Effect of Human Resource Audit on Employee Performance at Kisumu Water and Sewerage Company, Kenya
Abstract/ Overview
Kisumu Water and Sewerage Company is bedeviled by numerous customer complaints on water
shortages and contamination, regular water line bursts, delay in connections,, bias in customer
handl ing and reducing profitability. This study therefore seeks to find out the influence of human
resource audit on employee performance at KIWASCO. The purpose of this study was to
establish effect of human resource audit on employee performance. The study specifically
sought: to establish the effect of recruitment audit on employee performance at Kisumu Water
and Sewerage Company; to assess the effect of training audit on employee performance at
Kisumu Water and Sewerage Company and to determine the effect of grievance handling audit
on employee performance at Kisumu Water and Sewerage Company. The study employed a
correlation research design. The relationships of the variables of the study were set on a
conceptual framework which depicts the interrelationship between the variables in an
environment of other intervening variables. The target population was 293 employees out of
which a sample of 170 representing 79% of the respondents were sampled using proportionate
stratified random sampling technique. Structured questionnaires were used to obtain primary data
while secondary data was obtained from organizations publications, Government publications,
research institutions, internet publications, newspapers and journals. The researcher carried out a
pilot study to pretest the validity of data collected using the questionnaire. The reliability of the
questionnaire was evaluated through Cronbach's Alpha which measures the internal consistency.
The findings of the pilot study shows that questions on recruitment audit had the highest
reliability (a=O.821) followed by grievances handling (a=0.802) and then training audit (a =
0.751). This illustrates that all the four scales were valid and reliable as their reliability values
exceeded the prescribed threshold of 0.7. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics,
Pearson's correlation and regression analysis. The study revealed that a unit increase in
recruitment audit will lead to 0.646 increases in employee performance; a unit increase in
training audit will lead to 0.528 increases in employee performance and a unit increase in
grievances handling audit will lead to 0.625 increases in employee performance. This infers that
recruitment audit contribute most to employee performance followed by grievances handling
while training audit contributed the little to employee performance. All the variables were
significant as their P-values were less than 0.05. The study concludes that recruitment audit,
training audit and .grievance handling audit all positively impacts on the organizational
performance. It therefore recommends that KIW ASCO should do human resource auditing
annually to get an accounting of their workforce and the efficiency with which the organization
as an entity deals with its people, from recruiting to firing. It also recommends that all jobs
should have job descriptions since they serve as a key foundation for many different HR
processes, including compensation system design, job classification group/level, recruitment, and
performance management. Line managers should be held accountable for their peoplemanagement
responsibilities. These responsibilities should be outlined in their own performance
appraisals, so that managers can be evaluated on their people management skills in their related
responsibilities, goals and competencies. And lastly it recommends that a review of human
resource audit should be done to develop implementation plan. This step would ensure that
issues raised by the audit are broadly discussed and understood by management, and the manager
will accept the responsibility for implementing indicated change. This study will be significant to
managers, government policies, and scholars in human resource management.