Attraction and retention of employees at the postal corporation of Kenya

Abstract

The nature of human resource component of any organization determines its survival into the future. Putting in place the right human resource that adequately meets organizational objectives is central to the organizations’ competitive advantage. To be able to do this, attraction and retention of such employees becomes critical. However, this cannot be achieved without challenges. Thus this study is geared towards investigating issues encountered in attraction and retention of employees at the Postal Corporation of Kenya. The specific objectives were examining the influences of mobility structures and organizational culture on attraction and retention of employees within the Postal Corporation of Kenya. This study adopted explanatory research design. The target population was stratified, based on the various departments represented at the Head office. The study selected 30% of the population proportionately from each department from 132 senior managers and sectional heads at the headquarters. Data was collected through questionnaires; edited, classified, coded and tabulated in a systematic manner to allow for accurate analysis. Statistical Package for Social Sciences was used to generate the outputs. Tools of descriptive and inferential statistics were employed to analyze the data. Multiple regression analysis was used to establish the predictive power of the study model. The findings were presented in form of summarized tables with percentage scores, statistical mean and standard deviation together with outputs of inferential statistics. 37 out of 39 questionnaires that were administered were successfully filled and returned, and this represented 94% return rate. The study therefore concluded that attraction and retention of employees is a critical issue in modern management. The study also concluded that organizations are faced with high staff turnover, which usually impacts negatively on productivity. It was also noted that morbidity which involves the movement of employees from one job group to the other greatly influences attraction and retention. In addition the study revealed that organizational culture enables the employees to have a sense of belonging and increase their loyalty to the organization, thus enhancing greater attraction and retention. The study recommended that the Corporation should strive to inculcate a culture that the employees will embrace and look at the organization as a very important aspect of their development and this can be done by trying to reduce or do away with negative publicity.