Intention to retain staff grade employees in the rubber research institute of sri lanka

Though, being the nodal agency of research and development of the rubber industry, the Rubber Research Institute of Sri Lanka (RRISL) has been challenged to retain the right talents to direct the organization towards its strategic goals. Retaining productive workforce within the institute is the key factor amongst other resources in achieving competitive dimensions in a business venture of the rubber industry. Accordingly, this study was conducted to assess the intention to retain staff grade employees at the institute in terms of causal factors associated: compensation, recognition, work-life balance, working environment and career development. The moderating effect of mentoring between career development and employee intention to stay at the institute was also considered. A census survey was implemented for 153 staff grade employees of the institute and a self-administered structured questionnaire was directed to gather primary data from the respondents. The questionnaire was constructed covering data on two sections, viz. demographic details of the respondents and, the dependent, independent and moderator variables under the five-point Likert scale. Descriptive statistics were employed to classify the characteristics of the population whilst inferential statistics were used to identify the relationships between variables and then to test hypotheses. The results of this study confirmed that the intention to stay staff grade employees of the RRISL was at an unsatisfactory level, while all causal factors, compensation, recognition, work-life balance, working environment and career development contributed significantly and positively to the intention to stay employees at the institute. Further, mentoring behaved as a highly significant positive moderator between the relationship of career development and ultimately to the retention of employees.