Case Study 6

Given:

· Overall turnover rate 65% for attendants, 20% for customer service specialists, no managers left

· Complaints by management of the high level of turnovers

· Major complaints for leaving: pay, training, limited promotion, no feedback or coaching, customer complaints and mistreatment by customers

1. Do we think turnover is a problem?

“Turnover is a relational process between an employer and an organization that includes elements of attachment, exchange and separation” (Shipp, Furst-Holloway, Harris, & Rosen, 2014). The text gives two categories of turnovers: voluntary and involuntary. Voluntary turnovers are further broken down into avoidable and unavoidable, whereas, involuntary is broken down into discharge and downsizing. Based on the information provided, which is a 65% overall turnover rate for attendants and 20% for customer service specialists, there seems to be a serious turnover problem. This problem is more prevalent among the attendants. In researching the problems listed by management concerning the turnovers, these turnovers can be classified as avoidable turnover. “Avoidable turnover is that which potentially could have been prevented by certain organization actions, such as pay raise or new job assignment” (Heneman III, Judge, & Kammeyer-Mueller, 2015).

2. How might we attack the problem?

The best way to address the problem is to address the complaints presented to Wally by management. These complaints were: non-competitive pay, job training that is hit or miss, promotion opportunities, feedback and coaching by management and customer complaints and mistreatment of attendants by the customers. These are not hard areas to improve upon.

To stay competitive in terms of pay, Wally may want to research salaries and benefits in the area, to make sure the salary is in line with the competition. Job training, which includes company specific and job specific KSAOs, should be implemented for all new employees and after a certain amount of time on the job, employees should be retrained. Feedback is very important, an employee should be praised for doing good work as well as reprimanded when doing bad work. The managers should implement performance appraisals of some type.

3. What do we need to decide?

The goal of WWW is expansion, but in order to accomplish this Wally must look at fixing the present problems, so these same issues do not come up again in the future. A plan must be implemented with the management and HR to help to retain the most skilled employees, through the short and long term goals. There are two sets of employees that are affected by the turnover, the attendants and customer service specialists. Due to the differences in the positions, the goals should be different. Wally and the management cannot control the mistreatment by the customer, but they make sure that the employees do what they can to give great service to the customers.

4. How should we evaluate the initiatives?

Before evaluating the initiatives, “it is important to reduce voluntary as it incurs significant economic costs due to the loss of trained staff and retraining of new staff. It also incurs non-momentary costs such as the loss of expertise, experience knowledge and relationship” (Hee & Yean Yng Ling, 2011). Based on Exhibit 14.11, Decision process for retention initiatives, there is no question that there is a turnover problem. In terms of these turnovers: (1) turnover is high or increasing relative to internal and external benchmarks; (2) managers are complaining about retention problems; (3) high- value employees are leaving.

How might WWW attack the problem? In this case the following initiatives would be helpful;

(1) Lower desirability of leaving by increasing job satisfaction; (2) Lower the ease of leaving by decreasing provision of general KSAOs and make leaving more costly; (3) Change alternatives by implementing better methods for promotions and transfers.

What does WWW need to decide?

WWW needs to implement the following: (1) turnover goals targeted to mainly the attendants; (2) general and targeted retention initiatives to keep those attendants that are doing a great job; (3) find those areas where WWW is lagging the market especially in terms of pay and training; and (4) hire someone to take the lead in HR.

How should WWW evaluate the initiatives?

One of the issues is there is no type of exit interview or survey, the managers have only heard complaints about pay, training, promotion, feedback form management, and customer complaints. The initiatives should be evaluated by a lower number of turnovers, fewer complaints from employees, more employees becoming high value employees and those that are actually staying with the company and lower customer complaints. In order for any of this to work there should be an HR department or representative in place to address all issues,

References

Hee, C. H., & Yean Yng Ling, F. (2011). Strategies for reducing employee turnover ad increasing retention rates of quantity surveyors. Construction Managment and Economics, 1059-1072. Retrieved from http://rx9vh3hy4r.search.serialssolutions.com/?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info%3Aofi%2Fenc%3AUTF-8&rfr_id=info:sid/summon.serialssolutions.com&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Strategies+for+reducing+employee+turnover Heneman III, H. G., Judge, T. A., & Kammeyer-Mueller, J. (2015). Staffing Organizations. Mishawka: Pangloss Industries and McGaw Hill Education. Shipp, A. J., Furst-Holloway, S., Harris, T. B., & Rosen, B. (2014). Gone today but here tomorrow: extending the unfolding model of turnover to consider boomerang employees. Personnel Psychology, 421-462. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.ezproxy.liberty.edu:2048/doi/10.1111/peps.12039/epdf