Effects of Succession Planning Strategy on the Performance of International Non-Governmental Organizations in Kenya

The main aim of the study was to examine the effects of succession planning strategy on the performance of international non-governmental organizations in Kenya. Specifically, the study examined talent retention, talent attraction, career management and training & development. The empirical literature showed that succession planning is a key ingredient for growth of organizations and INGOs are not an exception. Literature revealed that INGOs have low succession planning initiatives which is alarming for the survival of the respective organizations. Various theories informed the study which were - systems theory, contingency theory, chaos theory, resource based theory and management theories. The study adopted a descriptive design utilizing both primary and secondary data. Data analysis was carried out using qualitative and quantitative techniques with the aid of SPSS 20 while the main method of data presentation was frequency distribution, tables and bar graphs. The study findings showed there was a great influence of all the four variables based on the effect of succession planning strategy on the performance of INGOs in Kenya. The study found out that there was 64 % of corresponding change in the performance of INGOs for every change in all the four predictor variables jointly. Test of overall significance of all the four variables jointly, talent retention, talent attraction, career management and training & development using ANOVA, at 0.05 level of significance found the model to be significant. In conclusion, the findings also indicated that training and development has been a major contributor towards the performance of INGOs in Kenya. This is in line with Kamath, (2008) who found that skills development appeared as the major contributor towards the growth of NGOs in line with succession management programmes in Africa. The results also revealed that the training programmes, staff appraisal and job rotation as indicators of training development have positive relationship with the performance of INGOs in Kenya. One of the recommendation of the study based on the study is that INGOs in Kenya have the challenge to attract and retain them there efforts from the INGOs in Kenya to develop a proper retention strategy are necessary. The retention strategy should include employees at all levels of the organization, since a loss of a talented employee at any level, will result in the organization suffering because of replacement costs. Finally the research study recommends a similar study to be conducted on how to measure the level of succession management in an organization