Strategic Human Resource Planning and Service Delivery in County Governments in Kenya

Abstract

Strategic human resource management in public sector organizations enables governance arrangements that promote efficient service delivery. However, service delivery in county governments in Kenya gets stymied by both human resource and funding constraints. Due to contextual gaps in the strategic human resource management practises in county governments in Kenya, the study evaluated the role played by strategic human resource planning on service delivery in Kenya. The study adopted a descriptive design and systematically examined the HRM practises by sampling 140 respondents (47 county secretaries, 47 county directors of HRM and 46 municipality managers from municipalities based at the county headquarters of 46 counties) through interviews and questionnaires. The respondents were selected based on their operational and functional human resource management roles in various units in the 47 counties. The research instrument was validated through a review by a panel of supervisors and a pilot testing exercise. The qualitative reports indicated that the county governments can attract qualified and competent persons with critical skill sets to match the various job descriptions and optimally sustain service provisions at the county level. The correlation analysis indicated that service delivery positively correlated with strategic HR planning practises (r = 0.6510, p< 0.05) at 0.05 significance levels, while the regression analysis indicated that strategic HR planning practises explains about 41.61 % variance in service delivery with an effect size (β1 = 0.6451 (t = 8.97, p< 0.05). Based on the findings, the study concludes that strategic human resource planning practises hold a positive and significant potential impact on service delivery in county governments in Kenya. The study recommends proactive planning and proper structuring of the county workforce based on knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics.