EFFECT OF COUNSELLING ON EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE AMONG HEALTH WORKERS IN KENYA: A CASE STUDY OF NAROK COUNTY REFERRAL HOSPITAL.

Abstract

Stress in the workplace has been affecting the performance of employees in health institutions by leading to absenteeism, high employee turnover, poor employee-client relationships and poor productivity. There is no empirical evidence on whether counselling programs in Kenyan county hospitals have been effective in dealing with these challenges despite the introduction of counselling programs in these hospitals. The general objective was to investigate the influence of counselling on employee performance in the health workers in Narok County referral hospital. Specific objectives being on how disciplinary, personal and career counselling affect the performance of health workers in Narok County referral hospital. Basing on the Person-Centered Approach, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and Social Efficacy Theories, the research took a descriptive research design whereby the researcher sampled 303 employees with a sample of 91 respondents sampled by stratified random sampling. The data collection was done by questionnaires and interviews and analyzed with the help of the descriptive statistics, correlation and regression. The results showed that personal counselling influenced employee performance significantly in a positive way (r = 0.563; p = 0.014) whereas disciplinary counselling described 46.3% of the performance change. There was also a positive relationship between career counselling and better staff motivation and commitment. Overall, counselling interventions improved time management, teamwork, and employee-client relations as well as service delivery. The research finds counselling to be very important in reducing stress related inefficiency and enhancing employee performance in healthcare. It suggests the need to institutionalize and enhance counselling programs, make them available to all health professionals and to incorporate them in the human resource policies of hospitals. Keywords: Disciplinary Counseling, Personal Counseling, Career Counseling, Employee Performance