Introduction
Effective Human Resource (HR) Manager is tasked with the responsibility of ensuring that the organization retains its employees. HR department manager should be able to analyze workforce data so that he or she can be able to adopt effective strategies for staff retention. In light of the relevance of staff retention strategies, this paper will utilize the Tanglewood case study to identify the most significant problem, determine whether Tanglewood has functional or dysfunctional turnover, the various concerns of the interview and ways of making the data relevant, determine whether the survey is comprehensive and determine possible data that could be added to the survey to make it more appealing. Lastly, while keeping in mind the sources of turnover that have been identified in the case study, this section will highlight the most effective staff retention strategies for the organization to retain a competitive edge in the marketplace.
Problem Identification
Tanglewood has a severe employee retention problem. For any business to thrive in the modern day economy, finding as well as retaining the best employees is of great significance. Although this factor is genuine and shared especially for non-profits and small business, large corporations may also suffer severe losses when they are unable to retain their workforce. Employee turnover hurts employee productivity, morale as well as the company’s revenue. Recruiting and training new employees requires vast resources and staff time. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, industries such as construction, customer service, trade and utilities, service, hospitality, and customer service have continued to record the highest number of employee turnover (Presbitero, Roxas, & Chadee, 2015). Employee turnover has a noteworthy effect on structural resources. Presbitero, Roxas, and Chadee (2015) study predicted that any time an organization a salaried worker, the company spends 6 to 9 months’ salary. Other studies predict that employee turnover may cost a company even more since losing a salaried employee can cost a business double their annual salary, mostly for the executive level and high earner employee (Presbitero, Roxas, & Chadee, 2015). The most evident reason behind the increased turnover at Tanglewood is inadequate compensations. Although the company takes care of its employees’ welfare, it has neglected to provide its employees better salaries. Most employees are forced to leave the company only to seek greener pastures elsewhere.
Some reasons support the fact that increased employee turnover within an organization is a serious problem and should be given serious consideration by the HR department (Presbitero, Roxas, & Chadee, 2015). Among these adverse effects are that employee turnovers are characterized by increased costs of hiring new employees including interviewing, advertising, screening, and hiring, increased costs of on-boarding new employees through time management and training, lost productivity, lost engagement, customer service, and errors, training costs, as well as cultural impact. The real cost of employee remains unknown because many companies do not have systems of tracking the exit cost, the loss of productivity, orientation and training, the potential customer satisfaction, loss of expertise, as well as administrative expenses. Understanding the costs associated with employee turnover requires the collaboration of all the organizational departments (Operations, Finance and the Human Resource) to come up with ways of measuring the associated costs, as well as the reporting mechanisms.
Employee Turnover
Hancock et al. (2013) defined employee turnover as the percentage of employees who have left the organization and have been replaced by new workers. The measurement of employee turnover is important to human resource managers who are in need of examining the reasons behind the turnover (Stanley, Vandenberghe, Vandenberg & Bentein, 2013). Tanglewood had an annual turnover of 34 percent among assistant store managers and store managers in the past year. Voluntary turnover was the most common employee turnover at Tanglewood. Also referred to as the voluntary termination, voluntary turnover takes place when an employee leaves the company his or her volition. In this case, most employees left the company because they felt that their salaries did not reflect the value of their work. Most of these employees felt that the company underpaid them. As argued by Hancock et al. (2013), employees give some reasons for leaving their current jobs. Through voluntary turnover, employees leave because they have accepted employment opportunity with another company or they might be dealing with personal issues which make it impossible for them to work or relocating to a different location. Employees give their employers a written or verbal notice of their intention to resign from their job when they voluntarily terminate their employment relationship.
Exit Interview
Exit interviews are aimed at aligning the current HRM practices with the best employee retention approaches. When Tanglewood is informed of the reasons for employee’ exist, it gets an opportunity to create strategies that will prevent future exists (Howe-Walsh, 2015). Besides, such information is relevant since it helps in developing an informed HRM department. The relevance of exit interviews is that the offer intelligence about the employer brand, which is important in diagnosing the most practical approach to reducing employee turnover. Exit interview serves as a means of reducing the likelihood that a former employer may sue the organization.
On results collected from the study, it is worth noting that staffing has encouraged the company’s regional managers to interview their managers when they turn over their resignation forms (Stanley, Vandenberghe, Vandenberg & Bentein, 2013). Exit interviews at the company tend to attract informal conversation, where employees are free to express the disappointments. Openness evident in exit interviews offers significant opportunities for the company to come up with efficient or alternative employee retention approaches of HR management. However, since the pacing, content, as well as the direction of the interview is left to the manager’s discretion, exit interviews do not provide the best opportunities for organizational leaders to improve the human resource department factions.
