ABSTRACT

The concept of employee turnover and retention within the banking sector is an area that provide applied usage of academic researches because of its timeliness with the turbulence in the financial space in Ghana. The study sort to examine turnover intentions as a case at GT Bank (Ghana) Ltd. To achieve that, 60 employees were sampled to respond to a survey questionnaire on their turnover intentions after the banking sector review which saw a downward trend of banks from 36 to 27 with mergers, reclassification and exit of some of the banks. A descriptive analysis was conducted, and the independent t-test analysis was used to test the research hypothesis. It was revealed that there are low turnover intentions by current employees who were purposefully and conveniently surveyed. Also, there is no significant gender difference on intention to leave as well as no difference in turnover intentions among staff category (permanent vs. contract staffs). The study’s revelation has implications for managers and human resource units about the little cause for worry that their employees may be leaving the organization very soon. Other implications such as filling the research gap of knowing recent thoughts about employees’ intention to leave the banking sector is fulfilled despite the need for more studies on this subject area across the banking industry as a whole.

1.0 Introduction

The study of turnover and turnover intention in the banking sector in Ghana is critical and timely looking at the wave of reforms that has shook the sector recently. The Central Bank in Ghana undertook some structural reforms through recapitalization and other strategies that have influence the financial sector in Ghana (Adombila, 2019). The current study will examine staff intention to leave the sector with particular focus on Guaranty Trust Bank (Ghana) Ltd. The research project is written in sections starting with introduction, background, rationale of the study, methodology, analysis, discussion and conclusion. The following highlights the sub-titles under which this current study on turnover intentions will be executed.

2.0 Background

The banking sector in Ghana in the past two years can be described as nothing short of turbulent. Prior to the challenges the financial sector of the Ghanaian banking industry is witnessing, there was a phenomenal growth in the number of banks, with new banks entering financial mediation in preceding years i.e. 2016 and 2017. For instance, seven banks were incorporated to start business within this time frame (Sovereign Bank Ltd, Premium Bank Ltd, OmniBank (Ghana) Ltd, The Construction Bank Ltd, Heritage Bank Ltd, Beige Bank and GHL Bank Ltd).

A sudden turn of events occurred where the central bank increased the minimum capital  from 120million Ghana Cedis to 400million Ghana Cedis. This caused a number of banks to face liquidity challenges, in relation with raising extra capital from the capital market; it exposed some banks that were not operating good corporate governance system (PwC, 2018). On the other hand, some banks were able to raise the required minimum capital. Out of the

thirty-six (36) commercial banks as at June 2017, by January 2019 it has left with 27 banks in good standing. Adombila (2019) reports that banks that were unsuccessful in the recapitalization bid have been consolidated, whiles others are in merger discussions and one has exited the financial space altogether as well as one bank being reclassified to a savings and loans company (see Table 1).