• Daystar University
• 10 Nov, 2023

By Pius Muia, Chief Manager Human Resource

The world over, organisations seek to have competitive advantage over their competitors, especially in this very dynamic world. The higher education sector has been so immensely challenged by the ever- changing education policies in Kenya that all institutions have to find their fit in the labour market arena otherwise they will find themselves out of the ring.

The pride and anchor of any institution is the workforce and their capacity to navigate through the 21st century dynamic work environment. In the last few years, Daystar University has weathered several challenges but the New Dawn brought with it new vigour and synergy among all the employees across the university. The new university leadership has mopped all employees towards servant leadership and literally taking the broom and ensuring all the employees regardless of their position are seeking to serve but not to be served.

The Human Resource (HR) Department took the challenge of servant leadership and embarked on ensuring that all employees across the university understood their roles and functions by re-introducing performance management culture across the university.

The University Management tasked the HR department to ensure the required human resources were sourced and this saw the appointment of new University Chaplain to drive the spiritual nurture agenda across the university after the long serving University Chaplain,

Rev. Steve Nduto had his terms translated to faculty and posted to the School of Arts and Social sciences. The School of Law also required faculty to meet the required threshold to service the increased students and meet the Council of Legal Education (CLE) prerequisites hence had five new faculty recruited while the Theology and Pastoral Studies department got five new faculty and the Education department got three faculty members.

The School of Nursing which has also grown in terms of students had four lecturers and three clinical instructors recruited to serve the students while the department of Computer Science had three faculty recruited to address the faculty gap. The Department of Language and Performing Arts received two Music Lecturers, Strategic and Organisational Communication got two faculty members while Development Studies got one faculty member. The HR Department has received a Senior Human Resource

Officer in view of succession management and a Planning Officer was brought onboard to refocus on the strategic plan implementation.

The latest entries in the recruitment process were the Associate Dean- Resident Services, Director Resource Mobilization and the Security Coordinator all aimed at making Daystar University to remain in the global map in terms of student affairs. In the beginning of this new academic year, the University Council and the University leadership approved a salary review of 10% to cushion the staff from the high cost of living and the housing levy while at the same time the staff development fund got a boost, and the university has set aside Ksh.15 million to carter for staff development. This is meant to sharpen the axe as Daystar University moves to the next level in the higher education sector in Kenya.