Driving Performance through Occupational Risk Avoidance Practices among Kenyan Commercial Banks

The purpose of the study was to assess the relationship between Occupational Risk Avoidance (OcRA) practices and commercial banks' performance in Kenya. The study was hypothesized on the observation that occupational risks are among the most difficult to manage, given their unpredictability and possible dwarfing consequences to commercial banks' performance. The study adopted positivism philosophy, with a census survey involving all 38 banks which were operational in Kenya during this study. Four of the banks were contacted for the pilot study, while 34 for the main study. Closed-ended questionnaires were used to collect data. Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) tool in both descriptive and inferential form. The descriptive analysis involved proportions, means, and standard deviations, while inferential analysis involved correlations. The results were a positively high correlation between OcRA practices and performance. The study recommended that commercial banks and other stakeholders should continuously evaluate the effectiveness of the OcRA practices that they apply. Besides, there is the need to have training mechanisms to ensure effectiveness in applying OcRA practices. Further, the study recommends an embedment of OcRA practices in organizational policies to support high standards of performance.