The Perceived Effect of Career Development Practices on Employee Retention at the Safaricom Call Centers in Kenya

Abstract

Employee retention is a pivotal factor to the prosperity of any business as it ensures business continuity, customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, good employer image as well as giving competitive advantage to an organization. The costs associated with employing and growing new employees can also be lessened considerably if skilled workers are kept longer through sustained career development. One of the key challenges faced in the call center industry is the high voluntary turnover of its frontline staff which in turn affects delivery of quality service to customers. The objective of this study was to examine the perceived effect of career development practices on employee retention at the Safaricom call centers in Kenya. Herzberg’s dual-factor theory and Vroom’s Expectancy theory formed the theoretical foundation of the study. Descriptive survey research design was found appropriate to study the research problem. The target population was the 2400 call center staff working in the three Safaricom call centers. A representative sample of 240 was obtained through stratified random sampling to ensure every segment of the target population was represented. Primary data was obtained from the respondents through self-administered semi-structured questionnaires. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistical tools with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and multiple regression analysis was carried out to explore the extent to which the variables were related. The research findings showed that career development practices do influence employee retention to a great extent. The study proposes that Safaricom look for ways to create more growth opportunities for its call center staff for this will considerably improve its employee retention. The findings of this study are applicable to Safaricom call centers only and cannot be generalized to the whole Company nor all other organizations having call centers. Further research is therefore recommended to validate the effects of career development practices and employee retention in call center industry in Kenya.