Abstract:
The intent of most organizations is to keep and maintain the best talent in a bid to enhance
sustained productivity. Retaining employees motivated is a daunting task since on average,
employees spend twelve hours of their daily life at the workplace. The labor turnover,
expressed as a ratio or percentage encompasses movement in or out of employees in an
organization. Many factors contribute to labor turnover including employee age, tenure
with the organization, relative amount of pay, overall job satisfaction, characteristics of the
task, employee perceptions of the work environment, better prospects career move, more
security, more opportunity to develop skills, better working conditions, poor relationship
with manager or team leader and poor relationship with colleagues. There has been high
employee turnover in commercial banks in Kenya, particularly in the Cooperative Bank of
Kenya. This study purposed to analyze the effect of quality of work life on employee
retention where selected branches of Cooperative bank in Kenya were considered. The
study wishes to inform the management of cooperative bank to improve on their human
resource policies and strategies geared towards enhancing quality of work life. The study
was particularly interested in working environment, job enrichment coupled with stress
management practices and employee autonomy, and how these affect the employee
retention in the aforesaid bank. The Hertzberg’s Hygiene-Motivation Theory and
Maslow’s Theory were reviewed to steer the study. The study adopted a descriptive survey
research design where quantitative approach was adopted. The target population was 67
employees that were selected from the top level, middle level and lower level management.
A census was adopted where all the 67 employees participated in the study. A semi
structured questionnaire was used to gather first-hand information from the targeted
employees. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 24 was used to
analyze data. It was found out that all the four variable influenced employee retention. The
effect of autonomy factors on employee retention was not statistically significant (t =
0.462; p > 0.05). The stress management at work had a positive and statistically significant
effect on employee retention (t = 2.797; p < 0.05). The effect of working conditions on
employee retention was also positive (t = 4.383) and statistically significant (p < 0.05). The
study further established that the effect of job enrichment on employee retention was
negative (t = -0.392) and not statistically significant (p > 0.05). The study concluded that
commercial banks ought to underscore the employee working conditions and stress
management programs since they are the most influential. It was recommended that banks
in Kenya should critically look into the stress management programs and working
conditions in order to enhance employee motivation, satisfaction and consequently
improve employee retention. The banks should also enrich employee jobs and allow them
to work autonomously.
