5.1 Initiatives to improve HRM in Makueni County

BOX 5.1

Initiatives to improve HRM in Makueni County

Over the past few years, Makueni County has embarked on a wide range of initiatives to develop its HRM system. These initiatives (and their status of completion) include the following: • A human resources manual for public service (complete), which was developed on the basis of updating a model manual provided by the

Ministry of Public Service • Policies on training and development (complete), recruitment (complete), performance management (drafted), gender mainstreaming (drafted), conflict management (drafted), and sexual harassment (drafted) • Schemes of service and career progression (in progress), rewards and sanctions (pending), and skills inventory and competencies assessment (pending).

The county also wants to have an automated and integrated HRM information system. (Currently, only the payroll function is automated through the national government’s Integrated Payroll and Personnel Database [IPPD] system.) To this end, the county government has sought technical assistance from development partners in pursuit of a strategic, comprehensive, and integrated program to implement a modern HRM information system.

Source: World Bank 2020d.

Some counties have carried out human resource and payroll audits; a few others have frozen new recruitment and taken measures to retrench staff. Box 5.1 outlines how one county has embarked on HRM reforms.

Missing elements

Fundamentally, there is no comprehensive set of standard policies, principles, procedures, norms, and practices to guide county HRM. Although the Ministry of Public Service has developed guidelines for counties to develop and implement HRM policies and systems, these are not sufficiently comprehensive.

Moreover, counties have not been given enough follow-up technical support in the use and application of HRM guidelines, which fail to cover standards and norms for establishment planning; budgeting and control; recruitment and appointments; staff development, appraisals, rewards, and sanctions; and linkage with the national, county, and department vision, with individual staff targets and clear job descriptions.

In addition, there is an absence of sector-specific standards, norms, and policy frameworks to guide compensation and staffing structures. There are disparities in staffing and salaries across counties. In the ECDE sector, for example, compensation scales vary from one county to another. A review of the compensation structure for ECDE teachers in the seven case-study counties found it ranged from K Sh 10,000 in Nyandarua County to K Sh 35,000 in Garissa County. Comparatively, the job grading scale for the ECDE teachers is very low compared with the TSC scale for primary teachers—whereby the lowest-paid teacher takes home approximately K Sh 30,000.

These disparities are large and known by teachers across counties. Some variation may be welcome as a consequence of counties responding to different local needs and priorities and adjusting pay and conditions to recruit workers in hardto-reach and underserved areas. But an absence of sector-specific standards, norms, and policy frameworks makes this hard to evaluate.