FACTORS INFLUENCING EMPLOYEE TURNOVER AMONG NON TEACHING STAFF IN PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES IN NAIROBI CITY COUNTY

Abstract

Employee turnover remains one of the challenges facing many organizations in the 21st century, as staff mobility has been hastened by advances in technology among other factors. This trend is heavily manifested in public universities in Kenya. However, it is not clear what is the main cause of this high employee turnover. This study sought to establish the factors influencing employee turnover among non-teaching staff in public universities in Kenya, with a focus on public universities in Nairobi City County. The study specifically sought to: establish the extent to which work environment, reward systems, employee engagement and staff training affects non-teaching staff turnover in public Universities in Nairobi City County. The study adopted a descriptive research design. The target population constituted of 2134 employees, who are non-teaching staff, as at January 2022 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 environment, reward systems, employee engagement and staff training affects non teaching 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 staff turnover, reward system; (r = 0.537; p < 0.05) and staff turnover, employee engagement; (r = 0.466; P < 0.05) and staff turnover and lastly staff training (r = 0.324; p < 0.05) and staff turnover. The overall analysis indicated that all the four variables combined 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 employee turnover among non-teaching staff in public universities was influenced by work environment, reward management, employee engagement and staff training. Based on the results, work environment and staff training were considered to have the highest positive influence while reward systems had the highest negative effect on turnover. It was recommended that institutions of higher learning need to focus more on improving the work environment by providing better working space, provision of modern technology at the working place among others. Also, the study recommends staff training to position employees with the current trends in artificial intelligence among other technological trends, because they present significant influence on turnover rate of non teaching staff. The results therefore inform the policy makers on how to improve the various aspects of the organization to minimize the cases of turnover among non teaching staff in public universities.