HUMAN RESOURCE AUDIT AND EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE IN PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES IN WESTERN KENYA

Abstract

Human resource audit is one of the critical aspects of employee performance in universities that helps in ensuring all the policies, procedures and practices of the university are adhered to by the management and other employees. Employee performance has been reported to be low in many universities. This is because of nonadherence to the university policies and practices. Many studies conducted so far on human resource audit and employee performance have focused on commercial banks and county governments while limited studies have focused on universities especially those within Western Kenya. The main objective of this study was to establish the influences of human resource audit on employee performance of public universities in Western Kenya. The specific objectives were; to determine the influence of compliance audit on employee performance, to establish the influence of strategic audit on employee performance, to investigate influence of functional audit on employee performance and to evaluate the influence of value for money audit on employee performance of public Universities in Western Kenya. The study was based on human capital theory, resource-based theory and contingency theory. The study adopted descriptive research design. The target population for the study was187 respondents comprising 9 registrars, 9 assistant registrars, 121 administrative assistants and 48 internal auditors in all public universities in western Kenya. Stratified random sampling was used to select 127 respondents. Questionnaires were used to collect primary data. Pilot study was done in Moi University. Reliability was tested using Cronbach’s alpha and validity using experts and factor analysis. Descriptive and inferential statistics was used to analyze data. Multiple regression analysis indicated that human resource audit had a positive and significant influence on employee performance. A unit increase in compliance audit, strategic audit, functional audit and value for money audit would lead to subsequent increase in employee performance by 0.178, 0.216, 0.95 and 0.278 units respectively. The study established that 61.6% variation in employee performance was caused by human resource audit. The study findings will be useful for policy making in public and private universities and form a basis for future studies by contributing to the pool of existing literature. The study concluded that implementation of human resource audit positively and significantly influences employee performance in public universities in western Kenya. The study recommended that universities should plan for compliance audit at least twice per year, it was recommended that universities should form a strategic committee to formulate a good strategic plan for the university, it was again recommended that the university should put in place relevant internal control measures that will help in tracking each employee’s performance and it was also recommended that the university should formulate organization objectives that are achievable by the university.