THE EFFECT OF EMPLOYEE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMIN EMPLOYEE RETENTION: IN COMMERCIAL BANK OF ETHIOPIADEBRE BERHAN TOWN BRANCHES IN FOCUS

Abstract

In today's competitive environment firms have been trying to retain their employees. Once the employee left the organization, firms are challenging to hire an experienced employee. Thus, they are trying to take strategies that enable them to retain the employee. An employee development program is one of the strategies which is adopting for employee retention, but the findings of different studies are inconsistent in confirming either an employee development program helps to retain employees or not. so, additional investigation is required to test the hypothesis. In this regard, the main aim of this study was to examine the effect of employee development programs on employee retention in Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE)Debre Berhan town branches. To achieve this, quantitative research approach with an explanatory research design was followed. All the eight CBE branches in Debre Berhan town were part of the study. The target population was classified into eight strata based on branches. After classification of the target population into strata, Yamane’s sample size determination formula was used to determine the exact sample size and the sample size was proportionally distributed to each branch of CBE.A total of 119 qualified questionnaires were used for the data analysis. Multiple linear regressions by using SPSS version-23 was used to examine the effects of employee development program on employee retention. The result showed that employee retention has a statistically significant effect on employee retention in CBE. Therefore, the managerial implication of the study for the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia implies that an employee development program is an effective way of enhancing employee retention.