Best Practices for Improving Employee Retention

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate how HRM practices and employees’ work related attitude improve employee retention in the perspective of investment in public health organizations of Benishangul Regional State, Ethiopia. Organizations under study were suffering from weak practices of human resources, consideration of employees as physical assets and weak retention strategies. The study adopted a mixed method of research design and targeted 1514 health professionals from 35 public health facilities in the 3 zones of the state. Respondents from health centers and senior hospitals were selected using multistage sampling. Out of 17 health organizations, 317 respondents were selected randomly. Semi structured interview was administered to 8 Human resource administrators and heads of the Bureau, zone offices and hospitals. Close ended questionnaire was designed and distributed to sample respondents with checked validity and Chronbach’s alpha reliability value of 0.978. The pilot test was consistent with final reliability of 0.969. The response rate was found to be 93.7% (297/317). Using SPSS version 20, the quantitative data were analyzed to test the hypotheses and determine the coefficients of the multiple regression model to establish the sample regression model. Using narrative analysis, the data from interview was analyzed in line with each question. Data was presented using frequency tables, bar graphs and pie charts. It was found that zonal distribution and educational status majorly affect the perception of employees towards HRM practices and their intention to quit. The existing HRM practices and the strategies followed to retain employees were found to be poor and employees are tending to find new jobs. HRM practices and employees’ work related attitude statistically significantly negatively correlated with the employee’s intention to quit. Employees’ commitment, employee relations, recruitment and selection, job satisfaction and compensation and benefit were statistically significant in predicting employee’s intention to quit (-0.468, -0.283, -0.265, 0.224 & 0.151) respectively. All HRM practices positively significantly correlated to employees work related behaviors. HR legal issues, career development, work-life balance and employee relations in their respective values of (.246, .211, .176 and.165) importantly contribute to employees’ job satisfaction. Career development, employee relations, recruitment and selection, HR legal issues in their respective values of standardized beta (.285, .173, .135 and.127) also majorly contribute to employees’ commitment. This reminds of that a mixture of HRM policies and practices give more important advantages in retaining core employees than using limited ones.