Strategies used in employee retention by non governmental organizations in Kisumu county, Kenya

Abstract

Employee retention is a vital issue and challenge to all the organizations in today‟s‟ world. There are numbers of factors which promote the employees to stay or leave the organization, such as external factors, internal factors and the combined effect of both. The study‟s objective is to establish employee retention strategies used by NGOs in Kisumu County and to determine the effectiveness of the employee retention strategies practiced. The study adopted a descriptive cross-sectional survey. Primary data was gathered using a semi structured questionnaire as an instrument of study. Data was analyzed using pie charts and graphs. The study found out that most of the NGOs are employing different kind of strategies but the main strategies include active employee socialization, career planning, and training and development. The study concluded that organizational socialization career planning training and development work life balance and organizational socialization are imperative dimensions when it comes to employee retention. The study recommends that organizations should periodically conduct ext, engagement and culture surveys to understand the changing expectations of the critical workforce from time to time and take all the inputs to have a holistic understanding of the factors influencing retention of employees. This helps in developing employee specific retention strategies to control attrition. The study‟s implication on policy and practice shows that there is no assured combination of strategies that are entirely adequate in all companies rather there are best practices identified within the HR literature that organizations interested in personnel retention can replicate