ABSTRACT
Human resource is the most valuable resource in every organisation and they contribute immensely to organisations the world over. It is therefore imperative for organisations to institute appropriate measures to retain adroit employees. Effectual HRM practices can help organisations to retain their valued employees. The banking industry in Ghana particularly suffers the risk of labour turnover due to intensive competition. This empirical study examined the effects of HRM practices on the retention of employees in the banking industry in Accra, Ghana. Specifically, it looked at how compensation, career management, work-life balance and employee engagement impact on employee retention. The study also sought to examine the moderating effect of job satisfaction on the relationship between HRM practices and employee retention. The study followed an explanatory cross-sectional survey design and was undertaken in the Accra Metropolitan Area. The study was carried out in 13 out of the 26 banks in Ghana. Both Ghanaian/local and foreign banks were included in the sample. Stratified random sampling was used to select a sample size of 342 employees from the various banks. Both descriptive and inferential statistical techniques were used to analyse the data. A Binary Logistic Regression analysis was conducted to test how well the HRM practices could predict employee retention. The findings of this study highlight the fact that HRM practices such as compensation, work-life balance and employee engagement are vital to employees and indeed influence employee retention in the banks. Also although work-life balance and employee engagement are recent additions to research on HRM issues, they both significantly predicted employee retention. However, surprisingly career management did not have a significant effect on employee retention. It was also evident that job satisfaction could not moderate the interaction between HRM practice and employee retention. To improve employee retention in the banks it is recommended that, even in the face of competition the banks must pay attention to its human resource so that they can achieve a competitive advantage through them. The banks should provide some level of flexibility because work-life balance appears to be important to the employees. Furthermore, it is recommended that employees should be given some level of empowerment and challenging assignments that will require them to make use of their full potential. Also, the banks should collaborate with universities and other academic institution for research on problems confronting them so as to derive the best solutions for human resource management. In future, other researchers should undertake longitudinal studies to assess the practices that affect retention. Also future studies should employ mixed methods in order to obtain greater insights into the specific HRM practices especially from the perspective of HR managers of the banks.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
                       Background to the Study
                       Importance of Human Resource to Organisations
The importance and immense contribution of human resource to organisations cannot be overemphasised. Human resource is valuable and serves as the backbone of organisations the world over. Employees are a key resource that can be strategically placed for an organisation to attain competitive advantage. It is asserted that resources that are rare and valuable create competitive advantage. Also, studies have shown that, organisations increase and sustain competitive advantage through the management of scarce and valuable human resources (Barney, 1991; Khan 2010). Thus, the success of any organisation is dependent on the quality and efficiency of its human resources.
Organisations can be said to be open systems that exist for specific goals or purpose. Organisational theorists describe organisations as social entities that are goal-directed, designed as deliberately structured and coordinated activity systems, and are linked to the external environment (Daft, 2008). Most successful organisations do not owe their success solely to detailed planning and implementation of impeccable policies and strategies but also to their adroit human resources.
Thus, competent human resources can assist organisations to achieve the optimum use of other resources, and consistently contribute to effectiveness and continuous improvement of the organisation. Competitive organisations worldwide rely on their employees to provide innovative solutions to the problems they might have. Indeed, in a world where competition is high, and technologies, processes and products can be easily duplicated by competitors; employees are the key and most reliable resource that can keep an organisation a step ahead of its competitors. Pfeffer (2005) affirms that acquisition, development and retention of talent form the basis for developing competitive advantage in many industries and countries. Accordingly, for any organisation to thrive and remain competitive it is important that it attracts and retains adroit human resources. This implies that employee retention play a vital role in the growth of organisations.
                       Employee Retention
Employee retention is an increasingly important challenge for organisations as the age of the knowledge worker unfolds (Lumley, Coetzee, Tladinyane & Ferreira, 2011). Presently the labour market belongs to employees, because talented candidates in the global job skills market have the luxury of choice (Harris, 2007). Employees, both new and experienced are realizing that they have more discretion in their choice of organisations to work with (Clarke, 2001). The dynamic business environment has brought to bear a lot of organisational challenges, a prominent one being the retention of adept employees. Meanwhile employee
turnover is costly and can negatively affect organisational effectiveness and employee morale (Kacmar, Andrews, Van Rooy, Steilberg, & Cerrone, 2006; Shaw, Gupta, & Delery, 2005).
