HR Practices and Employee Retention. Leader -Member Exchange (LMX) as a mediator

The present research aims at investigating the impact of human resource (HR) practices on employee retention with the mediator effect of Leader-Member exchange (LMX) among IT employees in Malaysia. The present research attempts to narrow the research gaps by hypothesizing that HR practices (job security, work-life balance and training opportunities) significantly influence employee retention. The research employs a quantitative research approach whereby data were collected from 109 ICT professionals from MSC status companies in Malaysia. For analyzing the hypothesis, the SEM analysis is conducted. The research found that HR practices significantly influence employee retention among ICT professionals in Malaysia. It was also found that LMX mediates the relationship between HR practices and employee retention. Several implications from this research were discussed. In particular, HR managers, corporate leaders as well as government leaders and officials may use the findings of this research to justify the efforts in designing performance improvement interventions so that employee retention will be monitored and further enhanced among ICT professionals in Malaysia. Several other implications were further discussed.