Abstract:

The concept of reduction of employees through downsizing has been in existence for a while now however, its effect on employee or organizational performance has brought mixed reactions in both developed and developing countries. This quagmire has led to a lot of uncertainty while considering downsizing as a tool of enhancing organizational performance. Therefore, this study sought to find out the effect reduction of employees as a downsizing strategy on performance of employees of Barclays bank hypothesized as there is no relationship between reduction of employees and employee performance. The researcher conceptualized that there is a relationship between reduction of employees and the performance of employees in the banks. The study adopted a survey research design. The study targeted a sample of 183 employees of Barclays Bank South Rift Hub, Kenya. All the accessible employees in the South Rift Hub were involved in this study. Questionnaires were used as the sole data collection instrument. The data that was collected from the field was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings established that there was a strong positive correlation of 0.982 between reduction of employees and the dependent variable employee performance. From the findings the study recommends that organizations that aim at improving the performance of their employees need to consider applying downsizing. The results of this study shall therefore benefit the management of commercial banks in Kenya to understand the effects of downsizing and put in place appropriate strategies to ensure that only the positive effects leading to improved performance are emphasized.