of City Council of Nairobi managers

Abstract

Studies have been done on overall employee promotion opportunities at work place but none has been done on management staff reactions on promotion on merit; case study of city council of Nairobi managers. The primary purpose of this project was to establish the city council of Nairobi manager's reactions to promotion on merit. To meet this objective the study used proportionate stratified random sampling procedure. The population of interest consisted of' management staff in the salary scale of 1-6 at the city council of Nairobi in the (15) departments. The data was collected using semi-structured questionnaires, which were administered to a sample of 40 respondents through the drop and pick method. The response rate was 82.5 % the data was analyzed usmg descriptive statistics. The study results revealed that several measures if put in place wi II ensure success of promotion on merit this factors measures include Giving employees challenging responsibilities, Offering employees more training opportunities, Paying employees based on their job performance, Advocacy in the promotion policy, Recognizing individual contributions, having well established career ladders amongst others. Further promotion on merit can be successful if several suggestions can be considered for example; Promotions being preceded by job analysis and perforuance appraissal, workable Promotion policy, basing Promotions on merit-cum seniority, setting Perfomance targets by both parties and Politics not influencing employee promotion amongst others. IV The research recommends a combination of various factors to consider one for promotions of employees in management levels. Further research needs to be done on the same subject but in other sectors also attempts should be made to incorporate additional endogenous variables that may be affected by promotion on merit such as motivation, confl ict- management performance of employees and employee career advancement. Secondly the study looked at reactions of management staff to promotion on merit at the City Counci I of Nairobi. This is an area that needs to be looked at in great depth in other sectors. Lastly it is evident from the study that there is still a great need for research to be carried out in broad area of promotion on merit in the entire City Council of Nairobi incorporating all the employees and also other local authority councils as there seems to be limited data on the area.