Identifying factors that increase the turnover of the permanent employees of ministry of housing and infrastructure / Mohamed Yaniu Hashim

Abstract

The Ministry of Housing and Infrastructure has been experience a high amount of staff turnover for the past few years. For a ministry tasked with project based work mainly, having a high staff turnover disrupts the flow of the ongoing projects and also does not allow for institutional memory to develop or be maintained. This study investigates the whether the high staff turnover is caused by economic factors or non-economic factors. Economic factors for the context of this research are taken as employee compensation, career development and growth, training opportunities and promotions. Non-economic factors are taken as work-stress, political influence, longer working hours and working environment in general. Currently there has not been any major research done on employee turnover rates in the Maldives in the civil service sector in particular while retention and turnover rates have been explored in the private sector. Job satisfaction studies for the civil service has been conducted and thus the researcher hopes to establish a baseline knowledge on the factors causing high staff turnover in the ministry of Housing and infrastructure. The researcher will interview employees who have resigned from the Ministry of Housing and Infrastructure along with supervisors who have had employees under the supervision resign within the same time frame. In addition to this the Civil Service commission and the Human Resource Department of the Ministry of Housing was approached to identify any common employee complaints that might have been submitted in regards to the Ministry, the policies in effect and the regulations being implemented at the ministry. After obtaining all the relevant information the researcher will aim to identify patterns amongst the collected data and ascertain which factors are more directly linked to the high staff turnover at the ministry. After identification of the primary factors causing the high staff turnover the researcher will present recommendation for the future that the ministry can implement to reduce the staff turnover rates. The researcher will also outline where future research should be targeted to get a more comprehensive understanding of the factors along with a more accurate conclusion to see if the data collected during this research is corroborated or not.
The study will provide a deeper understanding for future policy making in the ministry along with filling in the gap left by the lack of research done on factors influencing turnover rates in the Civil Service sector in the Maldives