Human Resource Strategies on Retention of Faculty in Private Universities in Kenya: A Case of Daystar and Pan Africa Christian Universities. Faculty Retention Gap

A study on human resource strategies and relationship to faculty retention was carried out in private universities in Kenya. It was specifically conducted as a case of Daystar and Pan Africa Christian universities for the purpose of exploring various human resource strategies geared towards retention of full time faculty in these respective universities. The target population was full time faculty, heads of departments and deans in three departments common to both universities, namely, biblical studies, counseling and business; and human resource managers. Data was collected using questionnaire, interview guide and document analysis and analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) and descriptive narratives. The findings revealed that strategic human resource managers in both universities had some strategies in place for retention of faculty. The participants, especially deans, heads of departments and lecturers without administrative tasks, proposed ways of improving the existing strategies to enhance faculty retention. They also raised challenges they considered to be faced by SHRM in their efforts to retain faculty and ways to minimize the same. In summary, monetary challenges were more than non- monetary according to opinions of participants. The strategic human resource managers in both universities therefore needed to utilize the expressed dissatisfaction, cited ways of improving retention by facing challenges through their professional expertise, suggestions of research participants. Based on research findings, the researcher concluded that; there were differences of opinions among lecturers, heads of departments, academic deans and strategic human resource managers on the best strategies to retain faculty. A dean had expressed the same thing while referring to heavy administrative responsibilities as a challenge to research. It was therefore necessary for the strategic human resource manager to consider hiring more teaching staff to share extra workload so that the university would grow through research, writing and publication. The management needed to provide a climate which would make exchange of views between lecturers and management on the best strategies each university needed to configure in order to retain their valuable faculty.