Factors influencing lecturer’s retention in a South African University

University stakeholders are a united entity; whenever one party does not hold up their end of the deal, it eventually becomes a challenge for all the stakeholders. In this case, universities that are struggling to retain lecturers pose a challenge to the universities’ goodwill. Accordingly, this study examines factors influencing lecturers’ retention in a South African university


INTRODUCTION
A challenge faced by most universities is their inability to retain their lecturers (Manogharan et al., 2018).Eventually, they are left with positions to fill, and the students are left without a lecturer and a supervisor for a significant period before the positions are filled.Consequently, the extra workload is piled on the other lecturers until there is a replacement; though the help of ad-hoc lecturers is sought, but still inadequate because many of them may not have enough access to resources that will enable them to function as full-time lecturers.As mentioned by Kyaligonza and Kamagara (2017), most lecturers do not stop searching for greener pastures, as they believe they deserve better benefits than the current ones.It then becomes obvious to other colleagues, students, and the public through the academic advertisement position that a lecturer has left the university.Omodan and Tsotetsi (2018) opine that, as more lecturers move to other universities, it affects the lecturer-student existing relationships.Nothing changes for some students, but other students struggle with a new lecturer/supervisor within a semester.Lecturers to leave a university seriously affects the student's motivation and academic achievement.Hence, it is imperative for lecturers to conduct themselves in a manner that fosters interest among their students, thereby enhancing the overall learning experience (Noori, 2020).That is, at least resign after the academic year ends.And that choice will help students achieve their goals and improve in learning.In addition, "dedication is related to being strongly involved in work combined with a sense of significance, enthusiasm, inspiration, challenge and pride" and "absorption refers to feelings of being engrossed in one's work, fully concentrated, happy and where time possess quickly and the person finds it difficult to detach himself or herself from the work" (Pieters et al., 2020).
These employees who are dedicated continue to grind no matter what, but the challenge comes when a lecturer has no passion for one's job, which leads to resignation.An institution's culture may play a significant role in influencing an employee's commitment to an organisation.In addition, when lecturers leave a university, it does more harm than good for the university.Berlian (2018) even confirmed that when employees are satisfied with their job, they stay longer in an organisation and eventually, costs for seeking more employees will be avoided.According to Terziev and Lyubcheva (2020), "… the conditions are different, and the funding is not very good and sufficient enough."Thus, it leads lecturers to resign and seek universities with sufficient research funding.Therefore, a university where lecturers do not stay longer suffers.Henceforth, failure to retain lecturers is indeed a problem.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Lecturers are not only affected by the job itself but also by the external factors directly influencing the working environment.Eventually, the job dissatisfaction worsens to such an extent that a lecturer sees it fit to resign and join another university.Herzberg's two-factor theory was adopted as the framework for this study.Sakiru et al. (2017) argue that Herzberg realised that employees have two types of needs, i.e., intrinsic, and extrinsic needs.In other words, employees (lecturers in this case) have needs just like any other human being.When both the intrinsic and extrinsic needs are met, productivity levels still improve, then an organisation ends up with happy employees.This research then gave birth to the two-factor theory of motivation, which focuses on hygiene factors and motivators (Ozsoy, 2019).
According to Barkhuizen et al. (2020) insufficient salaries and any other form of compensation for lecturers has been one of the factors for lecturers to leave the university prematurely, hence it is only fair that universities compensate lecturers accordingly to keep them for a longer period.In other words, when the needs of the academic staff are taken care of it then becomes easier for the universities to retain the hard-working lecturers for as long as it is beneficial for all parties involved.
As mentioned by Thant and Chang (2021) Herzberg argued that employers can use motivators to motivate the employees and ensure that hygiene factors are always met.Consequently, he was confident that no matter which organisation you work for, if the motivators are available and the hygiene factors are met, productivity becomes high, and employees' needs are met.Herzberg's two-factor theory of motivation is vital to this study since the focus is on the level of job satisfaction of the university lecturers.Hence, with the help of Herzberg's two-factor of motivation the challenges faced by both the university and lecturers were provided with solutions using the theory as the blueprint.In other words, the unmet needs do not go away on their own, i.e., time will have to be dedicated towards understanding them, so else to ensure that they are eventually met.

