INFLUENCE OF TRAINING NEEDS ASSESSMENT ON PERFORMANCE OF COMMUNITY HEALTH WORKERS IN KAKAMEGA COUNTY

Abstract

Kakamega County has been implementing the community health strategy, however, performance of community health workers has been lower (55%) compared to other counties such as Nairobi at the rate of 64% (MOH, 2017). In some sub counties such as Matungu, Navakholo and Khwisero morbidity burden has remained high for example, malnutrition stands at 21%, poor maternal child health care, poor family planning and inadequate water sanitation and hygiene (WASH). The study aimed to investigate the influence of employee training needs assessment on performance of community health workers in Kakamega County, Kenya. The study adopted a descriptive survey design. The target population comprised of 960 community health workers in Kakamega County from Matungu, Khwisero and Navakholo sub counties (350 community health workers from Matungu Sub County, 300 from Khwisero Sub County and 310 community health workers from Navakholo Sub County). A sample size of 275 employees was used. Data was collected by the use of questionnaires. Results illustrated that there was positive, linear and significant relationship between training needs assessment and the performance of community health workers. It was concluded that training needs assessment accounted for 30.6% of the variance in the performance of community health workers in Kakamega County. The study recommended that training needs assessment should address the gap between “what is” and “what ought to be” regarding training and development activities which were not adequately addressed during employee training among staff of community health workers in Kakamega County. The study would benefit the county and national governments by aiding in the formulation of their policy to develop programs that would positively impact the performance of employees.

Key Words:  Employee Training, Training Assessment, Community Health Workers

CITATION: Lubanga, J. A., & Juma, D. O. (2019). Influence of training needs assessment on performance of community health workers in Kakamega County . The Strategic Journal of Business & Change Management, 6 (2), 2305 – 2314.