SUCCESSION MANAGEMENT AND PERFORMANCE OF TELECOMMUNICATION FIRMS IN KENYA: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SAFARICOM LTD AND TELKOM KENYA

Abstract

A well-structured and effectively enforced succession management plan is important for business. It has been argued that better performing and big corporations employ and benefit more when using effective succession management to improve their performance and productivity than struggling or emerging companies. How far this is true for Safaricom which is a big and successful company and Telkom which is a struggling and newly rebranded company in Kenya remains significantly uninvestigated. The purpose of the study was to explore the influence of succession management on organizational performance of Telecommunication Firms in Kenya with a comparative study of Safaricom and Telkom telecommunications companies. It specifically established the influence of talent retention, talent attraction, career management and training on the business performance. The study was based on the Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, Talent DNA Model, the self-concept theory explaining career growth and resource based view of the firm theory. This study employed descriptive research coupled with correlational research designs to anchor the methodology. For this study a target population 232 management personnel and 218 staff working at Safaricom and Telkom headquarters respectively were targeted. From the population 70 respondents for Safaricom and 65 from Telkom were sampled, thus getting 30% of the target population. The respondents were selected first via stratified sampling to categorize the 10 and 12 departments from Safaricom and Telkom respectively. Then simple random sampling became the sampling technique utilized to get the staff from the departments. The study used questionnaire rendered in a 5-point Likert scale that was given to the staff and secondary data to get the measurements for performance. A pilot study was done on 10 of the target population respondents (1% of the target population). Content validity was measured by the researcher‟s supervisors looked at the items in the questionnaires and advised the researcher on what needed to be changed to improve data collection and analysis. To test the reliability of the instruments, therefore, Cronbach Coefficient formula was used and a reliable figure of .722 was achieved. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze data and included counts, percentages, means together with the standard deviations. Pearson‟s correlations and t-test were used and the findings were then presented in tables. The results showed that: talent retention (β=.384 Safaricom; -.172 Telkom), talent attraction (β=.322 Safaricom; .221 Telkom) and career management (β=.387 Safaricom; .191 Telkom) was more effectively employed and worked better for Safaricom than for Telkom and its efficient use had a significantly positive influence on Safaricom‟s performance and likewise its inefficient use had a negative influence on Telkom‟s performance. The study thus recommends that: Telkom management should offer attractive remuneration packages to ensure substantial talent retention in the organization. Telkom management should employ proactive knowledge and skills together with competency as the mode via which the company mainly recruits. They should also, have a robust talent search matrix which allows for experienced, academically qualified, driven and competent employees to be hired and the company should then use a work-life balance matrix which motivates and rests employees to make talent attraction easier. Both Safaricom and Telkom should continue to invest in training of their staff as a means to enabling efficient succession management in both companies. Further, both companies should device workable succession management plans to effectively manage the process