Research Objectives
To response to the above problems, the study is guided by the following objectives: • The study explores factors influencing lecturers' retention in a South African university; and • Explores guidelines for universities to enhance lecturer retention practices.

METHODOLOGY
Transformative paradigm (TP) was adopted for this study.Kivunja and Kuyini (2017) agree that the transformative paradigm does transform the lives of those researched after considering the recommendations.Transformation takes time to show the results after applying the recommendations.As a result, TP can only be used by researchers whose target is social justice (García-Carrión et al., 2020).What better way to transform the lives of the researcher than to do so in interviews, in which the vital stakeholders play a part in contributing towards making the lecturers' career lives better than before the study?
The transformative paradigm is suitable because it goes together with the research approach and design.The method of collecting data, which is the semi-structured interviews, is also relevant to the chosen paradigm.Hence, with the transformative paradigm, interviews are amongst the best in collecting data from the university stakeholders.
A qualitative approach was adopted for this study.In this case, it "examines phenomena using an in-depth, holistic approach design that produces rich, telling narratives" (Rutberg & Bouikidis, 2018, p. 209).In other words, the qualitative approach towards research was used to determine the factors influencing lecturers' retention in a South African university and to investigate the solutions for the challenge at hand.In addition, Participatory Case Study (PCS) design works hand and glove with the research approach to provide rich data for the study.As mentioned by Castleberry and Nolen (2018), compiling a qualitative study consists of gathering data, analysing and interpreting the data and authoring a final report based on the findings of the study.Therefore, a blueprint does exist within a qualitative research approach.
The interviews were used to find more information, stories about the factors influencing lecturers' retention in a South African university and the suggested strategies to mitigate this challenge at hand (Cui et al., 2022).Thus, the interview gets the desirable results, and those results contribute towards a pooled knowledge that previous authors of research have shared in the past.As mentioned by Evans and Lewis (2018), one advantage of interviews is that they allow the researcher to get an in-depth understanding of the participants' experiences.Hence, that is the beauty of collecting data with the use of interviews.
The participatory case study (PCS) is the research design chosen for the study.These participants, i.e., lecturers, Deans/Heads of Departments (HoDs) and Human Resource Management (HRM) staff, participated in the interviews as research partners, experts, and coresearchers (Duarte et al., 2018).In other words, this is a platform for the participants; in this case, 14 participants individually took part in this study.All the participants have more than three years of working experience, with their age ranging from 30 to 50 years, with eight females and six males.And it is done so because of the talented team they are, that is, six lecturers, four Deans/HoDs and four HRM staff, different minds who provided their in-depth experiences and knowledge on the factors influencing lecturers' retention in a South African university together with the solutions to solve the problem at hand.The participants were selected using a purposive sampling technique.
The thematic analysis method was used to analyse the collected data.Braun and Clarke's TA consist of six steps/phases to analyse data, answer the research question, and achieve the research aim and objectives.And they are as follows: "Phase 1: familiarising yourself with your data, phase 2: generating initial codes, phase 3: searching for themes, phase 4: reviewing themes, phase 5: defining and naming themes and phase 6: producing the report" (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p.16).Eventually, with the use of the thematic analysis method, the following data was gathered because of the aim to achieve the study's objectives.

