Work Life Balance and Perfomance of the National Police Service Officers in Kwale, County Kenya

Abstract

Organizations have recognized the importance of Work-life balance as a means of employee performance and for this reason, institutions have various programs in place to ensure that the employee attend to both work and social life effectively. The national Police Service has put in place various programs to enhance work-life balance but there was a dearth of empirical knowledge on their effect work performance of police officers. The main intention of the research was therefore, to assess the effects of work life balance on the performance of National Police Service officer in Kwale County, Kenya. This research was anchored on Work-Family Border Theory and used descriptive survey research design to establish the effect of the work life balance on the performance of police officers. The target population under study was 748 police officers in Kwale County. The study adopted multi-stage sampling involving clustering sub divisions, stratifying as per rank and proportionate random sampling to select 261 officers for the study. The sample size was calculated using Yamane (1967) sampling formula that generated a sample size of 261 officers who filled in the questionnaires. The main data for this research was collected using structured questionnaires both open and close ended. To analyze data, the study employed both descriptive and inferential statistics (mainly regression) using SPSS version 20. The findings of the study show that the work life balance has influence on work performance in the NPS in Kwale at R2 which is a coefficient of determination at 0.755. This means that leave, employee assistance program and wellness program accounts for 75.5% variation in the work performance of the officers in National Police Service in Kwale County, Kenya. As regards the univariate effects of the independent variables tested, leave (X1) is a significant univariate predictor of work performance β =.391, p < 0.05., employee assistant programs (X2) are a significant univariate predictor of work performance β=.279, p < 0.05. And the wellness programs (X3) are univariate predictors of work performance β =.277, p < 0.05. In addition, the model summary demonstrates that the independent variables, (Leave, Employee assistant programs, Wellness programs) statistically significantly predicted the dependent variable (Work Performance) at F (3,196) =4.467 p< 0.005, R2 =0.755. All the variables were significant (p<0.05) with the most significant factor being leave, then employee assistance program and finally wellness program. Based on this finding the study recommends that top leadership of the National Police Service should embrace sound work-life balance practices and give prominence to work-life balance strategies such as leave, employ assistance programs and wellness programs to enhance performance, in the National Police Service. They should consider employing (more) psychological counselors to provide counseling services to police officers on work and social matters and that policy maker to develop training policies aimed at equipping officers with relevant self-management skills and knowledge to enhance self-management for effective work performance