Effect of Organizational Culture on Employee Retention in Commercial Banks in Kenya.

Abstract

The banking industry has recently gone through a lot of changes in technology, staffing, regulation and competition but most banks are still not performing to the expected standards and the poor performance has been attributed to numerous factors, key among the factors being organizational culture. The objective of this research was to find out the effect of organizational culture on employee retention in commercial banks in Kenya. The population of study comprised of commercial banks in Kenya. Only primary data collection instruments were used for the study. Questionnaires were used to collect data and they contained closed questions only. The questions were centered on the main objective of this study and the data collected was verified for completeness. An analysis of the findings was prepared and presented and the summary finding was that most of the respondent banks were in agreement that espoused beliefs and values, rules and policies, artifacts and management behaviors, which are the major components of organizational culture, affect employee retention positively. The study found that organizations had different organizational cultures that either increased or decreased employee retention. The findings of the study also established that rules and policies and espoused beliefs and values were the most dominant organizational culture components. This research study concluded that an organizational culture should be compatible with the organizational human resource strategies so that employee retention can increase. The recommendation made was that organizations need to emphasize on the importance of embracing suitable organizational cultures. This is because organizational culture positively impacts strategies and policies implementation hence creating a thriving, dynamic and competitive organisation. In addition, organizations should align their human resource strategies with the organization culture so as to benefit from good organizational customs.