Post Acquisition Staff Retention within Business Organisations - Dissertation Example

The study recommended the adoption of a knowledge retention framework to be embedded in Kraft’s knowledge management policy.

INTRODUCTION

Staff retention is the process that ensures that employees are retained or kept within a company (Kearney, 2010). This happens particularly to employees who have needed or valued skills or experience in a critical/scarce field where recruitment is quite difficult. Staff retention stems from the process of employment (Batellan, &Van Essen, 2010). It also occurs in mergers and acquisitions (Bourantas, & Nicandrous, 2012). Post-acquisition and merging, like employment, are important processes, which should receive sufficient and careful attention to ensure it realizes its goal. After two or more companies merge, strategies employed to ensure staff of the associated companies is retained determines the successful operation of the merged company (Bourantas, & Nicandrous, 2012). This means that the recruitment, placement, replacements, and selection processes play a crucial role in predetermining the effectiveness of the retention strategy of the companies involved. According to Bower (2013) for such companies to succeed in staff retention, their retention strategy should be linked positively to the practices and processes of selection, placement, recruitment, development, remuneration, training, and performance appraisal. Retaining knowledge is often the prime goal for any organization that decides to merge (Hambrick, & Cannella, 2011).

Studies indicate that knowledge and skill retention is the prime reason why most organizations opt to retain staff. Knowledge is identified as a resource that is strategic in providing competitive organizations advantage (Capron, 2010). Even though organizations have identified the knowledge value, few of them have started to manage the efficiency of knowledge effectively (Capron, 2010). The management of knowledge for the creation of value is still a concern of any management. Even though different organization’s operations like finance, marketing, supply chain or sales, are appropriately mastered, the effective management roadmaps of knowledge are still under investigation. Managing knowledgeable, and skilled employees have increasingly become the key challenge for most organizations (Mitchell, Capron, & Dussuage, 2012). According to Samuel and Chipunza (2011) retaining high-performing employees is a challenge to many organizations because these employees who are highly skilled frequently shift jobs to seek attractive jobs. The management of knowledge includes the identification of knowledge, development, sharing, acquisition, utilization, retention, and distribution (Montgomery. & Collis, 2010). Generally, employee turnover has become a major area of research from both practical, and theoretical standpoints. From the theoretical standpoint, understanding key causes of turnover may not only provide an overview of where specific turnover problems for the retailers lies but also from the theoretical perspective, understanding the fundamental causes of turnover can provide an overview as to how to control this growing problem and identify where retailers specific turnover problems lie. Whereas from a practical perspective, understanding how to reduce the turnover of skilled employees is crucial from the financial standpoint of a business as replacing existing employees is costly to organizations and destructive to service delivery. Samuel and Chipunza (2009).