An investigation into motivation techniques used by the University of Zimbabwe administration to retain staff: 2008–2010

The success of an organization is heavily dependent on its ability to retain its key staff. However, this is becoming increasingly difficult because of labour mobility brought about by globalization. Globalization has afforded employees the opportunity to compare working conditions and remuneration packages across labour markets thereby triggering the migration of labour from less attractive markets to more competitive markets. Developing countries’ labour markets have borne the brunt of brain drain to the attractive markets, Zimbabwe in general, and state universities in particular were not spared. However, the University Of Zimbabwe (UZ) fared better in retaining its staff compared to other state universities. Against this backdrop, this study sought to investigate what the UZ did better than the other state universities to retain higher levels of staff. The study's proposition was that the UZ managed to retain its staff due to its effective staff motivation techniques which included among other things; job autonomy, task structures and a conducive working environment. However, the study also revealed some areas of possible improvements at the UZ such as directly linking expended effort to rewards.