Perceived relationship between psychological contract and employee turnover at Barclays bank of Kenya

Abstract

Every organisation recognises the importance of its key asset, its employees. In view of this, organisations seek to maintain a low turnover rate by reducing undesired voluntary turnover especially at senior management levels and in critical roles. Central to this is the establishment of linkages between the factors that influence employee turnover and thereafter employing the appropriate retention strategies. Many organisations make these linkages by employing the use of employee opinion surveys, dipstick surveys, focus groups, forums and exit interviews. This study was a descriptive survey within Barclays Bank of Kenya. The population of this study comprised of all employees in Barclays Bank of Kenya, Head Office whose number was 3,103. A sample of 363 respondents was selected for the study who were drawn from all the Head Office departments in Nairobi, which are twelve in number namely: Barclays Business Support, Compliance, Consumer Credit, Corporate Affairs, Corporate Banking, Corporate Credit Risk, Finance, Human Resources, Legal, Managing Director’s Office, Operational Risk and Control Rigour and Treasury. This comprises 12% of the entire population of study. The study employed the use of primary data collected through the use of a structured questionnaire. The collected data was analyzed using correlation analysis and presented in tables. The study found that majority of employees at Barclays Bank of Kenya were dissatisfied with the current state of their psychological contract. Majority felt the bank had failed to honour its side of the contract leading to employees loosing trust in the bank’s management. Most employees felt dissatisfied with working at the institution with some saying they would want to leave for other institutions. The study showed that most employees at Barclays Bank of Kenya do not have the intention of leaving the bank with an overall score of 60% either strongly agreeing or disagreeing that they wanted to leave the organization. The study concludes that while psychological contract influences employee turnover, it may not be the sole contributor to employee turnover at the bank. The study recommends that the Bank’s management needs to understand what is triggering perceptions of breaches and violations in psychological contract on the part of its employees.