Effect of Employee Engagement on Employee Retention within an Organization: A case study of Peach Consulting Limited

A research project submitted to the School of Business in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of a Master of Science degree in Organizational Development.Retaining talented employees is a critical management issue in the both private and public companies. Poor morale and productivity can reduce profitability even if the employee remains with the organization. Recently, employee engagement has taken a central role in discussions on organizational efficacy. This is due in part to its touted impact on employee outcomes, describing a deeper level of involvement, passion and enthusiasm for work than other similar constructs such as organizational commitment and job satisfaction. In addition, employees form a key component of any organization. However, as a result of globalization, economic growth and shortage of skilled labor, many organizations including banks are finding it difficult to retain valued employees. Turnover is even occurring against a background of varied HRM interventions to improve employee retention. Employee retention is one of the challenges facing many organizations both public and private. Retention of talented employees has become an even greater challenge confronting human resource practitioner because talented candidates in the global job skills market have the luxury of choice. The purpose of this study was to establish the effect of employee engagement on employee retention within an organization with reference to Peach Consulting Limited. The study adopted a descriptive research design. The target population comprised of 45 Peach Consulting Limited employees. Primary data was collected using questionnaire. Descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentages, mean score and standard deviation was estimated for all the quantitative variables and information presented inform of tables and graphs. Correlation analysis was used to establish the relations between the independent and dependent variables. The respondents strongly agreed that employees in Peach Consulting Limited willingly and voluntarily make changes within their department. The respondents agreed that the organization culture puts emphasis on staff engagement, that strategic HR policies and initiatives promote employee engagement at all levels and that in the past year. The study revealed that Peach Consulting Limited employees love their work because they feel secure and that the management exchanges experiences with junior employees to improve job problems in the workplace. The study sought to examine the effect of nature of employee engagement on employee retention within an organization and concluded that it positively affects employee retention. The study sought to explore the effect of antecedents of employee engagement within an organization and concluded that it positively and significantly affects employee retention. The study further sought to establish the effect of employee engagement affect within an organization and concluded that it positively and significantly affects the employee retention. Therefore the study recommends that the employees should be encouraged to be willingly and voluntary be involved in making changes in their respective departments. The study therefore recommends that employees should be encouraged to give and offer ideas on how to improve the organisation. The study recommends that the duration taken to evaluate employee performance should be long enough to allow comprehensive assessment and the process of evaluation should involve wide consultations especially in setting performance targets