Assessing the Fusion of ChatGPT into Employee Retention: Effectiveness and Limitations in the Omani Public Sector

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the potential effectiveness of fusing ChatGPT as a recommendation instrument for employee retention purposes in the Omani public sector. It also identified potential limitations associated with its implementation. The study employed a descriptive approach and utilized a survey instrument to gather data from 376 employees and administrators working in the Omani public sector for participation in the current study. The researcher designed a questionnaire to investigate the potential effectiveness and limitations of using ChatGPT as a recommendation tool for employee retention purposes in the Omani public sector. The questionnaire, in its final format, consisted of three main axes; the first axis was potential effectiveness, the second one was possible limitations of using ChatGPT, while the third shed light on affective factors. The results revealed that there were varied potential effectiveness of using ChatGPT as a recommendation tool for employee retention purposes in the Omani public sector. All potential effectiveness dimensions obtained moderate degrees. ChatGPT can develop personalized career paths, identify turnover risk factors, design effective reward mechanisms, and provide accessibility & availability. Possible limitations included a lack of contextual understanding, privacy and security concerns, and a lack of emotional intelligence. All these limitations obtained a high response degree that could be attributed to the possibility of using ChatGPT to generate harmful content. Affective factors, when analyzed, did not result in a statistically significant influence on participant responses. From a practical standpoint, the research suggests the development of comprehensive educational resources to augment user awareness of ChatGPT’s functionalities and stress the need for the aggregation of training data from diverse origins, including authentic human interactions across diverse cultures and communities.