Introduction
For an overall staffing system, retention of employees is always the last component to consider. Although the loss of some of the employees is both inevitable and desirable, the aspect of retention management aims at ensuring that an organization keeps enough employees who have the best KSAOs that can be used to generate future success (Heneman & Kammeyer-Mueller, 2012, p.711). In this paper, I will seek to answer various application questions derived from the case of managerial turnover in a company known as Health Care Launder Care (HCLC). This is a company that has seen 20 site managers leaving their jobs in the past one year due to the pressure impacted on them by their supervisor, the vice president of operations, Mr. Tyrone Williams.
- Is the loss of 30 Managers out of 120 in one year cause for concern?
Yes, a 25% turnover rate for the managers will definitely be of big concern to any organization. The issue of retention must always be perceived and tackled realistically, nonetheless, some amount of employee turnover is simply inevitable (Heneman & Kammeyer-Mueller, 2012, p.712). This is because people constantly move out of various organizations voluntarily while others are shed off by the management. The rate at which the site managers left HCLC is alarming and will end up injuring the organizations performance if prompt action is not taken. While turnover may not be as high in particular organizations, it is still high enough to warrant attention (Ployhart & Schneider, 2006, p.112). It would therefore be helpful if HCLC possessed enough industry data so that a better interpretation of the turnover rate can be calculate effectively, but unfortunately they do not have this information. It is imperative for HCLC to ascertain, track and record the various reasons why their employees considered quitting their organization. The data is important in measuring or analyzing turnover.
- What additional data should we gathered to learn more about managerial turnover?
Normally, the employees desire to quit depends on their job satisfaction, experiences at the work or for other personal reasons. However, the aspect of job satisfaction appears to being the only factor that can be directly influenced by the organization. It is therefore very important for the organization to be regularly collecting additionally data on how they can improve their employee’s job satisfaction. For the case of HCLC, it should look at the background information of the 20 managers who decided to leave office in the last year. Specifically, it would be helpful to the organization to know for how long these managers have been in the job before they quit. Additionally, they should look into the former manager’s performance in their respective managerial positions. Although the company does not have a formal exit interview process, it would be an extremely valuable endeavor if they would consider to be interviewing their leaving employees so that they can learn more the reason that made them quit the organization. In fact, the exit interview data is arguably the single most valuable source of information that can be used to effectively deal with the issue of retention among managers.
- What are the costs of this turnover? Might there be any benefits?
There exists numerous costs involved in regard to turnover to an organization. These costs involve aspects such as the disruption to the organizations management, resources and the time that the organization incurs in the process of departing the managers. In addition, more resources and time would be wasted with regard to hiring, recruiting and also training new managers who would fill the vacancies left behind. Other costs could include the damage caused to productivity and morale of other HCLC employees which may increase the likelihood of other employees to consider quitting. Research shows that in such situation, less than 50% of the employees who have been left behind rated the management honesty as positive or had the interest of the workers at heart (Polinsky & Shavell, 2007, p.72).
One of the benefit that can be derived from managerial turnover is that it could be very possible that the workers who decided to quit were the worst performing managers and could not be able to survive the pressure imparted for future growth of HCLC. Therefore, in this case, then at least this turnover can turn out be beneficial to HCLC since it has been given an opportunity to recruit new site managers who are more competitive and better placed to fit in the departed managers’ positions.
- Are there any lurking legal problems?
According to the description given by the site managers who have left in regard to Mr. William’s (Vice President of operations) leadership style of being insensitive and abrasive, it becomes apparent that the former managers might consider taking legal action against HCLC. It has also been reported to the president of this organization that there are many angry resignation letters that have been addressed to the vice president. This is also a call for concern since the angry former employs were genuinely mistreated or treated unfairly at their place of worker and are justified to take legal action against HCLC for creating unbearable working conditions for their employees.
However, legally, HCLC may be at a safer side because the employee’s separation was totally on a voluntary basis. It can argue that these managers left office because they were not up to the task. In addition, based on the regulations and court decisions, there exists numerous recommendations that ought to be followed for a performance management system to have a better chance to withstand legal challenges and scrutiny (Heneman & Kammeyer-Mueller, 2012, p, 710).
- If retention is a serious problem for HCLC, what are the main ways we might address it?
Judging from the 25% turnout by the managers in a period of just a year, it becomes apparent that HCLC has a serious retention problem. One of the ways that it can use to attack it includes to create a formal exit interview process that will be used to identify the various reasons why their employees are contemplating on quitting. Thereafter, the results of these exit interviews should be shared with the respective senior managers from the departments where the managers worked before. Another copy of should be shared with the vice president of human resource to push for various policy changes regarding how employees are being treated (Ployhart & Schneider, 2006, p.112).
Another approach includes the Human resource manager conducting an annual employee attitude survey that would be aimed at assessing the perception that the employees and their respective site managers have towards the working environment at HCLC. All the results that have been received from these surveys should be presented to the top management of HCLC so that effective measures aimed at formulating the best plans that would end up creating a better working environment. It is also advisable that the president, Mr. Dublinski, to consider implementing a 360 degrees feedback process approach with most of his executive members at the organization. Particularly, Tyrone Williams mostly appears to be in need of such an intervention.
Lastly, the president of HCLC may want to include the issue of employee satisfaction and retention as two additional measures to be used for further evaluation of performance of his juniors such as Mr. Williams in the future. This measure will definitely push the likes of Mr. William to become more concerned with the manner at which he treats other employees especially the site managers.
Conclusion
Based on this analysis, it is evident that prompt action from the president is required. As the corporate manager of staffing, I would therefore advise Mr. Dublinski to consider relieving Mr. William some of the critical roles such as demotions, pay cuts and terminations of employment contracts. Although the strictness that the vice president is exercising is crucial to the survival of the company in this competitive market, it is also important know how far you can push your employees especially when applying harsh and quick justice. Nonetheless, the vice president of HR, Ms. Debra Angle is also expected to become stricter when replacing the departed employees so that better employees would be hired and would be able to meet the company’s expectation without complaining. In general, Roman Dublinski’s intervention is critical lest the company fails to perform. He should focus on raising the working conditions for the employees while at the same time motivating the remaining employees.
References
Heneman, H. G., Judge, T., & Kammeyer-Mueller, J. D. (2012). Staffing organizations.
Middleton, WI: Mendota House.
Ployhart, R. E., Schmitt, N., & Schneider, B. (2006). Staffing organizations: Contemporary
practice and theory. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publ.
Polinsky, A. M., & Shavell, S. (Eds.). (2007). Handbook of law and economics (Vol. 2). Access
Online via Elsevier.
