Antecedents of Perceived Employee Engagement and Turnover Intention in the Banking Sector in Nairobi City County Kenya

Abstract

To be engaged in a job is not just being cognitively attentive to the job, or feeling and expressing positive emotions on the job, or doing specific job tasks simply for the sake of doing them. When employees are not fully engaged in the organisation, not happy and satisfied with their work, they are more likely to shift their passions to searching and connecting with potential employers. The purpose of this study was to explore the antecedents of employee engagement and turnover intention in the banking sector in Nairobi City County in Kenya. The theories reviewed includes organisational support theory, theory of justice, conservation of resource theory, job characteristic theory, leader manager exchange theory and social identity theory and an empirical review of literature relevant to the study. A cross sectional survey design was used on a population comprising top-level and middle-level management which totals to 1,760 where a sample of 326 respondents, the data was collected using questionnaires and analysed using SPSS version 22 where an analysis of descriptive statistics, correlation and logistic regression analyses was done. Logistic regression of coefficients results showed that Perceived Organisation Support and Turnover Intention were negatively and significant related. This implies that an additional unit of Perceived Organisation Support decreases the probability of turnover intention holding other factors constant. Perceived Organisation Justice and Turnover Intention were negatively and significant related. This implies that an additional unit of Perceived Organisation Justice decreases the probability of turnover intention holding other factors constant. Value Congruence and Turnover Intention were negatively and significant related. This implies that an additional unit of Value Congruence decreases the probability of turnover intention by 0.968 points holding other factors constant. Job Characteristics and Turnover Intention were negatively and significant related. This implies that an additional unit of Job Characteristics decreases the probability of turnover intention holding other factors constant. Perceived Supervisor Support and Turnover Intention were negatively and significant related. This implies that an additional unit of Perceived Supervisor Support decreases the probability of turnover intention holding other factors constant. Lastly, the study found out that there was an increase in the value of R2, implying that Employee Commitment boosts the level of explanation of independent variables on the variation of dependent variable. Further all the moderated variables are significance. This implies that employee commitment moderate the relationship between the employee engagement antecedents and turnover intention in the banking sector in Nairobi City County in Kenya. The study concluded that antecedents of employee engagement have negative and significant effect on turnover intention. The study recommends the management of the banks to lead the way in the designing, measurement and evaluation of proactive employee engagement policies and practices that help attract and retain talent with skills and competencies necessary for growth and sustainability.