Employee Engagement, Antecedents and Turnover Intent in Selected Firms in Uganda

Abstract

This study set out to examine the relationship between employee engagement, its antecedents and turnover intent in selected firms in Uganda. Cross-sectional survey design was employed to collect data from 1,773 employees from four purposively sampled firms in Kampala, Mukono, and Buikwe districts. Hypotheses were tested using correlation and hierarchical regression analysis. Results show that all the nine antecedent variables studied were positive and significantly correlated with employee engagement. Employee engagement was negative and significantly correlated with turnover intent. The hierarchical regression results shows that only five of the nine antecedents were significant predictors of turnover intent - employee development, compensation fairness, perceived social support, reward/recognition and collaboration. The study also found that employee engagement is not a partial mediator between the antecedents and turnover intent because the hierarchical regression analysis shows that after controlling for the antecedents, employee engagement did not contribute unique variance to turnover intent. It is recommended that even if engagement was not found to be a significant predictor of turnover intent, collaboration, reward & recognition, perceived organizational support, compensation fairness, and development are significant predictors and should be deliberately promoted in organizations.