Retention and Succession Issues at the Architectural Firm
After a careful analysis of a given featured case, one may say that the management had been facing a major problem where it was not proactive, rather reactive in its approach. The management of the architecture firm was unable to identify the possible causes of employee dissatisfaction and turnover in advance. The firm consistently suffered from employee retention and succession issues where most of the key employees were switching jobs because they did not feel valued.
Certainly, employees were losing their morale in the firm due to which, instead of talking to their managers about their problems, they switched their jobs. Similarly, Sambian architecture firm should have made the working environment better and comfortable for existing employees which has been pointed in the employee survey. None of the managers actually considered the responsibility to attract and retain the key talent. To keep every key employee from drifting, there was no performance management and appraisal system implemented in the business processes.
In addition to this, rumors are more likely to spread within the business premises with speed. Key employees, like Tom, were suffering from the lack of quality of life which has certainly motivated him to switch the job to the competitor. Many employees were suffering from quality of life, lost their morale and trust in their senior managers. They felt that they are not being heard and valued due to which it was thought to be less important to speak to the management about the problems being witnessed .
Managers’ Role in Resolving the Issues at the Firm
The management must keep the employee morale high by letting them speak their concerns and issue they may face. Similarly, the management should make efforts to ensure that all employees are being heard and taken care of. In this regard, the launch of any employee blog or personal interviews may prove to be helpful to keep the employee discontentment and talent bleeding at a very low level. These actions are necessary to facilitate employees to speak up about any of the issues they may be facing. It will also help to reduce employee dissatisfaction and will keep employee morale high resulting in less talent bleeding from the Sambian architecture firm .
Employees must be encourage having their say into meetings and must be free to place their comments, feedback, suggestions and even complaints without any fear of loss of employment or reputation. Moreover, the management must make some productive efforts to design a mission statement and connect the emotions of every employee to the established corporate goal. In this regard, corporate objectives must be carefully designed and clearly communicated to every employee to connect with the organization at large.
Retention and Succession Strategies
In today’s robust and diverse working environment, it is necessary that the high performing employees should be recognized and awarded with positive reinforcement criteria like promotion and increase in pay packages etc to motivate every other employee to increase productivity at work to neutralize the effects of rumors . Similarly, before any employee makes an announcement to leave the organization, it is necessary that the management should be clever enough to spot the problem beforehand. In this regard, the management must not punish the poor performing employees. Instead, the human resource managers and reporting authorities must monitor their performance and give them critical feedback accordingly. Managers should be held responsible to keep their subordinates engaged productively in their professional work .
References
Allen, D. G., Bryant, P. C., & Vardaman, J. M. (2010). Retaining Talent: Replacing Misconceptions With Evidence-Based Strategies. Academy of Management Perspectives , 48-64.
French, S. L., & Holden, T. Q. (2012). Positive Organizational Behavior. Business and Professional Communication Quarterly - SAGE Journals , 208–220.
Lawler III, E. E. (2008). Why Are We Losing All Our Good People? (HBR Case Study). Harvard Business School Press , 41–51.
Saxena, A. (2013). Transgenerational succession in business groups in India. Asia Pacific Journal of Management , 769–789.
