Author's Name:	Professor Tichaona Mapolisa (Dr) & Doctor Tendai Chikutuma
Subject Area:	Social Science and Humanities
Subject	Education
Section	Research Paper

Efficacious strategies, employee commitment, effective staff retention, public universities, private universities, returnee lecturers, returnee lecturers’ lenses

The study sought to unveil possible efficacious strategies for boosting employee commitment in search of effective staff retention in selected Zimbabwe’s public and private universities from the returnee lecturers’ lenses. Seven returnee lecturers were chosen by means of expert sampling. An in-depth interview method was used to generate data which analysed using NVivo. The study found that efficacious strategies for employee commitment in pursuit of effective staff retention ranged from job loyalty to accountability. it also established lack of support for research and inadequate leave opportunities to be among other challenges faced by the studied universities in implementing efficacious strategies for boosting employee commitment in search of effective staff retention. The study concluded that efficacious strategies for employee commitment to enhance effective staff retention in the selected universities are diverse, and at the same time play a complementary role in either promoting or inhibiting staff retention. The study recommends that every university manager to be held accountable for the lecturers they lead so that they will know how to stimulate employee commitment to produce results and promote staff retention without blaming a poor salary and salary delays of course. The study also recommends that macro-level studies need to be pursued using varied research methodologies to establish how well the current study’s findings inform higher education policy decisions locally, regionally and internationally.