A critical investigation into the relationship between corporate social responsibility, employees' engagement and employees' retention in the UK banking sector

Employees’ engagement (EE) is an important issue faced by many businesses around the world. Research reveal that the UK’s employee engagement levels have dropped over the years and unengaged employees cost UK companies over £37 billion a year. Since the global financial crisis in 2008, CSR became a prevalent concept that has obligated banks and other businesses to conduct transparent and ethical business practices. Corporate Social Responsibility is considered as an instrument that helps with increasing the engagement levels of employees. The main aim and purpose of this study is to evaluate the relationship between the notion of corporate social responsibility and employee engagement within the UK banking sector. This study further expands the research objectives to understand the impact CSR has on Employees’ Planned Behaviour (EPB) and Employees’ Retention (ER). The significance of this research is that, at the completion of the study, the knowledge gap of the relationship between CSR and employee engagement along with the relationship between CSR and employees’ planned behaviour and employees’ retention will narrow by a substantial amount. This study adopts a quantitative strategy to evaluate the relationship between the variables. The correlation analysis indicates that there is a positive relationship between corporate social responsibility and employee engagement. The principle component analysis has been conducted to identify proxies to represent each key variable (CSR, EE, EPB, ER) in the regression analysis. The ordinal logistic regression analysis has indicated that the CSR tends to have the positive and significant impact on the employee engagement, employees’ planned behaviour and employees’ retention. This study contributes to the academic literature by identifying that there exists a positive and significant relationship between the CSR practices of the organisation and the engagement of its employees. From the findings, it can also be concluded that by undertaking different CSR promotions to improve the well-being of society, top management of the corporation can upsurge the organisation's identification of their workers, which in turn, can lead the employees to experience the success or failure of their organisation as if it were their own success or failure; something policymakers can also benefit from in order to enhance the employee engagement and retention levels within the organisation.