Employee Separation Planning and Retirement Preparedness of Secondary School Teachers in Kenya: What is the effect of HRM Practices?

Abstract

Retirement preparedness is realized from a deliberate planning process for the perceived time when an individual exit employer organization. Although the process should start long before the actual separation, some employees take retirement preparedness seriously while many others prepare inadequately or not at all. There is therefore need for prudent management of retirement transition by organizations in achieving their key result areas through promotion of sound human resource practices. Such practices should influence individual employee‟s retirement behaviours in order to empower planning for the separation eventuality and hence retirement preparedness. The purpose of the study was to assess the moderating effect of human resource practices on the relationship between employee separation planning and retirement preparedness among public secondary school teachers‟ in Kirinyaga and Murang‟a Counties, Kenya. The target population was 1,238 teachers aged 50 years and above and employed in public secondary schools by the Teachers Service Commission in Kirinyaga and Murang‟a Counties by 2017. A representative sample of 334 respondents was selected using multistage sampling technique. Data was collected using semi structured questionnaire and interview guide. Logit regression was used to establish the relationships between variables in the study and to test the null hypotheses at P ≤ 0.05 and 95% confidence level. The study found that the relationship between employee separation planning and retirement preparedness was not moderated by human resource practices. The study concluded that human resource practices were an explanatory variable to retirement preparedness and are should be put in place by employer organizations to offer a conducive environment that make employee separation planning and retirement preparedness possible. The study recommended the government to enact frameworks that enforce, monitor and evaluate diversified human resource practices for employer organizations to establish policies and guidelines to facilitate employees‟ engagement in programmes that ensure a continuous process of separation planning for successful retirement preparedness.