Introduction
The Organisations today face many challenges due to high competition in the market and opportunities becoming varied. One of the serious problems of the organisation is high employee turnover and companies find it extremely difficult to retain their employees, who may join with competitor firm for getting salary hike, for profile change or simply for a change etc. A lot of diverse job opportunities available in the market, also encourages employees to look for alternate or better jobs. This study is aimed at throwing some light on the facts of employee turnover.
During the initial stages of employment, most of the employees will be dedicated and will promise to deliver their best. But in due course their resolve slackens and they may resign for minor reasons. One factor can be an internal factor that is dislike within the organisation and other factors are outside factors which are mostly uncontrollable. It is a known fact that employees are resigning from reputed organisations despite the high salary or benefits the company provides, which is hefty financial burden on the company. Such resignations entail shortage of staff which adversely affects the company’s performance. So, in order to negate such eventualities, employee retention strategies must be implemented at the appropriate time to retain the talent. Otherwise, it will require the company to recruit new employees which will necessitate in expenditure for recruitment and training. Therefore, the company must be aware of cost of turnover and should plan its activity accordingly.
“Turnover levels vary very considerably from industry to industry. The highest levels of turnover (20.4%) are found in private sector organisations.” (Employee TurnOver and Retention: Employee Turnover Levels 2008).
Ways to reduce employee turnover
If a company adopt adequate strategies review and monitor their HR policies and practices, it may be able, to a certain extent, to reduce employee turn over.
Firstly a good leadership along with good office environment of mutual trust and understanding is essential for employees. It is also important to provide attractive pay, better rewards and incentives along with recognizing employees, to motivate employees. It is also an integral part of HR policy to provide opportunities for career growth within the organisation and staff should have ample opportunity for advancement of their skills and knowledge base. Majority of the managers are not aware when their employees are planning to resign or seeking another job. “In order to know the cause of excessive employee turnover, the causes of dysfunctional and avoidable turnover should be known.” (Employee Turnover: Causes of Employee Turnover 2007).
It is the manager’s duty to engage the employees in work with positive attitude and to ensure their satisfaction. They should also see to it that the staff is not facing any problem in supervision, and counselling must be given if required. Besides, they have to ensure that work is interesting with teamwork and group activities. It is important to provide training and development at appropriate time to deserving employees. It is the duty of the top level manager to understand the level of organisational hierarchy where employees are leaving and find solution for it. It is, further, important to calculate the attrition rate which is the rate calculated by dividing number of employees in the beginning of the year by number of employees in the closing year and multiplying the result by hundred. After getting the attrition rate, it is easy to analyse the section where more turnover has occurred and basing on this information, effective measures can be taken.
“Meeting the demands of today’s changing business environment requires building and retaining a loyal and motivated staff. But finding and keeping quality employees can pose a challenge.” (Reducing Turnover 2008).
Modern trend in the industry is that employees prefer to achieve a balance between office work and family and it is important to maintain good working atmosphere along with flexible timing.
“Interest in researching flexible working arrangements has been growing as such practices have been heralded as the way to reconcile or balance the increased pressures of work and family life. Relatively little attention has been paid to the experiences of flexible working arrangements in small and medium sized enterprises.” (Dex and Scheibl 2002, p.411-431).
Conclusion
Though it is impossible to overcome these problems completely there are certain ways by which management can tackle employee turnover to a certain extent. Since the global environment offers wider opportunities, companies need to develop innovative ways to retain employees. Human Resources department must address these issues along with the management need to evolve strategies to retain employees at all levels.
Bibliography
DEX, Sherley., and SCHEIBL, Fiona. (2002). Flexible and Family Friendly Working Arrangements in UK Based SMEs Business Cases: Abstract. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 39 (3), 411-431. 2008. Web.
Employee Turnover and Retention: Employee Turnover Levels. (2008). [online]. CIPD. Web.
Employee Turnover: Causes of Employee Turnover. (2007). [online]. Retension.Naukrib. Web.
Reducing Turnover. (2008). [online]. Robert Half: Finance and Accounting. Web.