Effect of Organizational Factors and Employee Demographic Characteristics on Employee Turnover At Lake Basin Development Authority, Kenya
Abstract/ Overview
Employeeturnover is the rotation of workers around the labour market; between firms, jobs and
occupations;and between the states of employment and unemployment. Veldsman's theory has it that
the propensity to stay or leave an organization is influenced by both organizational factors and
employeedemographic factors.Today, changes in technology, global econom, ics and trade agreements
aredirectlyaffecting employee/employer relationships thus leading to high employee turnovers. High
labourturnoverchallenges are still raising concern among many organizations inKenya and the world
at large. This phenomenon is reflected in light of usual impending shortage of highly-skilled
employeeswho possess the requisite knowledge and ability to perform work, meaning that
organizations that' are failing to retain high performers will be left under staffed that
willultimatelyhindertheir ability to remain competitive. Studies have merely investigated the effect of
organizationalfactors in isolation of turnover. However, no known study has looked into the
compositeeffect of these organizational factors on turnover. Further, Other studies have also shown
that employeedemographic characteristics have an effect on turnover giving varied and conflicting
resultsbut no such study has been carried out in Kenya, so this remain unknown. The purpose of the
studywas to establish the effect of organizational factors and employee demographic characteristics
onturnoverat Lake Basin Development Authority. A cross sectional survey design was adopted. The
targetpopulation was 174 employees taken though proportionate stratified random sampling out of
which 19 were used in a pilot study and the remaining 155 represented a response rate of
89.08%.Primarydata was collected by use of structured tested for validity using Cronbach's alpha
coefficientwhich yielded alpha scores above 0.6 implying that the instruments for the study were
reliableand can be used to predict the relationship of the study variables with certainty. Secondary
datawas obtained from personnel records and documentreview.The results indicated that the mean
ratingof level of motivation, job satisfaction and organizational commitment were 3.2774, 3.0710 and
2.9510 respectively. On a scale of 1 to 5, these mean scores are high indicating that the firms'
practices in the three areas were high. R2 for organizational factors was 0.562, meaning that
organizationalfactors account for 56% of the variance in the employee turnover.On the other hand, R2
for employee demographic characteristics was 0.304 and was significant. This means that employee
demographic characteristics account for 30.4% of turnover at LBDA. Further, Respondent's age and
levelof education emerged as positive predictors of employee turnover at LBDA and of the two, age
witha beta coefficient of 0.65 had a higher prediction of turnover than level of education (0.208), This
means that the more educated the employees become, the more likely they are to leave their current
jobsand that increase in their ages also propels them to look for better jobs due to experience. The
study concludes that organizational factors and employee characteristics are strong predictors of
employeeturnover at LBDA.It is recommended that the firm continue to emphasize on employee
motivationas it lowers the likelihood of workers leaving the organization.