FINDINGS
Data were presented to respond to the two objectives; They are to examine factors influencing lecturers' retention in a South African university and to provide guidelines for universities to enhance lecturer retention practices.Each objective has two themes that directly respond to the objectives.Objective 1: Factors affecting lecturers' retention Based on the participants' statements, the factors are as follows: fewer promotional opportunities and there is little or no recognition.Objective 1, theme 1: Less promotional opportunities For a university to grow, there should be development of the human resources in charge of growing the university.And those human resources, in this case, happen to be the lecturers, who oversee teaching and learning.As a result, there are ranks within the university, i.e., junior lecturer, lecturer, senior lecturer, associate professor, and professor.These ranks are only earned when one is a hard worker and when there are promotional opportunities; in this case, lecturers become discouraged because of fewer promotional opportunities and tend to look for greener pastures where there are promotional opportunities.In this case, when a colleague gets a promotion, it encourages other employees, i.e., lecturers, to work even harder (Thant et al., 2021).And the opposite that normally occurs in the university in question is discussed by the participants as follows: L1: "Well, I think I knew colleagues that left.One of the challenges/reasons they left was because they were not promoted.So, they moved to other universities who were willing to give them the position they wanted as in either promoting them or giving them positions they wanted." In simple terms, hardworking lecturers constantly search for promotional opportunities as they believe they earned the promotion through their hard work.And that simply means if they get the promotion, they will stay, but if that is not the case, they will look for greener pastures elsewhere.The following participant even went as far as explaining what happens to hard-working lecturers, AD2: "A man that makes his wife beautiful must know that other people will admire her.If you do not make your wife beautiful, you cannot blame people for rubbishing her.So, in our case, when we conduct interviews, we recruit the best brains.And best brains have expectations, the expectation of promotion, expectation on recognition of hard work, expectation even if it is just going to be a handshake."These hardworking lecturers have their expectations and when their needs are not met, they tend to move to other universities where they are promised their needs will be met.In addition to the expectation of promotional opportunities, these best brains, as one participant referred to them, are looking to grow in their different areas of expertise.Moreover, L2: "I think personal reasons would be maybe it is growth, you understand.You maybe feel that you are not going to grow into this institution, or it does not align with your personal goals; you understand." In addition, when most lecturers start to worry or even complain about the criteria used for promotions, that is considered a challenge.And as a result, some impatient lecturers will move to universities where a promotional post is already awaiting them.One coresearcher explained it even better i.e.
AD3: "It could be that our promotion criteria are too rigid, in such a way that now when people get to other spaces, they will be promoted.It is too rigid in such a way that even other people will still have scepticism around its application may be thinking that the leadership may have manipulated it one way or another." In the same breath, another participant confirmed what was mentioned by the previous participant about rigid criteria.One went a little bit further to explain what the reason behind rigid promotion criteria could be.And it was stated that appointing an employee is easier said than done.
AD4: "One of the challenges is the HR process is not very easy to navigate, nor does it happen quickly.If you want to appoint someone in the first place, it takes months to get to the point where you can make the offer, let alone to counter the offer." In most cases, whenever there is a lecturer who is about to leave a university and has handed in the notice.One would just assume that there is a pool of Curriculum Vitae (CVs) already with HR and all they need to do is to pick one and fill in the position.And according to the above participant, that is not always the case.
Holding other things constant, now the university has hired a lecturer, one is hardworking, i.e., teaching and learning do take place, the lecturer is a researcher, supervisor and involved with the community in which the university is situated.And now, as with other lecturers, the promotion criteria are also considered rigid.Then eventually, the opportunity to become a lecturer elsewhere is presented to this one lecturer.Of course, when they want to be promoted and grow, accepting the offer is a reasonable choice to make.After accepting the offer, the lecturer now must inform the current employer of future with the hope that the employer will see the value in them, and they will counter the offer.And the following participant confirmed that in most cases, the university would let the lecturer go instead of countering the offer to keep the hardworking lecturer.
AD2: "You find someone who comes here as a lecturer, is working hard and this person sees an advert at another university for a senior lecturer.And he applied, was shortlisted, and interviewed.This person was appointed a senior lecturer but does not want to leave here.Come back home to say, my employer, this is the situation.I have been offered a senior lecturer position.Kindly upgrade me to that position so that I can stay.In most cases, our university will decline such.And that person is left with no option but to go for greener pastures." Most participants did mention that when there are fewer promotion opportunities, and the current employer is not willing to change that situation; hence lecturers tend to look for greener pastures elsewhere.And in most cases, their reason for searching for greener pastures is that they would also like to grow.So, with the rigid criteria, it becomes complicated to apply and get the promotion one deserves.Even after another university has provided the lecturer with a promotional job offer, the current employer will, in most cases, not counter the offer to keep the lecturer.As a result, the lecturer will leave the current employer and move to a university which recognises the researcher's efforts.
