Talent Retention Strategies And Competitiveness of Publicuniversities In Western Region Of Kenya

ABSTRACT

Public Universities are currently facing challenges in retaining talent. This has been crucial to

the changing prospects and potentials of knowledge formation and learning. Organizations

loose key talent for many reasons; lack of job satisfaction, poor reward systems and

management, poor organizational policies, lack of opportunities for growth, training and

development, lack of work life balance with regard to work life conflicts and poor working

conditions. Retention of employees has become a greater challenge facing human resource

practitioners' in organizations. The purpose of the study was to examine talent retention

strategies and competitiveness of public universities in Western Region of Kenya. This study

determined the effects of work life balances on competitiveness of Universities, analysed the

influence of training and development on Competitiveness in public Universities and

determined the effects of rewards systems on competitiveness in public universities in Western

Region of Kenya and lastly examined the joint effect of talent retention strategies on

competitiveness of public Universities in Western Region of Kenya. Competitiveness was

measured by students’ enrolment and webometrics ranking. Literature was reviewed on the

constructs of talent retention strategies and competitiveness of public universities and the study

is based on Resource Based View (RBV) theory. This study is expected to benefit

organizations in coming up with policies that will improve talent retention rates and it will also

add knowledge to academic consortium on talent retention strategies in Universities. The

study area was public universities in Western Region of Kenya namely; Maseno University,

Masinde Muliro University of Science & Technology, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of

Science & Technology and Kibabii University. The research adopted co-relational research

design. Sampling techniques were stratified sampling and proportionate sampling whereby

each university formed a strata and population was further grouped into academic and non

teaching staff. Pre-test of the questionnaire was carried out in Kaimosi Friends University

College to enable the researcher to ascertain the validity and reliability of the instrument. Data

was collected by use of structured questionnaire. Validity of research instruments was

determined using content and constructs validly. Data was analyzed using descriptive and

inferential statistics and Statistical Package for Social Sciences (version 25) was used for data

analysis. The questionnaires were given to 351 respondents out of which 316 responded which

represents 90% of the respondents. The findings of this study established that work-life

balance, training and development and reward systems affects competitiveness of Universities

in western region of Kenya and therefore joint talent retention strategies are vital for

Universities achieving University competitiveness. Null hypotheses for all the four objectives

were rejected and alternate hypotheses accepted. This study recommends that universities in

Western Region in Kenya should come up work life balance programs, embrace training and

development practices and establish reward systems that are effective in order to be able to

retain their talent which in turn affects competitiveness of Universities. The results of this

study have significant implication on strategic talent retention strategies and its effect on

competitiveness of Universities and also theoretical implications.