INFLUENCE OF MENTORSHIP ON PERFORMANCE IN THE NATIONAL POLICE SERVICE – KENYA
CASE OF NAIROBI COUNTY
Abstract
Mentorship is a management tool used by organizations to build the capacity of their new employees by assigning them the more experienced members of the team to mold them and allow them to comfortably settle into the organizational culture and adopt the required professional standards. Mentorship can either be formal, informal or peer-to-peer. The effect of mentorship on organization performance has been exploited in other jurisdictions but little is known on the status of mentorship in the National Police Service. Using Social Learning Theory and Expertise Theory this study sought to establish the influence of mentorship on police performance in Nairobi County Kenya. The specific objectives were to Examine the status of mentorship in the National Police Service, establish whether mentorship can enhance professionalism in the National Police Service, Explore the relationship between mentorship and police accountability and determine the challenges of mentorship in the National Police Service. A descriptive survey research design was employed to conduct the study. The target population was 1060 officers drawn from Kenya Police Service (KPS), Administration Police Service (APS) and Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI) working in Nairobi County Kenya. The county was divided into clusters and a cluster was randomly picked to get the target population. Stratified random sampling techniques was used to get respondent from the KPS, APS and DCI within the cluster and purposive sampling was used to interview the key respondents. A combination of both questionnaire and interview schedule was used to collect data. For Quantitative data the analysis was done using frequency counts and percentages while for qualitative data, thematic analysis was used to identify latent issues. The Researcher used Statistical Package for Social Scientist (SPSS) to analyze and present data. The study observed that mentorship is present in NPS and officers acknowledged that their level of professional conduct and accountability can be pegged on the mentorship they received on their initial deployment. Mentorship in NPS was found to have some challenges ranging from poor feedback mechanism to minimal or non-allocation of resources to implement mentorship programme. The study therefore recommended formulation of policies and strategies to uniformly implement mentorship in NPS in addition to other array of recommendations. The study will add to the body of knowledge on mentorship practices in the NPS.
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