The Influence of human resource management practices on employee retention in public universities in Kenya

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to analyze the influence of human resource management practices on employee retention in public universities in Kenya. The specific objectives included: to establish the level of employee retention in public universities in Kenya, to investigate the influence of training and development on employee retention in public universities in Kenya, to analyze the influence of compensation on employee retention in public universities in Kenya and to examine the influence of recruitment and selection on employee retention in public universities in Kenya. Data was collected by use of questionnaires from the target population of 31 registered public universities in Kenya. Descriptive statistics, correlation analysis and multiple correlation analysis were used to analyze the data. Results showed that recruitment and selection was the most widely adopted human resource management practice, followed by compensation and reward then training and development as evidenced by their overall mean scores. On the influence of each human resource management practice on employee retention, training and development was the only independent variable found to be significant to employee retention in public universities in Kenya. The study however had limitations, in that it was only limited to three human resource management practices. The results therefore are not generalizable to all the other human resource management practices. Further research should therefore be done in order to find out what influence other human resource management practices have on employee retention in public universities in Kenya and in other areas of the world.