In the competitive knowledge economy of today it is talented employees who ensure a competitive advantage for their company above their competitors. Voluntary employee turnover is said to have a number of negative consequences for employers, such as recruitment, selection and training costs, as well as lowered morale in the case of employees who stay behind. Companies and countries such as South Africa have to become globally competitive through talented and dedicated employees. Companies should therefore place more focus on the retention and grooming of their internal talent since a “war on talent” is being waged between companies for the best talent. With the looming shortage of talent globally it becomes more important for organisations in general and the petrochemical sector in particular to understand why talented and dedicated employees voluntarily leave their organisations. With such insight at their disposal, people managers are able to devise appropriate strategies to retain talent for the competitive benefit of their own organisations. The principal objective of this research study was to improve employee retention by investigating the influence of career-pathing (career development practices) and other selected critical success factors on employee retention. The study considered how employee retention (the dependent variable) is influenced by affective organisational commitment, career-pathing, growth need satisfaction, job commitment, affective professional commitment, continuance professional commitment and normative professional commitment (the independent variables). The sample who participated in this study consisted of one hundred and one (101) out of a possible total of two hundred and eleven (211) respondents from the selected South African petrochemical organisation. The empirical results reveal that affective organisational commitment and career-pathing are significantly related to employee retention, while all the other variables tested are not significantly related to employee retention.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nmmu/vital:8933 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | Saaiman, Cherwin Jesse |
| Publisher | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Faculty of Business and Economic Sciences |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Masters, MBA |
| Format | xii, 149 leaves, pdf |
| Rights | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University |
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