This archive report was first published on 17 August 2019.
On August 9, 2019, a group of 50 newly-hired management trainees at the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) were taken through the leaf sorting process at Kangaita Tea Factory as part of their induction.
KTDA has selected the trainees from a pool of over 3,000 applicants, all of whom are recent university graduates, to be deployed to various factories across the country for a one-year training starting August 1, 2019.
The agency manages 69 tea factories countrywide on behalf of smallholder tea farmers, a significant increase from 45 factories in 2000 when KTDA was privatised.
The new team is expected to fill the gaps occasioned by factory expansions as well as cater for natural attrition within the firm’s human resource, ensuring the transfer of critical skills from more experienced staff and guaranteeing smooth continuity in the running of the factories’ operations for the farmers’ benefit.
The trainees will be taken through the technical aspects of processing tea as well as managing diverse issues in the tea value chain including stakeholder relationships, finance, human resources, and agronomy.
They were chosen after a rigorous recruitment process that included online assessments and interviews.
