Investigating factors that lead to high staff turnover in private secondary schools in Thika West and Kiambu East Districts of Kenya

Abstract

Organizations invest a lot on their employees in terms of induction, training, developing, maintaining and retaining them in their organization. Therefore, managers at all costs strive to minimize employee's turnover. Although, there is no standard framework for understanding the employees turnover process as whole, a wide range of factors have been found useful in interpreting employee turnover in this study. The scope of the study was private Secondary schools in Thika West and Kiambu East Districts. The research design employed in this study involved gathering information from private secondary school teachers in Thika West and Kiambu East Districts. The study population comprised of twenty seven principals and fifty four teachers. The research adopted descriptive research design. Simple random sampling was used to select the teachers. Questionnaires were the main research instrument and the data collected was analyzed using the quantitative method of data analysis and presented in form of pie charts, bar- charts, graphs and in prose form. The study findings indicated that lack of employee training had an impact on staff turnover in private secondary schools. The various factors considered for the selection of training were upgrading in information technology, general skills upgrading and performance improvement. The study also found that there were effects of reward and recognition on staff turnover in private secondary schools. The most preferred factors in relation to staff turnover in organization were manager/subordinate relationship, career development, working conditions and remuneration. In conclusion it was noted that leadership and Human Resource Management had a role on staff turnover in private secondary schools. The role of leadership in management is largely determined by the organizational culture of the organization. It has been argued that managers' beliefs, values and assumptions are of critical importance to the overall style of leadership that they adopt. The study recommended that private secondary schools need to implement various ways to reduce staff turnover in their school. These include increased salaries, improved staff housing, staff training, offering career development, and offering staff leaves and good human resource management.