This is something I just thought about and found a little startling.

Take a look at these statistics:

Out of 160 applicants for positions we had publicly advertised,more than 80% of the applicants came from only two ethnic communities in Kenya (let us call them Community A and B).

We eventually picked about 20 persons. Of these,45% came from community A,40% came from community B with the remaining 15% going to the rest. And just in case you were wondering,Community A and B come from completely different parts of the country.

Of course for us as a profit-making enterprise,direct value addition is more important than where someone comes from so we selected persons based on skills vs. job fit. I can say without any fear of contradiction that we did not hire anyone based on their ethnic background.

Further,all positions are based in Nairobi so geography should not have been a major concern for most applicants considering the ethnic mix in Nairobi.

Anyone without the benefit of knowing the pool of applicants we had to choose from can very easily cite us as tribal because 85% of our new hires are from 2 communities!

I wonder if this is the same challenge employers face across the country.

1. Do organisations need to have some form of affirmative action?

2. Would private enterprise in general be willing to go that extra mile (read expense) to get persons from different communities just to achieve some form of ethnic balance?

Maybe it all depends on what the institution's target market is at the end of the day.

Anywho,just thinking aloud.

@ adept

for a profit making organization,ethnic balance may not count like for a not to profit & govt organization..

but if the marketing strategy of the profit making organization is to penetrate every region,every ethnic area,then the recruitment & selection policy of the organization may have to be altered to cater for the ethnic balance lest the consumers stage an economic sabotage..

When you run so fast to get somewhere,you miss the fun of getting there... Life is not a race,so take it slowly....

A few years ago,I did some work three private companies:


The first is owned by a Kikuyu and all the 25 employees are Kikuyu
The second is owned by a Kamba and has 23 Kamba employees [3 being brothers of the owner],one kalenjin and one Kikuyu
The third is owned by a Kisii,has 60 Kisiis,one Meru and one Kalenjin

The owner of Kamba company later called me and asked for assistance in recruiting some new people. His brief was; 'I don't want any more Kambas; in fact if you can get me some one from the smallest tribe,I will be very happy'

The challenge private businesses face,especially family owned ones,is that once you start growing and employing,your relatives will plead with you to pick their children...then your friends will come next and before you know it your company will be full of people from your village...not just your tribe.

Behind the gardens...Behind the wall...Under the tree (Including: Red...Dark Blue...Yellow)

When I joined my current place of work,it looked to me as if there was ethnic discrimination because of the high percentage of a certain tribe ( I come from that tribe myself but could not help feeling as if there had been some mapendeleo leading to skewed distribution).

Then as time went by,I noticed again a greater percentage of promotions went to this tribe. On further examination,I could see that the promotions were well-deserved and the people who were climbing up had proven themselves i.e. I clearly knew the high impact projects they had led,the output was clear. I also started taking keen interest in who was making what contribution,their academic and work background etc and I finally came to conclude that these people had merit both when being recruited and when being promoted. It looked like a basic numbers game.

The problem is: from an outside view,it always looks like something is fishy. One would need to take a deeper look and critically examine the organization. But therein is the problem of image i.e. from the outsider who does not have inner view of the performance,qualifications etc,it will always look like ethnicity had a role to play.

That said,I know organizations which discriminate and make no effort to even hide it. This is plainly shameful.

I would say,if one can prove that each employee hired/promoted met certain objective performance criteria,it should really not be a big issue what tribe holds what number of positions.

This is a really interesting discussion - I pray we keep it civil. My friend got togeher with office colleagues to form a consultancy of 5 guys. They come from 4 different communities - only 2 from the same community. When I visit their office,it has a real Kenyan feel to it. Compare this to some big businesses whose management meetings can be held in one ethnic language. Go on,open their webisites and click the management link. Some of the companies are owned by the country's top professionals - vocal rights lawyers included. Ofcourse you can find all the skills you need from one community especially if that community is one of the big 3 or 4. Question for me is,if you want to do bisiness countrywide,should you not make an effort to blend your workforce? Naivas Supermarkets have been opening branches in many small towns across the country,is it a business necessity to have all packers,loaders and cleaners sourced from the owners' villages? On this count Nakumatt has shown axcellent tact.

There are no accidents.