This concept is considered a challenge for lecturers because a lack of promotional opportunities leads to lecturers seeking greener pastures elsewhere and discourages lecturers from continuing to work for their current employer because growth will not occur in their career journey for as long as they work for the current employer.On the other hand, literature confirmed that when a university is not offering promotional opportunities to deserving lecturers, it disrupts the university's long-term goals to materialise (Moloantoa & Dorasamy, 2017).Moreover, it is not only the university goals that are disrupted but the lecturers deserving a promotion are also crushed.Consequently, it is evident that fewer promotional opportunities contribute to factors affecting lecturers' retention in universities.Objective 1, theme 2: No recognition Recognition plays a key role in the overall development of a lecturer.It applies not only when an adult is a lecturer, but even when one is still a child.Top performers are recognised everywhere they are.Even if it is just a handshake from the supervisor to say, "you have done well."It keeps an employee encouraged to continue with the magnificent work being done.And to also that their hard work is being and that plays key role in fulfilling the need to be recognised as a hard worker.However, when a lecturer is faced with the challenge of barely being recognised by the appropriate leaders whose decision-making has an impact on the future of the lecturer, that is a challenge (Mulenga et al., 2017).Participants had this to say about no recognition of lecturers at the workplace.
AD4: "We used to have just recognition for staff members working for longer periods.

And best brains have expectations, the expectation of promotion, expectation on recognition of hard work, expectation even if it is just going to be a handshake."
This participant is of the idea that hard-working lecturers should not go unrecognised by the university.Instead, they should be recognised to continue being part of the top achievers amongst other lecturers.This also confirms that if the same lecturer gets a better offer from another university, one will leave with the hope that they will be recognised wherever they are going.In addition, the university used to recognise staff who have been working for a longer time and that on its own is enough recognition for the lecturer to continue working and remain loyal to the university.The same participant continued by saying: AD2: "Other institutions are always searching for us rural campus lecturers.They prefer to recruit from us because they know once they have her, the university will not counter her offer." That is sad but true that another university that competes with the university in question will place more value on the lecturer than one's current employer.And now, this university has become a centre for training lecturers before seeking greener pastures.As a result, it shows that the university in question is good with the training and development of the lecturers, but it is struggling to retain them for as long as it is beneficial for both the university and the lecturer.Another participant does not really agree with the previous participant: HR2: "The university sometimes counters the offer that the lecturer produces, especially offers from lecturers with scarce skills.But that is not the case for all lecturers who provide an offer from another university.I do not know, but normally the university will prioritise retaining lecturers with scarce skills." The university in question is strategic in terms of choosing whom to retain and whom to let go of.Because it does not make sense to counter each, and every offer brought to HR by the lecturers.Instead, the university will only keep the lecturers they need and not be bothered by those who choose to leave the university.In this case, the strategy works for the university more than it benefits the lecturers.Hence, other employees who are left behind and who happen to be part of this study think it is not good when the university does not counter lecturers' offers all the time.Another participant indicated that, HR2: "The other thing, lecturers may be looking a university that escalate their rank.For instance, the lecturer will no longer be but Associate Professor so." In this case, the lecturers sometimes leave the university because they will move to an upper rank in another university, which is reason enough to leave the current employer.In other words, lecturers will go where they are recognised, appreciated, and given a title that matches their hard work.Hence one suggested that, AD2: "You cannot allow a good person to leave.If other institutions have recognised the potential in this person that you are having, you need to return the potential, explore the potential, and make this person grow and portray you as bigger outside.You must be prepared to counter the offer.Because everybody is looking for greener pastures." One participant is still convinced that lecturers who leave do not only do so because they are not hardworking, and one still insists that even hard-working and award-winning lecturers are allowed to leave the university in question.One went as far as saying that the potential seen by other universities must be explored.In other words, the rough diamond must be put in a furnace to see if it can stand the head before it can be thrown away.Thus, no recognition at the workplace can push lecturers towards looking for greener pastures, but when lazy lecturers leave the university because they are not appreciated, it becomes a bonus for the university.
