International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences

search-icon

Factors Affecting Employee Retention Among SMES’ Millennial Employees in Klang Valley, Malaysia

Open access

Nurmunirah Azami, Dalmie Shahrul Suryati Azmee, Ng Ze Keng, Ng Xue Qing, Ng Ze Shen, Lim Kuan Han

Pages 809-828 Received: 07 Jan, 2023 Revised: 11 Feb, 2023 Published Online: 14 Mar, 2023

http://dx.doi.org/10.46886/IJARBSS/v13-i3/10037
MEs have been a significant driver of Malaysia’s economy. SMEs provide opportunities for business expansion and employment for people in need. Therefore, it is important to understand the workforce now as well as in the future. According to earlier studies by others, businesses are currently aggressively seeking the best employees on the market as well as the talent that will eventually replace the ageing baby boomer generation in the upcoming few years. It is because one of their biggest talent concerns is how difficult it is to attract and retain younger employees, especially for millennials and generation Z. The purpose of this study is to examine the factors affecting employee retention among SMEs’ millennial employees in the Klang Valley. Three independent variables: career development opportunities, compensation, and workplace flexibility, were selected to examine the relationship with employee retention. The Klang Valley region was chosen as it is the fastest-growing area in Malaysia with a variety of businesses, educational institutions, and entertainment that attract people from all over the nation to these economic hubs. The quantitative research was used for this study. In this study, three data analysis models have been applied in data analysis descriptive analysis, multiple linear regression, and Pearson correlation coefficient analysis. A total of 384 responses were received for data analysis. The research approach was by survey questionnaires via Google Forms and all the data collected will be analysed by IBM SPSS version 28.0.0.0 throughout the pilot test and final analysis. The findings demonstrate that all the three hypotheses were supported. All the independent variables (career development opportunities, compensation, and workplace flexibility) are found to have a significant positive relationship with the dependent variable. Finally, a summary of the main discussion, implication of the study, its limitations, and some recommendations for future study are mentioned in this paper.
Abdul Rashid, M. F. (2020). Spatial Modelling of Migration Decision-Selectivity in the Klang Valley Region, Malaysia. International Journal of Applied Geospatial Research (IJAGR), 11(1), 21-35.
Alrawahi, S., Sellgren, S. F., Altouby, S., Alwahaibi, N., & Brommels, M. (2020). The application of Herzberg's two-factor theory of motivation to job satisfaction in clinical laboratories in Omani hospitals. Heliyon, 6(9), e04829.
Alrazehi, H. A. A. W., Amirah, N. A., Emam, A. S. M., & Hashmi, A. R. (2021). Proposed model for entrepreneurship, organizational culture and job satisfaction towards organizational performance in International Bank of Yemen. International Journal of Management and Human Science (IJMHS), 5(1), 1-9.
Asbari, I. B., RudyPramono, A. P., DylmoonHidayat, A., VirzaUtamaAlamsyah, P. S., & MiyvFayzhall, M. (2020). The effect of work-family conflict on job satisfaction and performance: a study of Indonesian female employees. International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology, 29(3), 6724-6748.
Baeza, M. A., Gonzalez, J. A., & Wang, Y. (2018). Job flexibility and job satisfaction among Mexican professionals: a socio-cultural explanation. Employee Relations.
Baker Rosa, N. M., & Hastings, S. O. (2018). Managing Millennials: looking beyond generational stereotypes. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 31(4), 920-930. https://doi-org.ludwig.lub.lu.se/10.1108/JOCM-10-2015-0193
Balogh, G., Sipos, N., & Rideg, A. (2020). An empirical study of the internal factors influencing the application of compensation incentives in SMEs. Competitiveness Review: An International Business Journal.
