Abstract:
This study examines the effect of work environment and employee engagement on non-teaching staff
turnover in public universities in Nairobi City County, highlighting the need for organizations to
understand and manage staff mobility in the 21st century. A descriptive research design was adopted.
The target population constituted 2134 employees, who are non-teaching staff, as at January 2023 in
the public universities in Nairobi City County. A sample of 204 was selected using stratified and
simple random sampling methods. Purposive sampling was used to select the heads of human resource
department from each university. Primary data was collected using structured questionnaires, while
secondary data was collected from the human resource records and reports. The data was analyzed
quantitatively, using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The mean frequency and percentages
were used in descriptive analysis, while Pearson correlation and regression analysis was used in testing
the relationship between the variables. The statistical package for social sciences (SPSS version 26)
was used to aid in the analysis. The null hypothesis was tested at a 5 % significance level.
Descriptively, the results showed that most of the respondents agreed with the statements used to
describe whether work environmental factors and employee engagement have an effect on nonteaching staff turnover in public Universities. The study further established that, there was a
statistically significant positive correlation between the predictor variables work environment; (r =
0.689; P < 0.05) and employee engagement; (r = 0.466; P < 0.05) and staff turnover. The overall
analysis indicated that work environment and employee engagement have statistically significant
effects on staff turnover (R = .735a, R2 = .540, F= 41.970, df = (4,143), T = 6.417 and the P value < .05). Work environment was seen to have the highest effect on staff turnover among the non-teaching
staff in the universities. The study concluded that non-teaching staff turnover among the public
universities was influenced by work environment and employee engagement. Based on the results,
work environment and engagement were considered to have the highest positive influence on turnover.
It was recommended that institutions of higher learning need to focus more on improving the work
environment and employee engagement because they present significant influence on turnover rate of
non-teaching staff.
