The moderating effect of demographic variables on the relation between HRM and employee loyalty in Omani logistics sector / Abdulqader Ali Mohammed Alsaiari

In the past several years, the industry sector has been dominating Oman’s economy, with the logistics sector forming its backbone, accounting for 56.6% of the GDP in 2019. The logistics sector is expected to provide 80,000 jobs by 2020 and 300,000 by 2040. By reviewing past literature on issues related to HRM in the logistics sector in Oman, many issues have been identified to have a negative impact on employee loyalty such as lack of appreciation, discrimination in hiring, biased behaviour in incentives, promotion and selection, imperfect environment, and others. Therefore, this research aims to examine the moderating effect of demographic variables on the relationship between HRM best practices and employee loyalty. In addition, this research aims to ascertain the impact of HRM best practices (recognition, compensation, promotion, training, selective hiring, job rotation, working environment) on employee loyalty. This research discusses specific demographic variables namely gender, age, nationality, job experience, and job level. To achieve these objectives, a quantitative approach was adopted by distributing questionnaires to 400 employees in the government owned/semi-owned companies in the Omani logistic sector. Smart-PLS 3 was used to analyze the data extracted from the questionnaires. The results showed that the demographic variables (gender, age, nationality, job experience, and job level) had no moderating effect on the relationship between HRM practices and employee loyalty. Also, the results showed that promotion and working environment had an impact on employee loyalty, while recognition, compensation, training, selective hiring, and job rotation had no impact on employee loyalty. Finally, the researcher recommends continuing the strategic direction for improving HRM practices and its multiple aspects, which would enable logistics companies in Oman to compete and come out victorious in light of the current competition. Also, there is a need to ensure the provision of a work environment that guarantees higher levels of satisfaction for workers in logistics companies, which in turn would improve their job loyalty.