Motivation and Employee Petention in Savings and Credit Co-operative Societies in Nairobi City County, Kenya

Abstract

Failure to adequately motivate employees in savings and credit co-operative societies has resulted to high labour turnover in the sector. This study assesses the role of motivation and its effect on employee retention in savings and credit co-operative societies in Nairobi City County. The study has five chapters with chapter one highlighting the background of the study, problem statement, research objectives and questions, study population, significance of the study and scope of the study, chapter two highlights the literature review and theories used, chapter three is on the research design and methodology, chapter four highlights the study findings and chapter five the conclusions and recommendations of the study. The specific objectives of the study examined the role of employee rewards in promoting employee retention in saving and credit co-operative societies in Nairobi city county, to investigate the impact of a job design on employee retention in savings and credit co-operative societies in Nairobi city county and to examine the effect of career opportunities on employee retention in savings and credit co-operative societies in Nairobi city county. The study used three theories of motivation namely content theory, which centres on the need to recognise and understand people needs, Instrumentality theory, which is based on the hypothesis that people must be rewarded or punished to change their behaviour and Process theory which explains the perception of people on their working environment. Due to the broad nature of the study, a descriptive study design was adopted. The target population of the study was 270 societies located in Westlands sub-county Nairobi County. The study used simple random sampling to select the sample size. The evaluation was done using questionnaires tailored towards collecting primary data in line with the objectives of the study. The data collection instruments were checked for reliability using Cronbach’s Alpha method. The study used descriptive statistics to analyse data using mean and standard deviation and inferential statistics using regression analysis, and analysis of variance. The study employed multiple regression analysis at 5% level of significance to establish the association between the variables. The study findings established that the employee rewards, job design and career opportunities are crucial factors that positively affect retention of employees.The study recommends that savings and credit co-operative societies should formulate well-structured employee rewards with supportive policies to improve the level of employee retention. The study also recommends that the societies should have a variety of career opportunities to satisfy different employee needs. The study suggest that in future, researchers should carry out a longitudinal study to establish the extent to which employee rewards, job design and career opportunities affect employee retention in savings and credit co-operative societies.