Reward systems and employee retention in health research organizations in Uganda. A case of medical research council, Entebbe.

Abstract

This study was about the influence reward systems had on employee retention at Medical Research Council, Entebbe. Specifically, the study sets out to investigate the influence of financial remuneration on employee retention at Medical Research Council, assess the effect of supervisor support on employee retention at Medical Research Council, and sought to examine how employee recognition influences employee retention at Medical Research Council, Entebbe. The study adopted case study design. 80 study participants were sampled from a population of 100 respondents. Data analysis involved descriptive and inferential analysis. Findings indicate that employee Retention at MRC is positively and moderately associated with Financial Remuneration (r=0.484); employee retention at MRC is positively and weakly associated with supervisor support (r=0.404); and employee retention at MRC is positively and moderately associated with employee recognition (r=0.499). Financial remuneration, supervisor support and employee recognition were found to significantly predict employee retention at MRC with an Adjusted R²=0.261. Financial remuneration contributes the highest to the unique variations recorded in employee retention (β=0.297), followed by employee recognition (β= 0.202) and supervisor support (β=0.144). However, employee recognition and supervisor Support were not statistically significant. In conclusion, the study determined that financial remuneration impacted employee retention in a weak but positive manner; supervisor support made a negligible and statistically insignificant contribution to improving employee retention in MRC and that employee recognition has had very little of the hoped for effect on employee retention in MRC. The management team must take steps to increase financial remuneration due to the employees. Additionally, the organisation needs to benchmark their remuneration on sister organisations and make regular revisions of the policy on remuneration in MRC. It is further recommended that leadership of MRC should discontinue promoting long serving employees as supervisors basing on technical proficiency alone. Finally, management needs to give employees opportunities to make their input into UVRI’s goals and make them feel like they are working toward a higher joint effort.