CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1     Background of the Study

          Organization is facing the challenge of employee retention due to increased competition in the market. It is crucial for organization to hire competent employees to gain a competitive advantage in the market. However, retaining component employee is more important than hiring. Organizations are always searching for talented employees and spend time and money on their employees for future return prospect. Factors like lack of skilled workforce, economic growth and employee turnover demand to devise policies to increase employee retention. It is hard to measure the exact cost associated with employee turnover for organizations.

          However, organization facing employee turnover may not bear the cost of this situation in monetary terms only. If we assume that the overall workload remains constant, the short time burden on the remaining employees will increase and will have a negative impact on their motivation. In the long run the organization loses the long time employee that possesses specific knowledge, know-how and skills (Rogers 2003). The cost is reduce the customer loss, productivity loss and business should also be considered (Rogers, 2003). Moreover, the hiring of new employees is associated with additional expenses. These expenses are incurred in the form of advertising, screening, verifying credentials, interviewing and training of new employees etc (Naira, 2009).

          Employee retention consists of procedures through which employees are boosted to become part of the organization for a longer period of time until he/she gets retired or until the project gets completed. For achieving individuals as well as organizational goals, it is very much essential to retain talented employees. The human resources manager must known how to attract and keep good employees because these are the employees who can make or break the organization’s goodwill (Rasli, 2014).

          Successful employee retention does not rely on a single strategy. The decision of an employee to stay in the organization is effected by a number of factors depending on a variety of elements like the individual’s age, the family situation, monitoring, career and learning opportunities, good benefits, networking and the external job market or job title (Musser, 2001); Simott et al, 2002. (Yusoff et al. 2013). Talented and good employees are asset of an organization. Retaining talented employees is highly important for the long-term growth as well as success of the business (Heathfied. 2005).

          Human resource to organization cannot be over-emphasized. Human resource is valued and serves as the backbone of organizations the world over. Employees are a key resource that can be strategically placed for an organization to attain competitive advantage. It is asserted the resources that are rare and valuable create competitive advantage. Also, studies have shown that, organizations increase and sustain competitive advantage through the management of scarce and valuable human resources (Heathfield. 2005). Thus, the success of any organization is dependent on the quality and efficiency of its human resources.

          Organization can be said to be open systems that exist for specific goals or purpose. Organizational theories describe organization as social entities that are goal-directed, designed as deliberately structured and coordinated activity system, and are linked to the external environment (Miller, 2006). Most successful organization does not owe their success solely to detailed planning and implementation of impeccable policies and strategies but also to their human resources.

          Thus, component human resources can assist organization to achieve the optimum use of other resources, the consistently contribute to effectiveness and continuous improvement of the organization. Competitive organizations worldwide relying on their employees to provide innovative solutions to the problems they might have. Indeed a world where competition is high, and technology, processes and products can be easily duplicated by competitor; employees are the key and most reliable resources that can keep an organization a step ahead of its competitive advantage in many industries and countries. Accordingly, for an organization to thrive and remain competitive, it is important that it attracts and retains human resources. This implies that employee retention play a vital role in the growth of organizations.

1.2     Statement of the problem

It has been noted that lack of effective HRM practices in the Telecommunication industry has led to the increase in employee turnover rate. Most of the proprietors who own and head the Telecommunication industry have little or no knowledge in the industry. The perception that the Telecommunication industry is a business and that the only requirement is financial ability and therefore issues of HRM are things of the past. It has been established that the ability of managers to align themselves well with sound and resultoriented HRM practices and make informed decisions depend largely on the level of their HRM capability. However the variables that contribute to better HRM practices remain unexplored especially in our part of the world. More often than not, employees of the mining and construction industry are employed on casual basis and their entry and exit seem to be very high. What will sound human resource practices do to ensure a reduction in the turnover ratio of the Telecommunication industry which human resource management practices attract employees to stay on in the workplace? How frequent are these human resource management practices practiced among mining companies? An attempt to find answers to these nagging questions has necessitated this study. Therefore the general objective of this study was to explore how the Human Resource Management practices relates with employee retention in the Telecommunication industry so that their implications to management could be discussed. Specifically, the study sought to identify and examine the human resource management practices that employees of theTelecommunication industry see as important in urging them to stay on in their places of work. It also sought to determine the effect of human resource management practices on employee retention at the Telecommunication industry.

1.3     Objective of the Study

                   The main purpose for this study was to investigate the relationship between Human Resources Policies and Employee Retention in MTN Nigeria, Akwa Ibom State. Specifically, the study sought to;

1. Examine the relationship between training and employee retention
2. Evaluate the relationship between appraisal system and employee retention
3. Examine the relationship between compensation and employee retention
4. Ascertain the relationship between job placement and employee retention

1.4     Research Questions

1.       What is the relationship training and employee retention?

2.       What is the relationship appraisal system and employee retention?

3.       What is the relationship between compensation and employee retention?

4.       What is the relationship between job placement and employee retention?

1.5     Hypotheses of Study

1.       There is no significant relationship between training and employee retention.

2.       There is no significant relationship between appraisal system and employee           retention.

3.       There is no significant relationship between compensation and employee     retention.

4.       There is no significant relationship between job placement  and employee   retention.

1.6     Significance of Study

          The research objective is to provide better understanding in the relationship of effectiveness of management policies practices on employee retention in the telecommunication industry. It will provide useful information of relationship between employee retention and employee compensation, appraisal system, employee empowerment and employee training. The findings of this study will help readers to better understand and use as a guide or information regarding the relationship of effective human resource practices on employee retention.

1.7     Scope of the Study

          The study focused on management policies employee retention in Telecommunication Industries taken MTN as case study, the staff of the MTN were used as respondents within Uyo metropolis of Akwa Ibom State.

1.8     Limitation of the Study

          The present study was conducted on the human resources policies practice and employee retention in Telecommunication industry in Akwa Ibom State. It was limited by sample size used, which provides of group of Telecommunication in employees mainly from MTN – Nigeria. This can limit the generally of the findings.

          Second, this study was conducted across a large organization like MTN making it impossible to control for the actual content of the retention in the organization. Hence the measure used in the study may not represent all aspects of the human resource policies.

          Third, the data reported in this study were gathered at one point in time therefore making it different to draw conclusions on the role of human resource policies. Forth, the variables were assess based on employees response which can introduce distortion through been bias, while the research was conducted in a particularly on human resources policies and how it can enhance retention ofemployee Telecommunication industry. However, the employee retention in this study is not exhaustive hence further research is recommended.