Basnyat, S., & Lao, C. S. C. (2019). Employees’ perceptions on the relationship between human resource management practices and employee turnover: A qualitative study. Employee Relations: The International Journal. Vol. 42 No. 2, pp. 453-470.
Bernama. (2022). Employees can apply for flexible work arragements- Awang Hashim. https://bernama.com/en/general/news.php?id=2094094
Davidescu, A. A., Apostu, S. A., Paul, A., & Casuneanu, I. (2020). Work flexibility, job satisfaction, and job performance among Romanian employees—Implications for sustainable human resource management. Sustainability, 12(15), 6086.
Department of Statistics Malaysia Official Portal. (2021). Report on Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) performance 2020. Retrieved from https://www.dosm.gov.my/v1/index.php?r=column/cthemeByCat&cat=159&bul_id= KzdrS25pRTZ1VGFkcTlNY0FEczBYUT09&menu_id=TE5CRUZCblh4ZTZMODZIbmk2aWRRQT 09
Department of Statistics Malaysia. (2022). Population and Housing Census of Malaysia 2020 State. General Report of the Population Census, Kuala Lumpur.
Department of Statistic Malaysia. (2022). Labour Market Review. First Quarter 2022. https://www.dosm.gov.my/v1/uploads/files/1_Articles_By_Themes/Labour%20Market
%20Review/9.%20LMR%20Q1%202022/Labour%20Market%20Review%20(LMR)%20,%20 Q1%202022.pdf
Diah, A. M., Hasiara, R. L. O., & Irwan, M. (2020). Employee retention of pharmaceutical firms in Indonesia: Taking investment in employee development and social and economic exchange as predictors. Systematic Reviews in Pharmacy, 11(1), 564-572.
Dhanpat, N., Manakana, T., Mbacaza, J., Mokone, D., & Mtongana, B. (2018). Exploring retention factors and job security of nurses in Gauteng public hospitals in South Africa. African Journal of Economic and Management Studies, 10(1), 57-71.
Fang, T., Gunderson, M., & Long, R. J. (2021). Profit sharing and workplace productivity growth in Canada: Does teamwork play a role? Relations Industrielles / Industrial Relations, 76(1), 90–114.
Azilla, F. (2016). Factors influencing employee retention: A study of manufacturing company. School of Business Management, 89.
Gosnell, G. K., List, J. A., & Metcalfe, R. D. (2020). The impact of management practices on employee productivity: A field experiment with airline captains. Journal of Political Economy, 128(4), 1195–1233.
Gudmundsdottir, S., & Helgudottir, J. (2018). Selection and retention of talent. International Journal of Work Organisation and Emotion, 9(1), 36-44.
Harris, M. L. (2019). Women-Owned Small Businesses and Government Contracting: A Qualitative Study (Doctoral dissertation, Northcentral University).
Hartono, B., Dzulfikar, L., & Damayanti, R. (2020). Impact of team diversity and conflict on project performance in Indonesian start-ups. Journal of Industrial Engineering and Management, 13(1), 155-178.
Hee, O. C., & Rhung, L. X. (2019). Motivation and Employee Retention among Millennials in Malaysia. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 9(2), 876–884.
Herzberg, F. (2005). The motivation-hygiene theory. Organizational behavior one: Essential theories of motivation and leadership, eds JB Miner, ME Sharpe Inc, New York, 2(4), 61- 74.
Ivana, D. (2020). Human Ressource Practices in improving Employee retention. Review of Economic Studies and Research Virgil Madgearu, 13(1), 33-43.
Klindzic, M., & Galetic, L. (2020). Combining individual and collective employee incentives to
enhance organizational performance. Društvena istraživanja, 29(1), 71-90.
Koh, Y. H. (2018). Factors affecting the retention of Generation Y workers in food industry (Doctoral dissertation, UTAR).
Krejcie, R.V., & Morgan, D. W. (1970). Determining sample size for research activities.
Educational and Psychological Measurement, 30, 607-610.
Lazear, E. P. (2018). Compensation and incentives in the workplace. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 32(3), 195-214.
