ORGANISATIONAL POLITICS AND EMPLOYEE RETENTION IN SELECTED DISABLED PEOPLE’S ORGANISATIONS IN UGANDA

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of organizational politics on employee retention in selected Disabled People’s Organizations in Uganda. The problem of the study was low employee retention as a result of organizational politics in Disabled People’s Organizations in Uganda. Disabled People’s Organizations were faced with rampant labour turnover, leading to a loss of competent and committed human resource. In response, Disabled People’s Organizations decided to improve salary packages offered to their employees. Regardless of the efforts, labour turnover persisted thus threatening the performance and survival of Disabled People’s Organizations in Uganda (NUDIPU, 2011). The following specific objectives guided the study: i) to find out the effects of influence on employee retention in Disabled People’s Organizations in Uganda and ii) to assess the effects of power on employee retention in selected Disabled People’s Organizations in Uganda. The study used a cross-sectional survey research design in six selected Disabled People’s Organizations. A sample of 76 respondents was selected using simple random sampling, purposive sampling for key informants and snow ball sampling for former workers of these organizations out of which a 53% response rate was received. The methods used to collect the data were questionnaire survey method and interviewing method. Content analysis was used to edit qualitative data and reorganize it into meaningful shorter sentences. Quantitative analysis mainly consisted of descriptive statistics (frequencies and percentages) and inferential statistics (spearman correlation coefficient of determination). The study findings indicated that influence had a negative and insignificant effect on employee retention with a correlation coefficient of r= 0.013 with a significance p=.945 while power had a positive and insignificant effect on employee retention as indicated by the correlation coefficient of r= .209 with p=.255. Thus, it is concluded that both influence and power did not significantly affect employee retention in Disabled People’s Organizations in Uganda. Basing on the study findings, it was recommended that the management of Disabled People’s Organizations should focus on boosting salary and non-monetary benefits such as setting up opportunities for promotions on merit to give staff a clear path for career growth, management should design or move towards a programme based structure instead of a project based. In addition, board members should trust staff in top management to lead Disabled People’s Organizations, since they have the experience and have been recruited to manage the organizations. This will thus enhance retention in the organizations.