EMPLOYER BRANDING, WORK-LIFE BALANCE, GENDER AND EMPLOYEE RETENTION: EXPERIENCE FROM TELECOMMUNICATION FIRMS IN KENYA

We examined the relationship among employer branding, work-life balance and employee retention within the telecommunications sector in Kenya as observed through employee engagement, job satisfaction, affective commitment, continuance commitment and normative commitment by conducting a cross-sectional survey of 131 engineers from telecommunications firms in Kenya. The study further examined the moderating effect of employer branding and work-life balance on the relationship between Generational differences and retention of engineers within telecommunications firms in Kenya. We found that employer branding significantly influences employee retention. Further, we established that the influence of work life balance on retention was positive but weak. We further examined the relationship between gender and other study variables and found that employee retention and perception of employer branding are significantly different across gender; while, work-life balance is perceived equally across male and female employee. It was concluded that, to retain employees, telecommunications firms in Kenya should focus more on employer branding and improvement of job satisfaction which was found to be unequal between male and female engineers. Key words: Employee Retention, Employer Branding, Work Life Balance, Gender, Telecommunication Firms, Kenya