Combating Employee Turnover - Essay Example

? Combating Employee Turnover of A study done on employee turnover describes employee turnover as a gradual process. There are several factors that lead to employee turnover such as Job Characteristics, On-boarding, Relationship, Work Environment and Individual Differences. Once a person is exposed to turnover factors, he looks around for other opportunities and waits for changes to happen in the current turnover factors. If alternative opportunities are available and changes in the turnover factors do not occur, then the employee leaves the job. This has been explained in the form of a model in the diagram below: Figure 1: Employee’s Turnover Model Source: (Allen, Bryant & Vardaman 2011) If an organization sees that employees are unhappy with the work environment and there are some factors that may start the cycle of Employee’s Turnover Model, then the organization should try to remove them from the environment. They may develop strategies that will improve the work environment, improve employee’s relationship with others in the organization and try to focus on individual characteristics of workers to make them happy. These strategies will ensure that the employee does not leave the organization. Another idea suggested by Allen et al. study is that the organization should conduct employee’s surveys at regular intervals and should develop evidence-based strategies based on the problems identified in these surveys to make sure that employee’s turnover is reduced and this can be an effective way to combat the problem of high turnover in the large corporations and organizations. (Allen, Bryant & Vardaman 2011) Another study done on 76 organizations concludes that employment benefits and effective retirement policies reduce the problem of employee turnover by almost 34%. The study’s rationale was that employee’s benefits and retirement programs are given to employees after their retirement. Since gratuity fund grows exponentially, so employees think that longer they will stay with the organization, the bigger gratuity or pension they will get. Hence, this motivates them not to quit the job. Therefore, organizations with effective employee’s benefits and retirements plan tend to retain workers for longer periods than organizations that do not focus on these programs. Another important finding of the research was that it takes almost $3000 to replace a work in mid-management position. Hence, if these $3000/worker are used in creating effective retirement and pension plans, then an organization is likely to retain its workers for longer periods (Sutton 2001). In a model developed (Darmna 2000), it was found that replacing the employees that are leaving the organization is quite expensive. Hence, organizations could use half the costs that are spent on recruiting new staff to appease or solving the problems of the leaving staff. They can use the same money to increase their wages or to reduce the de-motivation factors from the organization. This would improve the problem of high employee turnover because factors that were perturbing the employees are being removed from the environment and hygienic factors such as increased pay are being given to them. Hence, there is no reason for them to leave the organization. (Darmna 2000) Participative management is another technique to reduce the problem of high turnover. Participative management believes in the autocratic leadership. It is an approach that calls for management by objective. Here the responsibility is delegated to workers who are then free to decide how they will go about doing their work. This kind of approach has been highly successful in staff retention and large MNCs are making use of this approach. The illustrious lists of organizations that use this approach are Unilever, Proctor and Gamble, Reckitt-Beckniser and Siemens. It was found that these organizations retain employees twice longer than any other company. One reason for this high retention rate is responsibility management and participative management techniques. Other organizations can replicate this strategy to reduce the problem of high employee turnover in their organizations. (Palmer & Charles 2002) Employee’s often leave the organization because they are badly management. Managers usually do not have proper interpersonal skills to communicate and coordinate the activities of workforce. Many people leave their jobs because the behavior of their managers is not good. This is probably the biggest reason for employees’ turnover, but hardly any work has been done in this field. A good way to reduce employee turnover is by teaching managers on how to handle new people. Several courses can be taught to these managers in order to improve their interpersonal and management skills so that employee’s do not feel that they have been badly treated or their superiors do not care about them. This strategy is going to solve the fundamental problem of employee turnover. Managers should also try to create an atmosphere of work-life balance to increase the retention of their staff. Many times family commitments or lack of time given to the family also leads to employee turnover. Organizations should make sure that enough time is given to workers to meet their off-work duties and make sure that employees give enough time to their families to reduce the problem of job turnover. (Lee & Maurer 1999). Another study argues that it is the lack of job satisfaction that is responsible for high employee turnover rates than the family commitments or any other exogenous factors. Hence, the job of the human resource manager is to include some elements in the job of an employee that reduces the monotony of the regular work and that ensures that workers’ are doing something new and creative each day. This will ensure that employees have high level of job satisfaction and there is no motive for them to find new challengers or fresh work environments. (Weisman, Alexander & Chase 2001). Another study highlights the need of career and professional development in order to retain workers. If workers perceive that they are stuck to one monotonous job with no chances of promotion or progress, they are likely to leave the job. Hence good organizations give special consideration to the career development of its staff and progress them with the growth of the organization and this strategy has been proven successful in reducing the problem of employee turnover. (Clowers 2002) Works Cited Allen, D, Bryant, P & Vardaman, J 2011, 'Retaining Talent: Replacing Misconceptions With Evidence Based Strategies', Academy of Management Perscpectives Journal, vol 1, no. 2, pp. 34-53. Clowers, G 2002, 'A Dynamic Model for the Analysis of Labour Turnover', Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, vol 135, no. 2, pp. 240-250. Darmna, R 2000, 'Identifying Sources of Turnover Costs: A Segmental Approach', The Journal of Marketing, vol 54, no. 2, pp. 46-56. Lee, T & Maurer, S 1999, 'The Effects Of Family Structure On Organizational Commitment, Intention To Leave And Voluntary Turnover', Journal of Managerial Issues, vol 11, no. 4, pp. 490-510. Naumann, E 1992, 'A Conceptual Model of Expatriate Turnover', Journal of International Business Studies, vol 23, no. 3, pp. 500-530. Palmer, W & Charles, D 2002, 'Increasing Productivity and Reducing Employee Turnover', Training and Development Journal, vol 42, no. 2, pp. 34-54. Sutton, N 2001, 'Do Employee Benefits Reduce Labor Turnover', Benefit Quarterly, vol 1, no. 2, pp. 43-65. Weisman, C, Alexander, C & Chase, G 2001, 'Determinants of Hospital Staff Nurse Turnover', Medical Care, vol 19, no. 4, pp. 40-64. Read More