Managing Strategic Change: The Role of Human Resources Department in Employees Performance: A Case Study of Kenya Power

Abstract

Change management is a structured approach to shifting/transitioning individuals, teams and organizations from a current state to a desired future state. It is an organizational process aimed at helping employees to accept and embrace changes in their current business environment. Strategic change is a change in the content of a firm’s strategy as defined by its scope, resource deployments, competitive advantages, and synergy. It is the proactive management of change in organizations to achieve clearly identified strategy objectives. The Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KPLC) rebranded in 2011 and changed its name to Kenya Power. The company’s mandate is to transmit, distribute and retail electricity and related service to its customers within the republic of Kenya. KPLC had 10,000 employees in management, union and contract distributed in 115 depots in the four administrative regions. The study adopted a descriptive research design. The sample was drawn from 125 Nairobi North employees and a census survey on 20 Human Resources Officers from Nairobi region. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data. The resulting data was analyzed using Statistical Package for social sciences (SPSS) and presented in tables and figures. From the findings, the majority of the respondents were aware of the project Mwangaza. Further, employees were well prepared for the change through education training and communication. Change awareness was done through continuous communication to employees through notice-boards, emails and intranet which helped in reducing resistance. However, the findings showed that change process momentum was not maintained. This study recommended emphasis of regular departmental meetings, team-talks and team building and employee participation, involvement and collaboration to ensure success in managing strategic change.