TITLE:
Factors Influencing Employee Retention in the Transport and Logistics Industry
AUTHORS:
Yvonne Sishuwa, Jackson Phiri
KEYWORDS:
Employee Retention, Job Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment, Individual Characteristics, Workplace Structures
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.8 No.6,
June
11,
2020
ABSTRACT: Employee
Retention is a process in which employees are encouraged to remain within an
organization for the maximum period or until the completion of a project.
Successful organizations need to do more than just hire the right people but
retain the right people for the job. Failure to retain employees results in the
loss of knowledge, experience, customer relations and technical skills which
are taken to another organization. The aim of this study was to identify some
of the major factors that affect employee retention in the transport and
logistics industry servicing one of the largest mines in Africa, based in one of Zambia’s rural
areas, Solwezi. The objectives of this study were to identify the major factors
influencing employee retention in the transport and logistics industry, to develop
a framework based on a Causal Model and recommend possible solutions that could
lead to improvements in employee retention. The study used a mixed methods
approach comprised of the quantitative and qualitative methods. The computed
sample from the population was 171 but only 144 respondents successfully
participated in the study. Quantitative data was analysed using the statistical
Package for Social Sciences (SPSS).
Content analysis was also used to analyze data from the interviews with the key
respondents. The findings established that retention was affected by job
satisfaction, organizational commitment and workplace structures. However,
individual characteristics did not have a significant influence on employee
retention. From the findings, it was recommended that strategies aimed at
improving the workplace structures, job satisfaction and organizational
commitment be implemented to promote job security and career development, which were cited as some of the major factors influencing
employee retention.