Abstract
The challenge of retaining talent has emerged as a significant concern within various sectors in South Africa. Both public and private organisations have one thing in common pertaining to employees, and that is, working to ensure employee satisfaction and retention. The conversation surrounding compensation of public employees has been surrounded by a number of views, especially regarding its contribution to talent retention. The government of the Republic of South Africa put measures in place to ensure that there is a balance between monetary and non-monetary incentives. Non- monetary incentives are provided to fulfil the psychological needs of the employees. The study aims to provide a contextual, conceptual and theoretical framework to explain the dynamics surrounding non-monetary incentives and talent retention. It aims to investigate the effectiveness of the non-monetary incentives that are put in place to strike a balance within the reward system of South African municipalities. The study aims to investigate the challenges that employees and employers may face in the workplace and during the implementation of retention strategies. The Skills Development Act (SDA) is one of the legislations whose contribution to the South African government reward system is discussed. They also intend to explore how other municipalities globally offer non-monetary incentives and apply talent retention strategies.
In order to meet the objectives of the study, the researcher utilised a qualitative approach to collect data for the study. The researcher collected data from government employees within the City of Tshwane (CoT) Metropolitan Municipality, through semi- structured telephonic interviews. The results from the data collected depict that non- monetary incentives have played a significant and important role in retaining government employees, and the majority of the respondents expressed how influential it is to productivity as well. The findings raised concerns of a lack of adequate leadership to carry out the talent retention strategies in an effective manner, and to also encourage employees to perform better. The possible recommendations for the concerns include employing better-suited candidates in management positions.