Factors affecting the retention of academic staff in North-West University, Mafikeng Campus

Abstract

Job turnover remains a problem amongst the academic staff in the institutions of higher learning in South Africa. The purpose of this study was to examine the factors of retention that may be applied in the institutions of higher learning to retain the academic staff for a considerably long period of time. Herzberg motivation and hygiene theory, Maslow’s hierarchy of need theory, expectancy theory and equity theory forms the theoretical foundation of this study just to examine the diverse motivational factors that may be applied in the work environment. The study adopted the post-positivist paradigm and a quantitative method which was supported by a descriptive quantitative design. This design helped in using structured questionnaires to collect data from the respondents thereby enabling the researcher to obtain a comprehensive knowledge of the study. The population of this study was all the academic staff in the North West University, Mafikeng Campus, N=439 while the sample size which was drawn using a stratified random sampling method, n=219. The study derived its findings by the quantitative analysis using SPSS. The major findings of this study disclosed that the major motivational factors of academic staff retention are professional development (94%), job commitment (89.5%, and adequate benefits (89%), the major retention factors are job security (90%), professional development (86.3%) and academic advancement (84%) while the major constraints to job retention are salary scales and bonuses (76.3%) and measuring inputs with rewards (73.1%). The study recommends that the institution should make employee-friendly policies to ensure that academic staff are retained. Furthermore, much needs to be done in the field of retention, therefore, other studies are needed to be conducted in other provinces to examine further issues surrounding retention of academic staff.