Abstract
Reducing employee turnover and keeping valuable employees from leaving, human resource professionals face this challenge daily. Reviewing various aspects of organization and taking appropriate action will help company’s reducing unwanted turnover. We implement proven strategies: MANAGING TURNOVER THROUGH SELECTION, COMMUNICATION, and MOTIVATION. While this process requires time and effort, it will save the organization time, effort, and money in the long run. The result of this process is improved organizational performance, productivity, and profit.
Key words: Turnover, Select, Communication, and Motivation
Reducing Turnover And Keeping The Best
Preface
Once we have hired great employees, we want to keep them for a while. But, in today’s highly competitive marketplace, employee turnover and employer keeping the valued employees were major problems in economy activities. I believe that today’s employees are demanding more flexibility, more autonomy, and more recognition of individual differences. The average turnover rate in the North America hovered at 20 percent. (See figure 1) The costs associated with turnover can be high–generally 25 percent of the individual’s annual salary. There are direct and indirect costs associated with employee turnover. Direct costs include the time involved in recruitment, selection, and training of new personnel as well as the costs associated with advertising expenses and manpower. Indirect costs include the increased workloads as coworkers pick up the slack until new employees are hired and trained as well as the decreased productivity associated with low employee morale. Turnover costs for many organizations are unacceptably high. Not only is it difficult to find good employees, but also employees are often difficult to replace. The task of keeping good employees is made more difficult due to employees are less than they used. At the same time, attracting candidates is difficult because highly professional employees are in short supply.
Empirical data - turnover rate
So, Many factors contribute to employee turnover such as: poor fit between the person and the job or the organization culture, inadequate employee training, noncompetitive compensation, and organizational practices (e.g., recognition, performance evaluations, vacation/leave policies) that all can weaken employee morale. These factors are not independent. High turnover usually results from several of these factors and more. How to reduce the turnover and keep the best valuable person in the organization, developing strategies and addressing employee turnover is the key that improved organizational performance, productivity, and profit. The plan should include the following steps:
MANAGING TURNOVER THROUGH SELECTION
There are many potential causes for turnover. Certainly, area economic conditions, as well as other factors such as labor market conditions, affect general turnover rates. These more general causes for involuntary turnover are difficult to directly manage. However, there are certain causes for voluntary turnover that are associated with any specific job in company (e.g., non-competitive compensation, high stress, unpleasant physical or interpersonal working conditions, monotony, and poor direct supervision) that can be managed.
An alternative method for reducing turnover is to screen out potential leavers during the hiring process. Human resource managers need assess the current impact of turnover, identify turnover rates for different jobs and different divisions or geographic areas of the company, compare turnover rates with internal or external standards for addressing employee turnover. Organizations can use this information regarding negative job characteristics as part of their pre-employment screening process in order to identify job candidates who are likely to these characteristics.
Before selecting the candidates, HR need review organization’s recruitment strategies. Specify recruitment goals. Make sure that your recruiting activities consider not only job requirements but organizational culture factors as well. Survey results consistently indicate that workers’ negative emotional reactions to job situations do predict voluntary turnover. Employees in any job have conscious and unconscious emotional reactions to work. If these reactions are generally positive, an employee is less likely to quit. On the other hand, if these reactions are generally negative, an employee is more likely to quit. Managing turnover is to identify job candidates who are more likely to have negative reactions to a given job. These candidates can be screened out early in the hiring process, thus saving further hiring costs, and decreasing subsequent turnover.
COMMUNICATION
The best way to find out what employees want is communication. Their answers will give you the starting point you need to develop some effective ways or improving morale and productivity. Communication is internal communication and the most important factor. Through communication, employers can get employees to understand what they are trying to achieve as a company, and get each employee to understand their own personal role in the process. Money is not the only way to motivate employees. Also, this is the best way to save business cost and reduce turnover and keep the best employees. It is a combination ways for communication within and between groups. Meaningful corporate communication should be tied to corporate goals. Effective communication will encourage employees to contribute more to goals based on their improved understanding of them. Better communication will help secure wider support for the organizations. Employees will be better prepared to explain the organization’s position when in contact with friends, neighbors and so far. The more your employees know, the better company grows.
