Effect of Career Opportunities on Employee Engagement in Fairtrade Horticultural Firms in Kenya

The main objective of this study was to determine the effect of career opportunities on employee engagement in Fairtrade horticultural firms in Kenya. Theory that informed the study was Expectancy theory. This research adopted pragmatism research philosophy. A cross-sectional descriptive survey research design was adopted. The study targeted 17 fairtrade horticultural firms as unit of analysis and 5,600 employees as the unit of observation. The sample size was 373 respondents drawn from low level, middle level, and top-level management. The study relied mainly on primary data. The study adopted stratified and simple random sampling techniques. After the stratification of the respondents into strata, simple random sampling was adopted to pick up the respondents. The researcher used questionnaire as the research instrument. Descriptive and inferential analysis were computed using SPSS version 26. In order to analyze the relationship between the independent variables and the dependent variable the study used Multiple Regression analysis at 5% level of significance. The findings indicated that career opportunities have a positive and significant effect on employee engagement in Fairtrade horticultural firms in Kenya. The study concluded that career opportunities contribute significantly to the employee engagement in Fairtrade horticultural firms in Kenya. The study recommended that Horticultural firm management should create opportunities for career development of employees, offer training ground for career movement within the organization. Nomination for employees to undergo various staff career growth and development programs such as training should be conducted in a fair and transparent manner by the management.