The Relationship between the Human Resource Practices of the Civil Service and Turnover Intentions among the Middle Range Civil Servants in Malawi

Abstract

The Government of Malawi is one of the biggest employers for the educated Malawians employing more than sixty percent of the total workforce. It is also the biggest employer for young people who just graduate from the university, as employees either without any experience at all or with very limited experience. Companies and other non-governmental institutions do not really employee such inexperienced workforce in masses; as a result these young graduates have very limited choice of employer. In view of this, these inexperienced graduates depend on the government for employment despite the fact that it does not pay “well” as compared to other non-government employers. Additionally, the civil service has been deemed by several Breton-Wood Institutions and others as having poor or unattractive working conditions just like other governments in the least developed countries. Due to these problems, there have been mass exoduses from the civil service exemplified by the medical personnel in the health sector as well as in education. This is very evident among the middle range or entry levels who also happen to be these new graduates from the University yet they are the hub of the professional/technical and administrative categories. This means that the more turnover the civil service has today, the greater the risk of having a poor civil service in the near future. This has not gone well with the government as an employer because recruitment, selection and hiring are very costly and time consuming. In trying to curb the many problems faced by the civil service, the Breton-Woods Institutions initiated what have been called the Civil Service Reform Programmes for more than 10 years (since 1994/5). One of the targets in the Civil Service Reform Programmes was (and still is) to improve the working conditions of the civil servants in order to reduce turnover and enhance retention. This study examined the relationship between some Human Resource practices (salary, job enrichment/autonomy and job stability strategies) as the precursor variables and turnover intentions as an outcome variable. It also explains the relationship between of job satisfaction and employee commitment with both turnover and the HR practices. Backward regression method was used to find the relationships. It still remains obvious that intentions to exit the civil service remain high but employees can hardly quit mainly due to other external labour market forces and also the job security they enjoy in the service. Satisfaction and commitment remain shaky- levels are relatively low though not too low.