Employee Empowerment Initiatives Employed in the Ministry of State for Public Service, Kenya

Abstract

This study was carried out to help management in the Ministry of State for Public Service understands the manner in which it could enhance and facilitate employee empowerment in the ministry. The study sought to establish the employee empowerment initiatives employed in the MSPS and the extent to which the initiatives were applied in the Ministry. Employee empowerment has been necessitated by the unprecedented changes taking place in the economic environment requiring managers to be flexible in the way they manage in order to facilitate speedy decision making. Ministry of State for Public Service was chosen as the context of the study as it was the one mandated to provide policy guideline in Human Resource Management and Development in the public service in Kenya and could be instrumental in the implementation of employee empowerment in the public sector.

The study involved 66 respondents from the Ministry drawn from all cadres of staff. The data was collected using a structured questionnaire comprising of both closed and open-ended questions administered through self-administered basis. The data was analyzed using factor analysis by use of SPSS software. Descriptive statistics in form of means, std. deviations and percentages were used. The findings of the study revealed that upward problem solving, downward decision making, representation is some of the empowerment practices employed in the ministry. Financial empowerment was note popularly applied. Notable also were discrepancies in application across different cadres. This could be attributed to different nature of work and skills among staff in different levels of management. However, it would necessary to carry out further research to establish the cause of the discrepancy.

In general, the study had been a success and will go a long way in shedding light on how to improve employee empowerment both in public and private sectors. It will also provide insight for further studies on the topic in the future.