Human Resource Management Practices on Employee Retention

Abstract

Human resource is the most valuable resource in every organization and they contribute immensely to the organizations all over the world. It is therefore imperative for organizations to institute appropriate measures to retain talented and competent employees. Effective HRM practices can help organizations to retain their valued employees. The real estate industry in Kenya particularly suffers the risk of labour turnover due to intensive competition. This empirical study examined the effect of HRM practices on the retention of employees in the real estate industry in Nairobi, Kenya. Specifically, it looked at how compensation, training and development, performance management, supervisor support and work environment impact on employee retention. The study adopted a descriptive research design and was undertaken in the Nairobi Area. The study was carried out in 5 out of 80 real estate firms in Nairobi. A sample size of 270 respondents from various real estate organizations was selected. The study used structured questionnaires to collect primary data. Both descriptive and inferential statistical techniques were used to analyze the data. Descriptive statistics such as means, standard deviation, percentages and frequencies was used to analyze the data. Regression analysis was conducted to test the effect of HRM practices on employee retention. The findings of this study revealed that HRM practices such as compensation, training and development, performance management, supervisor support and work environment are vital to employees and indeed have significant influence on employee retention in real estate firms. To improve employee retention in the real estate institutions, it is recommended that even in the face of competition the real estate firms must pay attention to its human resource and explore other contemporary HRM practices and must vary the kind of HRM practices they initiate from time to time so that they can achieve a competitive advantage through them. It was recommended that HR managers devise effective retention programmes in order to maintain high caliber employees leading to satisfaction and retention. This will contribute towards real estate industry‟s continual search for practices to help retain their employees and give them a competitive advantage over their competitors. This study serve to further develop a body of knowledge on successful employee retention programmes in the real estate industry and promote more comprehensive research in the area. In future, other researchers could consider other variables like recruitment and selection, career management and work-life balance to determine how they affect employee retention. Also, future studies should employ mixed methods that are both quantitative and qualitative methods in order to obtain greater insights into the specific HRM practices especially from the perspective HR managers of the real estate organizations and should also focus on other industries to check for variation in responses.