Career Environment Dynamics and Employee Career Development in Star-Rated Hotels in Nairobi City County, Kenya. An Empirical Evidence.

Abstract

The progression of an individual's career is determined by the professional roles and activities they pursue throughout time, as well as the corresponding attitudes, skills, and knowledge which usually change with time. Career development encompasses an individual's personal and professional life as well as the relationships that exist between them. The process of developing one's career is influenced by the person, the organization, the management, the position among others. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of career environmental dynamics on employee career development in star rated hotels in Nairobi City County. The objectives were; to establish the influence of career orientation environment, teamwork and goodwill for careers on employee career development. Explanatory and descriptive research designs were used. The target population was 3114 hotel employees out of which 341 formed the sample. Purposive, stratified and systematic random sampling techniques were used to select the research participants. Structured questionnaire was used for data collection. The data was analyzed via structural equation modeling using SPSS in conjunction with AMOS v24 to test the hypothesis. The fit indices for the structural model fell within the acceptable range (CMIN=326.711, DF=134.000, CMIN/DF=2.438, CFI=0.934, TLI= 0.916, SRMR=0.071, RMSEA=0.072) R2=0.21, and was used to test the hypothesis. career orientation environment on employee career development was negative and significant (β=-0.482, p<0.05) Ho1 was not supported. teamwork on employee career development was negative but not significant (β=-0.215, p>0.05) Ho2 was supported. good will for career on employee career development was positive but significant (β=-0.542, p<0.05) Ho3 was not supported. the researcher concluded that career orientation environment and good will for career are instrumental in helping the employees in developing their careers in the hotels. It was recommended that managers need to create conducive work environment to support employees to develop their careers.