Employee Engagement and Teachers’ Performance in Public Secondary Schools in Nyeri County, Kenya

Abstract

Nyeri County general data on the teachers competence and professionalism between the year 2015 and 2019 has been on the decline. Nyeri County is therefore representative enough of many other similar Counties in Kenya which continuously have posted low levels of reforms, lack of professionalisms and incompetencies amongst teachers. The mean grades of students are a reflection of the teacher‘s performance and specifically how Human Resource aspects of the teachers are handled by the school management, TSC and the Ministry of Education. The relationship between teachers engagement on their performance in Nyeri County is not clear since scanty of empirical literature done have presented a contradicting findings and diverse operationalization of the study variables. The general objective of the study was to establish the effect of employee engagement on the performance of teachers in public secondary schools in Nyeri County, Kenya. The specific objectives was; to establish the effect of rewards on the performance of teachers in public secondary schools in Nyeri County, Kenya, to determine the influence of employee empowerment on performance of teachers in public secondary schools in Nyeri County, Kenya, to find out the impact of interpersonal relationships on performance of teachers in public secondary schools in Nyeri County, Kenya. Self-determination Theory, Hertzberg two factor theory and Job Demands Resource Theory were used to explain the variables interaction. Descriptive research design was used and the total unit of analysis were 311 public secondary school teachers in Nyeri County. The sampled unit of analysis was 175 secondary school teachers. A sample of 175 teachers through stratified and simple random sampling were used. Semi-Structured questionnaire was used to collect primary data. Construct and content validity tests were carried out and tested through the supervisors comments. Reliability was tested through the use of Cronbach Alpha and a threshold of 0.7 was accepted. Quantitative analysis used to analyse closed ended questions. Qualitative analysis was used to analyse open ended questionnaires. Tables and figures were used to present both qualitative and quantitative data. The results indicated that the teachers are dissatisfied with their current pay and do not get overtime benefits. The study found that welfare services from their employer such as health services, housing, security, educational and recreational services was below the expectations. The results indicates that teachers in majority of the schools fully attend to their duties with minimum supervision. Empowerment calls on team members to learn about themselves and others so that they can relate, interact, and contribute more effectively” as a united community working to facilitate student academic success. The teacher-pupil’s interpersonal relationship and interaction has long been considered to have a crucial influence on teacher’s performance and development. The results revealed that teachers with good social relations with their fellow teachers and principal, with high performing friends, have significantly better chances in reaching a high performance level. The study concluded that reward was significant in explaining changes in employee performance. Employee empowerment had a positive and significant effect on employee performance. The study concluded that there was a strong positive correlation between interpersonal relations and employee performance.