Abstract:
As a result of the transfer of healthcare functions to county governments, they have been facing
the challenge of retaining their medical practitioners who either join the private hospitals, start
their own private hospitals and clinics or immigrate to other countries in search of greener
pastures. The study’s primary focus was to analyze the effects of labor relation strategies on
employee retention among medical practitioners in Kirinyaga County. The specific objective was
to determine the effects of industrial action on employee retention. The study was anchored on
Marxist theory. A descriptive research design was employed. Krejcie and Morgan tables and
stratified random sampling were utilized to come up with a sample size of 272 respondents from
a population of 930 medical practitioners. Primary data was collected through questionnaires from selected respondents while secondary data was sourced from Kirinyaga County website
and database. Multiple regression using SPSS (version 24) was used to determine the effect of
industrial action on employee retention. The coefficient of correlation (r= 0.751) indicated that
there was a strong positive relationship between industrial action and employee retention. The
coefficient of determination (R2 = 0.564) indicated that 56.4% of the variations in employee
retention were caused by industrial action. The study concluded that industrial action affected
retention of medical practitioners in Kirinyaga County and recommended Kirinyaga County
Government to put in place policies to handle strikes and carefully address the pressing issues
raised by the medical practitioners in their fight for better pay and working conditions.
Keywords: Employee retention, Industrial action, Kirinyaga County Government, Medical
practitioners