Job Satisfaction Surveys
Job satisfaction surveys are aimed at assessing the level of employee satisfaction at their current workplaces. Putting in place a well-managed job satisfaction surveys will help the HRM department align the most effective practices of employee retention. Employees use job satisfaction surveys to offer support to a productive and happy workplace through employee engagement and employee satisfaction approaches (Stanley, Vandenberghe, Vandenberg & Bentein, 2013). Besides, job satisfaction assists HRM departments in setting up a meaningful connection between the employees’ standards of job satisfaction as well as organizational goals, for the management of the organization is a sustaining manner.
Employee attitudes (work satisfaction, supervisor satisfaction, pay satisfaction, and benefits satisfaction) are surveyed on a yearly basis to determine employee’s attitude towards several employment aspects. Despite the fact that the purpose of these surveys is to collect the baseline information with regards to employee’s attitudes Stanley, Vandenberghe, Vandenberg and Bentein (2013) noted that job satisfaction surveys offer managers with the most practical approaches to tracking retention trends. The relevance of the surveys is that the provide employees with the opportunity to speak their minds on issues that will benefit the organization as well as employees.
Improvement Strategies
The current employee turnover problem at the company presents serious challenges. The increased employee turnover is not only costing the business time; it is straining the company’s resources and denying it the ability to attain a competitive edge in the marketplace. It is important for the enterprise to adopt a broad range of improvement strategies for employee rotation (Presbitero, Roxas, & Chadee, 2015). This section notes that benchmarking its employee’s retention rate, using proven retention strategies, creating a feedback environment, implementing health benefit programs, conducting exit interviews, and providing a broad range of benefits for different employees.
Benchmarking the employee retention rate: This approach is relevant in since it helps the organization to understand the nature of employee retention. Understanding retention statistics will help the organization to formulate structured strategies that will effectively address the problem.
Using Proved Strategies: Research plays a very significant role in ensuring that the company does not waste time and resources in less efficient approaches. Evidence-based practice is important in the sense that it provides an outlined procedure of addressing the company’s increased turnover (Deery & Jago, 2015). Besides, using research to identify the most effective approach will set out alternatives for addressing employee retention issue in an efficient manner.
Creation of a High-Feedback Environment: the creation of a high-feedback environment will help the company understand the underlying problem. Besides timely and effective employee feedback is considered to be a critical component of the successful performance management program (Howe-Walsh, 2015). When the organization puts into consideration the importance of employee feedback, it will be able to create alternative employee retention approaches. Human resources should know their employees’ experiences promptly to determine the future direction of the company.
The Implementation of a Health Benefits Program: providing extra benefits to employees is an indication that an organization cares about its employee’s welfare (Stanley, Vandenberghe, Vandenberg & Bentein, 2013). If Tanglewood initiated a health insurance program, its employees would not have a reason to look forward to work for other organizations with such benefits. Providing such benefits will provide the company’s employee to take advantage of privileges that other companies do not offer.
Provide Different Benefits for Different Employees While Putting an Emphasis On the High-Valued of Expensive to Replace Employees. Since the high-valued employees present significant opportunities to an organization, HR department at Tanglewood should strive to ensure that these workers are exposed to the best working conditions (Howe-Walsh, 2015). Offering slightly increased compensation will make these employees feel that their services in the company are highly valued.
Conclusion
There is an increased need for the human resource department managers to analyze workforce data so that he can adopt effective strategies for staff retention. In light of the relevance of staff retention strategies, this paper has provided an analysis of the current problem at Tanglewood. The company has a low rate of employee retention due to the nature of working environment it exposed its workers. Although the organization has managed to provide its employees a healthy workplace, it has failed to provide them with good salaries. Most employees feel that their work is undervalued hence seek jobs with goop pay elsewhere. Key improvement strategies for the company include benchmarking the employee retention rate, the utilization of proved strategies, implementing of a health benefits program, providing different benefits for different employees while putting an emphasis on the high-valued of expensive to replace employees as well as conducting exit interviews. Although these improvement strategies present the greatest opportunity for the company to retain its employees, it is important that the strategies are coordinated across all organizational departments. The useful application of the outlined improvement strategies will not only help the organization to attain a competitive edge in the marketplace, but it will also assist in addressing the high employee turnover rates at Tanglewood.
References
Deery, M., & Jago, L. (2015). Revisiting talent management, work-life balance, and retention strategies. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 27(3), 453-472.
Howe-Walsh, L. (2015). Bank stems the loss of employees returning from abroad: Talent-management system helps to keep people loyal. Human Resource Management International Digest, 23(2), 25-27.
Presbitero, A., Roxas, B., & Chadee, D. (2015). Looking beyond HRM practices in enhancing employee retention in BPOs: focus on employee–organization value fit. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 1-18.
Hancock, J. I., Allen, D. G., Bosco, F. A., McDaniel, K. R., & Pierce, C. A. (2013). A meta-analytic review of employee turnover as a predictor of firm performance. Journal of Management, 39(3), 573-603.
Stanley, L., Vandenberghe, C., Vandenberg, R., & Bentein, K. (2013). Commitment profiles and employee turnover. Journal of Vocational Behavior,82(3), 176-187.
Appendices
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Appendix 3