MOTIVATION
Motivation is complex, because different things can motivate employees. One person may be motivated by a sense of job security and the work environment, another employee may be motivated by money and more responsibility. Therefore, it is important to try to get to know what motivates employees. Figure 2 is list of things that will increase and decrease motivation in employees. In a highly competitive work world, it is vital to understand how to motivate your employees, and to keep them satisfied and continually improving. Follow by the HR6013 study, we find five ways to motivate employees:
Figure 2: Motivators and Demotivators
· Employee participation in decisions that impact them· Effective use of employees skill and knowledge· Recognition for contribution· Respect and support from peers and supervisors· Personal freedom to do job· Sense of power of influence· Interesting and challenging work · Heavy-handed supervision· Boring or repetitive work· Lack of control over work· Too much work, no work-life balance· Low pay and low status· Lack of job security· Lack of learning· No increase in responsibility or advancement
1. Creating a positive work environment
Every employee expects to enjoy and not simply tolerate work. The environment which they work both physical and psychological is very important. A positive environment can easily retain employees because everybody likes to work in a good environment. A positive work environment should not be considered a luxury. It should be considered a necessity. Employees are motivated by elements they can feel and see. A positive work environment includes the following components:
· A well-defined culture with leadership and direction
· Employee ownership, decision-making and flexibility
· A motivating, supportive and trusting environment
· A healthy, safe and comfortable workplace
· Work and personal life in balance
· Regular and open communication
For high-performing employees, one of the most important conditions about a positive environment is that the company can keep continuous process improvement. In the competitive environment, continuous process improvement is clearly important because without new products or services, any organization will behind its competition.
2. Involving them in decision-making
Most high-performing employees want to be involved in decision-making. Once included in the decision-making process, the employees feel they play a more significant role in the company. Otherwise, they may search somewhere else for inclusion and significance.
Including high-performing employees in decision making encourage them to thinking more about their goals and objectives at their expertise level and devote more to the company. Moreover, when those employees are included in decision, the pressure of managers and risk of error can be reduced due to more good ideas from different perspectives.
In order to participate successfully in making decisions, the high-performing employees must understand the mission of the department, team, and overall company. Then they are able to exercise common sense, use good judgment, and solve problems effectively.
3. Providing training opportunities
No matter how well the person matches the job, some training is always necessary. Training includes the teaching of knowledge, skills, and attitudes.
Some recent researches reveal that the opportunity to learn new skills and the ability to have a flexible work arrangement rank far above salary as factors "most important" in a position.
High-performing employees usually want to be challenged and they want to increase their inventory skills keeping the worthy position. If they realize that their growth, development are slow or stop, or they are falling behind the technological learning curve due to less training opportunities, they will look elsewhere for greater opportunity.
To high-performing employees, training means not only enhance their skills but also proving that the company supports them in expending their responsibilities. Even though it is not sure that they will be promoted, training makes them feel that they are important to the company and are respected by the company. So they may respect the company and retain services for an extended period.
4. Provide opportunities and responsibility for growth
A promotional opportunity is another attraction for keeping the high-performing employees. Money is not always a good motivator for employees; it easily satisfies people’s basic needs, and then they want more of it as a way of keeping score; some of them pursue promotion much more than money. The company’s promotion policy should be in accordance with merit instead of seniority. The promotional opportunities should be given those high-performing employees who are deserving of promotion.
Today’s organizations tend to get flatter, they still can continue to challenge high-performing employees and further include then in organizational influence with periodic increases in their responsibilities. High-performing employees easily become bored when they are not continuously challenged. Thus, increasing their responsibilities is an effective way to keep these employees challenged.
Responsibilities should be interrelated with authority. Some companies may give employees more responsibilities, but the authority to make decisions for these responsibilities still are hold by the leaders. In this case, responsibility without authority doesn’t play any role of keeping high-performing employees; otherwise, it may drive them away very fast. Delegates appropriate jobs to appropriate people. It may take same effect as promotion that empower high- performing employees to work and solve problems on their own.
5. Timely making performance appraisal
Performance management processes link employee performance to organizational values, goals and objectives will financially benefit your organization and motivate your employees. Performance review should be a continuous process of setting objectives, which they are being achieved. Recognize and reward performance can motivate and retain your employees. Company should consider that recognition and rewards could be either internal or external.
Summary
It is not hard to image how important retaining the high-performance employees that company hired. Finding and hiring the best employees is only a part of the human resource management process, after this, they have to develop and keep these employees as well. Even though turnover is inevitable in the cruel competitive society and caused by many different reasons, it can be reduced unwanted turnover using appropriate measures.
Reference
Robert Bruce Bowin (2001), Human Resource Management (2nd ed.)
Lin Grensing-Pophal (2002), Motivating Today’s Employees(2nd ed): Motivational Theory, Finding The Right Fit, Communication
Lin Grensing-Pophal(1999), HR Book Human Resources Management for Business, Do you really need a new employee?, Making your selection
Chambers, hart E. Finding, hiring, and keeping peak performance.
Kirkpatrick, Donald L. How to improve performance through appraisal and coaching.
Freeman, Richard B. & Rogers Joel. What workers want.
Guest David, & Fatchett Derek. Worker participation: individual control and performance.
Bernardin, J.H. (1987). Development and validation of a forced choice scale to measure job-related discomfort among customer service representatives.
