Employee retention strategies, career development practices and organizational citizenship behaviour in environmental agencies within north rift region, Kenya

Abstract

Organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) is the ability of employees to go an extra mile and perform roles outside their job description. OCB has been established as a major determinant of employee retention both in public and private sector. Despite this, Environmental Agencies suffer low employee satisfaction compromising on their OCB which calls for the adoption of appropriate employee retention strategies. However, there is empirical evidence that not all retention strategies have been exhaustively investigated on its association with organizational citizenship behaviour. Similarly, there is inadequate knowledge on career development practices as the potential moderator. Thus, the need to interrogate the link on these variables. This study therefore examined the moderating role of career development practices on the relationship between employee retention strategies and organizational citizenship behaviour. The specific objectives were to determine the effect of open communication, employee involvement, leadership and work life balance on organization citizenship behaviour. The study was anchored on the Social exchange theory, Job embeddedness theory and Social cognitive theory. The study employed explanatory research design and pragmatism philosophy. The target population comprised of 935 employees drawn from the three Environmental Agencies within North Rift Region. Stratified sampling, purposive and simple random sampling techniques were used to select the respondents. Krejcie and Morgan (1970) table was used to calculate the sample size of 274 respondents which was proportionally allocated to the organizations using Neyman Allocation formular. The primary data was collected using closed ended questionnaires and structured interview schedule. Data was analyzed quantitatively using descriptive statistics (frequencies, percentages, means, standard deviation) and inferential statistics (Regression, Correlation and ANOVA) while qualitative data was analyzed thematically. The hypotheses were tested using multiple regression model and hierarchical regression for moderation. The regression results indicated that open communication (β=.374, p= 0.00<0.05), employee involvement (β=.236, p= 0.00<0.05), leadership (β=.234, p= 0.00<0.05), while work life balance (β=.129, p= 0.00<0.05). This infers that there was a significant and positive effect of open communication, employee involvement, leadership and work life balance on OCB. The study further established that career development practices significantly and positively moderates the relationships between open communication and OCB (β=.59, p<0.05), employee involvement and OCB (β=.60, p<0.05), Leadership and OCB (β=.86, p<0.05) and work Life balance and OCB (β=.50, p<0.05). The study concludes that open communication, employee involvement, leadership and work life balance have a significant and positive effect on OCB which is crucial in the development of both public and private sector organizations and for OCB to thrive, the management should be encouraged to put more emphasis on career development practices. The study recommends that organizations should understand and develop a holistic approach of implementing career development practices and overall employee retention strategies which include open communication, employee involvement, leadership and work life balance and which focus on changing the demands of employees for sustained OCB. The study findings supported social exchange theory that organizations with career development practices will have stronger retention strategies enhancing OCB.