Why Human Resource Management is key for counties

By Samson Osero

With the dawn of county Governments, a lively discourse has emerged on their possible structure, operations and activities.

In tandem, political ambitions have been stoked with heightened competition for newly created positions like Governor and Senator, among others. However, there seems to be little preparation for actual transition from a centralized leadership and governance structure to a devolved one.

True, the growth of counties as viable and sustainable economic blocks will be highly dependent on the quality of leadership they get. Poor leadership and governance, if left to fester, will surely sound a death knell for the counties and relegate them to high levels of poverty compared to what obtains now under the Central Government.

Sound leadership has the potential to provide the counties with vision, direction and context for socio-economic growth. It will provide the umbrella framework under which they can craft strategies for creating value for their various stakeholders.

Such leadership will be expected to sketch out roadmaps for counties to unleash the full potential of their human resources for achievement of targeted productivity.

The county leadership and governments must therefore cultivate a deep appreciation for the importance of the HR function as a key driver in efforts to deliver services to ‘countyzens’. While HR matters and is a crucial cog in engendering organisational efficiency, it is often overlooked until structures and systems fail to work.

Countyzen Rewards

Urgently, counties will require a new HR architecture best suited to accomplish their long-term strategic goals. A key strand in the architecture must be the elimination of redundant functions and continuous improvement in the quality of HR services countywide.

From the onset, they should design and develop a reward and recognition function that is based on a new competence-based model for HR. Such a  model demands that customised job evaluation systems are implemented as a tool for measuring internal equity.

Another component of HR that counties will need to embrace immediately is the promotion of effective performance management systems and discipline programmes.

It is worth noting that countywide consistency in the application of disciplinary actions and policies would significantly enhance employee relations, and its most important corollary, productivity.

Counties need to develop human resource policies and regulations that promote effective utilisation of labour to enhance productivity. Financial resources need to be set aside for developing the required human resources for achievement of Vision 2030 objectives, be it at organisational, county and national levels. Reward schemes that recognise performance should been entrenched.

Human resource planning at national and organisational levels need to be undertaken, coupled with restructuring programmes that are aligned with socio-economic changes.

Beyond recruiting the right person, the HR function must focus on managing the performance of employees.

Writer is executive director at IHRM, a human resource consultancy.