DETERMINANTS OF EMPLOYEE JOB SATISFACTION IN PUBLIC SECURITY SECTOR IN KENYA: A CASE OF NATIONAL POLICE SERVICE

Abstract

There are a number of performance concerns about the Kenya National Police Service that have arisen due to lack of taking action, failing to prevent and detect crimes, and customers having to bribe to get their constitutional rights. These performance concerns have an indication on the level of job satisfaction of police officers. Transparency International survey ranks Kenya police second in bribery and corruption, after Tanzania, in the East African region while nationally it has been ranked fourth. The aim of the study was to fill the gap by establishing the determinants of employee job satisfaction in public security sector of Kenya. The study employed a stratified sampling to achieve the objectives. The target population under study was police officers in Nairobi County. A sample size of 100respondentswas randomly selected from the cadres. The study used a questionnaire to collect the required primary data and secondary data was obtained from published documents. A pilot study was conducted to pre-test the validity and reliability of instruments for data collection. The raw information was analyzed to yield qualitative and quantitative data. Quantitative data was analyzed with the use of statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 21 and excel while qualitative data was analyzed by content analysis. The study adopted a regression analysis at 5% level of significance to establish the strength and direction of the relationship of the variables The analysis showed that leadership had the strongest positive (Pearson correlation coefficient =.895) influence on employee job satisfaction in security sector. In addition, employee benefits, work environment and training & development were positively correlated with Pearson correlation coefficient of .765, .793 and .733 respectively. Therefore, the most significant factor was leadership. It was suggested that for future research a proportionate stratified random sample be used to compare several public sector institutions using a larger sample, to investigate the potential relationships and effects these variables and other extraneous variables, such as role ambiguity, job level, contingent rewards and co-work have on job satisfaction and contribute a more in-depth understanding of how employees view their job.