Decent Work, Employee Empowerment and Retention: The Case of the Zimbabwean Small and Medium Scale Gold Mining Sector

The small and medium gold mining companies in Zimbabwe are grappling with incidences of high labour turnover and this has affected productivity leading to loss of revenue. This article sought to investigate the relationship between employee empowerment, decent work and employment retention in the Zimbabwean small and medium scale gold mining sector in the Midlands Province. Using a convenient sampling technique, quantitative data for this study was collected from 270 employees in the Zimbabwean small and medium scale gold mining sector. The findings show robust interrelationships among the variables, indicating their substantial contributions to explaining the variation in the measured constructs. The findings highlight that employee empowerment positively correlates with employee retention and decent work. On the other hand, decent work fosters high employee morale through the provision of decent salaries and other fringe benefits. Decent work is also positively associated with employee retention. This study contributes to the existing literature on employee motivation in the context of the Zimbabwean mining sector. First, the research has brought to the fore strategies for attaining top talent in the Zimbabwean mining sector. Secondly, the study informs government policy on the labour needs of the mining sector.