Staff Turnover in Public Universities in Uganda

In this study, we examined three sets of antecedents of staff turnover in public universities in Uganda: demographic, controllable and uncontrollable. Data were collected from lecturers and administrators at the universities. Our findings suggest that the extent of controllable turnover is greater than uncontrollable turnover and that poor management practices are the major cause of employee turnover. Poor motivation was reported to be a major problem. In particular, economic incentives were found to be grossly inadequate to retain lecturers in the university system. Therefore, it is recommended that the universities upgrade their incentive systems, especially the economic motivators. The study also revealed that there is a pressing need to make the lecturers working environment conducive for the universities core functions of teaching, research and community engagement