Lin, S. Y. (2018). Millennial moment: Coming of age of the world’s big spenders. The Star. https://www.thestar.com.my/business/businessnews/2018/08/25/millennial-moment- coming-of-age-of-the-worlds-big-spenders/.
Lollo, N., O’Rourke, D. (2020). Factory benefits to paying workers more: The critical role of compensation systems in apparel manufacturing. PLoS ONE 15(2): e0227510. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0227510
Lorenz, E., & Potter, J. (2019). Workplace organisation and innovation in small and medium- sized enterprises.
Lussier, K. (2019). Of Maslow, motives, and managers: The hierarchy of needs in American business, 1960–1985. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 55(4), 319-341.
Mackowiak, E. (2020). Salary as one of the basic components of labour costs in territorial self- government units. In Economic and Social Development (Book of Proceedings), 50th International Scientific Conference on Economic and Social Development (p. 581).
Mahadi, N., Woo, N. M. F., Baskaran, S., & Yaakop, A. Y. (2020). Determinant Factors for Employee Retention: Should I Stay? International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 10(4), 201–213
Mayangdarastri, S. & Khusna, K. (2020). Retaining millennials engagement and wellbeing through career path and development. Journal of Leadership in Organizations, 2(1), 42-48.
McLeod, S. (2019). What’s the difference between qualitative and quantitative research? Saatavissa: https://www. simplypsychology. org/qualitativequantitative. html.
Modau, F. D., Dhanpat, N., Lugisani, P., Mabojane, R., & Phiri, M. (2018). Exploring employee retention and intention to leave within a call centre. SA Journal of Human Resource Management, 16(1), 1-13.
Mundia, L. (2019). Satisfaction with work-related achievements in Brunei public and private sector employees. Cogent Business & Management, 6(1), 1664191.
Ngotngamwong, R. (2020). A study of millennial job satisfaction and retention. Human Behavior, Development and Society, 21(3), 47-58.
Pandey, D. L. (2019). Job Hopping Tendency in Millenials. NCC Journal, 4(1), 41–46. https://doi.org/10.3126/nccj.v4i1.24733
Rakhra, H. K. (2018). Study on factors influencing employee retention in companies. International journal of public sector performance management, 4(1), 57- 79.
Rokhani, C. T. S. (2020). Pengaruh Work From Home (WFH) Terhadap Kinerja Guru SD Negeri Dengkek 01 Pati Selama Masa Pandemi Covid-19. EduPsyCouns: Journal of Education, Psychology and Counseling, 2(1), 424-437.
Shahzad, M. A., Jun, D., Hassan, Q., Zubair, R. A., & Iqbal, T. (2020). Employee's performance affected by the alignment of interest and capacity building. Industria Textila, 71(5), 473-481.
Sharma, G. D., Thomas, A., & Paul, J. (2021). Reviving tourism industry post-COVID-19: A resilience-based framework. Tourism management perspectives, 37, 100786.
Sheraz, F., Batool, S., & Adnan, S. (2019). Employee’s retention and job satisfaction: Mediating role of career development programs. The Dialogue, 14(2), 67-78.
Singh, D. (2019). A literature review on employee retention with focus on recent trends. International Journal of Scientific Research in Science and Technology, 6(1), 425-431.
SME Corporation Malaysia. (2021). Profile of MSMEs in 2016–2021. https://smecorp.gov.my/index.php/en/policies/2020-02-11-08-01-24/profile-and- importance-to-the-economy
Weldy, L. (2020). How millennials are redefining leadership: Millennials want to become strong, people-focused leaders. Leadership Excellence. 37(2), 36-38.
Wu, J., & Rudnak, I. (2020). The study of employee motivation in a Chinese private enterprise. Journal Plus Education, 26(1), 20-34.
Zhang, S. X., Liu, J., Jahanshahi, A. A., Nawaser, K., Yousefi, A., Li, J., & Sun, S. (2020). At the height of the storm: Healthcare staff’s health conditions and job satisfaction and their associated predictors during the epidemic peak of COVID-19. Brain, behavior, and immunity, 87, 144-146.
Zikmund, W. G., Babin, B. J., Carr, J. C., & Griffin, M. (2013). Business research methods.
Cengage Learning.