Abstract

This paper was focused on the assessment of governance risks and its effects to employee retention of service-based businesses in Laguna. Descriptive research and purposive sampling were employed with 360 retrieved questionnaires. The questionnaire used in this study underwent reliability testing with acceptable to good internal consistency. Data were evaluated using statistical tools of frequency, rank, mean, weighted mean and ANOVA. The highest weighted mean for the governance risks experienced by business owners during the pandemic in relation to planning is the suspended implementation of goals and objectives. Meanwhile, in terms of monitoring and control, unpreparedness on future risks was ranked first. Management support to the professional needs of its employees is significant for reduced turnover of employee retention. Moreover, for the employee productivity, “Involvement of the employees to the business planning” got the highest mean. Planning, and Monitoring and Control have significant difference when grouped according to service sector. While, under employee retention, reduced turnover is significantly different when grouped according to profile factors. However, the employee productivity showed only significant difference when grouped by service sectors.  The findings suggested that Local Government may develop activities for governance management and employee empowerment to help the service-based businesses recover.

Keywords: governance risks, employee retention, micro, small, medium enterprises and pandemic