This finding confirms the argument of Mulenga et al. (2017) when a higher institution of learning does not recognise its hard-working lecturers, it becomes a challenge.In this case, the challenge is not only for the institution but for the lecturers as well since lack of recognition turns into an unmet need and eventually the desire for the need to be satisfied multiplies and that is a challenge.In this case, lecturers end up feeling unappreciated for their hard work toward the university goals and targets, which pushes them to end up applying for jobs elsewhere.Objective 2: Guidelines for universities to enhance lecturer retention policies.The participants voiced their opinions on what should be done for HR not to always have vacancies to fill all the time.The following recommendations were made flexible work arrangements and promoting teamwork.Objective 2, theme 1: Flexible work arrangements In some workplaces, employees can leave their work behind when they knock-off, but other employees are not able to do so.This could be the case with lecturers who work 24/7 since some take their laptops home and attend to emails and other duties and responsibilities.The flexible work arrangements allow for the two different employees' needs to be catered for and when that is done leads to job satisfaction, then it is good for the university (Rahman et al., 2020).Hence, it has been mentioned that if lecturers are allowed to work from home and only go to campus whenever there is a need then they will be in a much better space to balance work and family life.The interviewed participants added their views as follows: HR3: "One thing I realised is we all like money.The cost of living is very bad currently.So, I think they would a bit nicer with money.We would be able retain because many people that are from this do not stay long." When lecturers are offered work arrangements, some lecturers may get an opportunity to have a second job, as they have complained about the low salaries.The second job will allow them to afford the ever-increasing standard of living in the country.Or, if possible, the university can increase the lecturers' salaries so that the lecturers can stay for as long as it is beneficial for all the parties involved.
AD3: "So, a possibility will be to relax the regulations.Because if you relax the regulations, it means they can relax them.But if they can relax the regulations to do with employment equity.There we might see more people, you know, hanging around." There was also another suggestion for the university to relax the employment equity regulations governing the hiring of lecturers at this university.When the regulations have been relaxed, there will be stability in terms of retaining this university's hard-working lecturers.And that will also prevent a certain group from moving around a lot more than the minority does.
L6: "Of course, this university is one of the most prestigious universities in the country.And what do I mean?At this university, if you are a young scholar, you have the capacity to be developed into a robust scholar, with the nature of the developmental, academic programmes they have.Training, research workshops, bringing scholars that you would not ordinarily see."This university is considered one of the best in the country, especially for young scholars still in the beginning stages of this career path.Henceforth, when the work arrangements are flexible enough to accommodate hard-working lecturers, young scholars will be eager to join the university.
With the flexible work arrangements and other suggested solutions, such as the relaxed employment equity regulations, the university will see an increase in the number of lecturers who want to join the university.Also, there will be a decrease in the number of lecturers who would want to leave the university prematurely.As a result, the university will have a competitive advantage over other universities since it manages to retain many its lecturers.The finding has indicated that lecturers with no rigid work arrangements manage to handle work and to have a life outside the workplace, i.e., the university in this case.Lecturers have families and other commitments they will have to attend to outside the workplace and the suggested solution is that the university should have a flexible schedule so that they are able to attend to other commitments.This is also consistent with the fact that when lecturers have flexible working hours, they are free to attend to other commitments and back stressfree at work (Rahman et al., 2020).That also results in a lecturer having a full life, not all consumed by university duties and responsibilities.As a result, when a university allows lecturers to have flexible working hours, lecturers will stay for a longer period because the university promotes work-life balance.Objective 2, theme 2: Promoting teamwork.Members of the team can make you realise or solutions you not even think about; that is the power of teamwork.In this case, when a group of lecturers are involved in a research project and bringing all their resources and knowledge together, the findings are more likely to be richer than when there was only one lecturer involved.That, on its own, shows how important teamwork is in the workplace.That is, it results in rich findings for a research project.In addition, one lecturer will not complain about the workload as there are other colleagues to share the workload with, i.e., division of labour becomes one of their advantages as more projects will be completed in a brief period.As a result, even if one team member falls sick, the other group members will continue with the work until they meet the deadline.Thant et al. (2021) mentioned that there is power in teamwork.The participants had this to say about teamwork at a university: AD1: "Programmes that are supporting colleagues in terms of grant proposal writing and help people that assist in just outside the formal structure formed by the university as to enable people before they submit that their proposal should have been looked at ahead of the actual evaluation of the proposal." In this case, the participant suggested that when a lecturer is applying for a grant, it would be best if a team assisted the lecturer before the final submission is made.In this way, they will be able to correct some mistakes made by the lecturers and make constructive suggestions towards the lecturer's proposal.Moreover, the proposal will be a better and improved version of the first draft and the lecturer will stand a higher chance of getting a grant when there is a team behind drafting the proposal than when he was all alone.
