Differential Reward Scheme And Employee Satisfaction In Nakuru County, Kenya

Within the county government, there has been an element of discontent amongst various cadres of employees over differential compensation structures. These different groups of staff have different working terms and reward structures despite working for the same employer and sometimes in jobs requiring equivalent qualifications. The existing studies have not examined employee satisfaction within the county government system in a devolved government structure. The influence of the differential reward system on the employee satisfaction in county government structure has not been examined. The objectives of the study were the examination of the role of recognition, allowances, training and promotion on employee satisfaction in county government of Nakuru. The study wasbased on the Hertzberg’s Two Factor Theory, McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y, and the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs Theory.Descriptive research design was used in this study. The target population of this study was5,100 staff working for the county government of Nakuru. A sample size of 371 respondents was utilized. This study used a questionnaire for the purposes of data collection. The pilot study was undertaken in Nakuru county using 10% of the respondents that is 37 respondentsThe validity of the data collection instrument was examined during the pilot study using a set of experts in the area of reward management and employee satisfaction as well as the supervisors.The reliability of the data collection was examined through the use of the Cronbach alpha coefficient of a threshold of 0.7 and above.