Abstract

The study sought to determine the extent to which employee counselling programs affected employee performance within the commercial banks in Kenya. It was guided by positivist philosophy and used descriptive research design targeting 30,903 employees of the 43 banks. Proportionate stratified combined with purposive sampling was used to identify 395 respondents. Reliability and validity of the instrument was tested using Cronbach alpha (α) and expert opinion respectively. Structured questionnaires were used for primary data while other studies, libraries, worldwide web and organizational reports provided secondary data. Descriptive statistics and regression model was used to analyze quantitative data while content analysis was utilized to analyze qualitative data. Employee performance was found to be affected positively by the employee counseling programs (61.8%). Employee counseling programs should be enhanced to improve performance. Commercial banks should consider policy changes on employee counseling programs, and that there would be need to incorporate them in the Employment Law of Kenya. The study suggest that further study needs to be conducted on the on the other factors that affects the performance of employees at the commercial banks in Kenya since only 61.8% of the changes can be explained by the changes in employee counseling programs.

Key words: Employee counseling programs, employee performance, commercial banks, Kenya.