AD4: "So, the rewards are discussions and verbal recognition, but what people want are financial recognition and physical gifts.And it has been difficult to get gifts on a regular basis." Another recommendation is that lecturers be rewarded and recognised accordingly because that, on its own, works as motivation for the lecturer to continue doing a great job.And most importantly is when the recognition is in a financial form and there are physical gifts that can be touched.They will forever be a reminder to the lecturer to continue doing a good job.AD1: "One is ensuring that all the departments have got postgraduate students, which allows people to be more active in research." Under no circumstance should a fully-fledged university have a faculty with no postgraduate students because it discourages the lecturers from working for the university, especially the ones belonging to the department with no postgraduate students.Therefore, the university is encouraged to introduce postgraduate qualifications in that one faculty with no postgraduate students.When that is the case, there will be a decrease in the number of lecturers leaving the university to work for universities with postgraduate students in their departments.Consequently, including postgraduate courses will be a great start in the right direction.
As stated by Pranitasari (2019), the promotion of effective more especially by the management at a university ensures harmony and increases the chances of lecturers enjoying their work.As a result, they will continue working in a conducive environment a period instead of leaving prematurely.In case, the of this study are line with in the reviewed literature (Barkhuizen et al., 2020;& 2021).Hence, there are no differences but only similarities i.e., whenever the needs of the lecturers are not met, they tend to go to search for greener pastures.
The results confirmed that through assisting others and being assisted, colleagues tend to become different team members who work for a university and not just individuals.Thus, working together as lecturers promotes teamwork, which is essential for a higher institution of learning to prosper and becomes a competitive advantage compared to other universities that do not promote teamwork.This is confirmed by Thant et al. (2021) that being part of a team satisfied the need to belong to individuals.That is killing two birds with one stone i.e., promoting teamwork which ensures that lecturers never work alone and always have support from colleagues and a sense of belonging.As a result, lecturers will not leave a university that provides a sense of belonging and promotes teamwork.

Limitations of the study
Once the study was completed the sample size of 14 participants posed as a challenge.In this case the 14 participants consisted of lecturers, Deans/HoDs and HR staff members and the sample size could have been a bigger size than it was.A bigger sample size may have represented the population in a different manner.Hence in the suggestions for further studies a bigger sample size for the researcher is recommended.

Suggestions for further studies
Factors influencing lecturers' retention in a South African University study only focused on a South Africa university which is not a true reflection of all the South African university lecturers.As a result, other researchers can use the same objectives of the study to determine why lecturers move from university to another in a brief period.In additions, other studies can be conducted by means of expanding the sample to include countries within Africa and countries outside the African continent.In other words, the researcher will be seeking to explore whether lecturers from the continents do face the same challenges or not.Briefly, those are the suggestions for further studies by other researchers, using a similar study on a larger scale.

Conclusion and recommendations
The study explores factors influencing lecturers' retention in a South African university and to provide guidelines for universities to enhance lecturer retention practices.Based on the above analysis, the participants noted that less promotional opportunities and less recognition of the hard-working lecturers are some of the factors affecting lecturers' retention.The study further provides solutions lecturers should be allowed to have flexible work schedule and teamwork should be promoted in the university.Based on this, the study concludes that the retention of lecturers in a South African university is influenced by factors such as the lack of promotional opportunities and recognition of hard work.To address these challenges and enhance retention, the study recommends that universities provide flexible working schedules and promote teamwork.It is essential for universities to understand and address these challenges create a positive and supportive environment that encourages lecturers to stay and contribute to the academic community.By implementing these recommendations, universities can improve lecturer retention rates, which can enhance the quality of education and research output in the institution.