Work-Centered Life and Employee Performance at Geothermal Development Company in Nairobi City County, Kenya

Abstract

Work-life balance entails to the working arrangements that ensure an employee's personal and professional duties are balanced. Poor work-life balance is a key risk that jeopardizes employee well-being, performance, and organizational effectiveness. Most employees find it difficult to strike a balance between their personal lives and their work obligations. Work-life balance is linked to the stability between the time and effort employees devote to work and also attend personal responsibilities to maintain an overall sense of synchronization in life. State corporations such as Geothermal Development Company are currently operating in an extremely competitive environment. This demand for more responsiveness and efficiency of employees that is brought about by Work-life balance as adopted in private organizations. The main objective of this study was to investigate the influence of work-centred life and employee performance at Geothermal Development Company. The anchor theory of the study was Spill-over Theory that was reinforced by Compensation Theory. The study adopted a descriptive research design. Data was collected using structured questionnaires from the senior management, middle management, and lower-level support staffs of Geothermal Development Company. The target population of the study was 341 and the study’s sample size was 102. The study used stratified random sampling. The researcher conducted a pilot study using 10% of the respondents before the questionnaires were distributed for data collection. Pre-testing and expert opinion were used to examine the instrument's validity. The instrument's dependability was tested using the Cronbach’s alpha reliability test. The qualitative data was analyzed with the aid of SPSS version 26.0. Inferential statistics (correlations and regression analysis) was used by the researcher to show the relationship between independent and dependent variables. Pearson correlation helped in envisaging and defining the relationship between the variables. Data was presented on tables and figures. Pearson correlation helped in envisaging and defining the relationship between the variables. The study established that work-centred life had a significant influence on employee performance. The study concluded that work-centered life had significant influence on employee performance. The researcher recommends that the management of GDC should enhance their policies on workcentred life by formulation and implementation of modern policies, and this should be cascaded down to departmental level. The Human Resource department at GDC should reconsider its policies on flexi working arrangements, organization wellness programmes, job sharing as well as employee health as way of motivating employees to improve their performance.