Effect of Recruitment and Selection on Employee Retention: Mediating Factor of Employee Engagement

Uncertainty and globalization in the business setting increasingly have caused firms to turn majorly to their human capitals to supply them with the commensurable advantage that will not only uphold their business but also enhance their bottom line. However organizations are faced with the challenges of retaining their human capital assets and these calls for proper management of these talents. Recruitment and selection has been identified as one of the talent management practices by many scholars in literature. As such this study aims at identifying the effect that recruitment and selection has on employee retention in selected SMEs in Nigeria, using employee engagement as a mediating variable. This study employed descriptive research design and stratified sampling techniques and questionnaire as instruments for gathering the much needed data. Findings revealed among others, that recruitment and selection on their own has no substantial effect on employee retention, but with the combination of employee engagement, has a strong significance on employee retention. Conclusively, employee engagement mediates the outcome of recruitment and selection on employee retention. It is therefore suggested that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) management should endeavor to carry out a robust recruitment and selection to ensure that they recruit talents that are valuable, uncommon, inimitable, and not substitutable. However, they should also, ensure to implement employee engagement strategies so as to retain the selected talents in the firm. Keywords: Recruitment and selection, Employee engagement, Employee retention, Talent management, Small and medium enterprises .