A Critical Study of Labour Turnover Situation of Public Universities in Ghana: a Case Study of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.

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2006-11-10
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The human resource element of any institution is very essential to the growth of that institution. Universities worldwide are adopting various strategies to attract and retain its staff, especially in the face of increasing competition. Public universities in Ghana continue to experience problems with labour related issues like labour turnover. Labour turnover is one of the most important issues within any institutions. It occurs when employees leave the working place and need to be replaced by new recruits. Keeping valuable staff can be a source of competitive advantage. It cost money when an institution loses staff, and failing to deal with labour turnover can potentially affect the performance of any institution. Depending on the type of institution, a certain degree of labour turnover may be desirable, since it creates opportunity for new ideas. However, a persistent high level of labour turnover can be costly. Public universities in Ghana depend largely on government subvention. Inadequate funding of these institutions has seriously constrained their capacity to discharge fully their responsibilities. The staffing problems of these institutions cut across all angles; deterioration of infrastructure, low-level wages, poor conditions of service, inadequate supplies of office equipment and shortage of laboratory materials are all symptoms of the inadequate funding of these institutions. Various staff vacancies cannot be filled; whereas retired staffs are perpetually given post-retirement contract employment to fill vacancies temporally. The main objective of this study is to critically analyze the labour turnover situation of public universities in Ghana, with a case study of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. The study was conducted entirely through questionnaire and surveys which gathered information on staff statistics, salaries and conditions of service, and the views of current and former staff of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology with interviews with some principal officers of other public universities, namely; University of Ghana, University of Cape Coast, University of Education and University for Development Studies. This study cannot be complete without ascertaining the rates, causal factors and trend of labour turnover of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. Several reasons for staff leaving were identified from the research conducted. Some of the reasons were, low salaries, delayed promotions, lack of training and development opportunities, deteriorating infrastructure etc. It is evident from the responses that, the study has provoked a considerable amount of thought within these institutions, and suggested ways of looking at the management of staff in these universities. This is encouraging, as it is evident that many universities do not routinely collect and analyze data on staffing trends. It appears that much of the data requested by this survey were difficult to obtain from existing management records.
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Economics and Industrial Management in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters in Business Admistration (MBA), 2006
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