Talent Management Strategies, Managerial Styles and Employee Retention in State Corporations in Mombasa, Kenya

Abstract

Over the years, employee turnover has persistently continued to be a major concern in most State corporations in Kenya. Despite numerous research on employee retention strategies, state corporations have been experiencing widespread migration of staff in the recent past. Whereas previous researches have linked talent management strategies to employee retentions, whether or not managerial styles moderates the connection amongst talent management and employee retention in state corporations hasn’t come to the attention of researchers. It is still not clear whether the persistence of employee retention in state corporations especially in Mombasa County could be associated with the role of managers in talent managing. The emphasis of this study therefore was to determine whether managerial styles have a moderating role in the connection between talent management strategies and employee retention in state corporations situated in Mombasa County. The study was anchored on the path-goal managerial theory, Herzberg theory of motivation, equity theory and the component theory. Pragmatism research philosophy was adopted. Cross sectional research design was adopted in this study. 293 employees including six human resource managers of the state corporations based in Mombasa were targeted in this study. A sample of 169 people was derived using the Yamane method. The study adopted a variety of ways to choose participants. First, purposive sampling was employed to select the six state firms' HR managers. The researcher then randomly selected the remaining 163 individuals working in diverse departments. To obtain the study data, two research instruments were used namely: interview guide and questionnaire. Questionnaires were administered to the sampled workers. However, interviews were conducted on the human resources managers guided by use of interview schedules. Descriptive and inferential statistics were generated by use of SPSS software version 26. Descriptive statistics basically comprised of frequencies, tables as well as percentages. The inferential statistic utilized in this study was binary logistic regression. The outcome of the research clearly demonstrated existence of a link between talent management and employee retention in state corporations in Mombasa. Besides, the findings also revealed that different managerial styles have a moderating influence in the link amongst talent management and employee retention. Managerial style not only has a statistically and significant influence on whether or not an employee stays with the organization, but it also plays a moderating function in the connection between talent management and employee retention in state enterprises. When managerial style is incorporated in the model, flexible work arrangement ceases to be a fundamental factor influencing employee retention. Further an examination of the odds ratio which in essence demonstrate the effect size show that by incorporating managerial style in the model reduces the odds of employees exiting the state corporations. The odds ratios are relatively lower after introducing managerial style in the model. This study took a cross-sectional approach to its data collection. Therefore, future research should place a primary emphasis on longitudinal methods, which make it possible to collect data at a number of different points. In future studies, more types of organizations besides state corporations should be included.