Strategies Manufacturing Plant Leaders Use to Limit High Employee

Section 1: Foundation of the Study

Background of the Problem

Turnover of employees is one of the most challenging issues for present business

leaders (Saverio, Githui, & Ngure, 2018). Employees are great assets that could affect the

productivity and profitability of an organization and important to the survival of any

business (Ugoani, 2016). The general goal of every organization is to reduce staff

turnover to guarantee consistency in the labor force and minimize disruption to

operations (Al Mamun & Hasan, 2017). Seyrek and Turan (2017) stated that employee

turnover is very costly for organizations. Seyrek and Turan explained that apart from

costs related to hiring new employees, loss of experienced personnel may lead to a

variety of problems in organizations such as decrease in productivity, loss of hard-won

expertise, and low employee morale. In addition, Yang (2016) implied that turnover is

costly to the individual, organization, and the national economy of the country.

Eckardt, Skaggs and Youndt (2014) reported that employee turnover has a

negative effect on the manufacturing than other sectors. In addition, Wang, Kang and

Zheng (2016) stressed that turnover in the manufacturing sector impact on the processing

time and operator speed resulting in reduced productivity. Furthermore, Burawat (2016)

recorded a high turnover rate in the manufacturing than other sectors. However, some

manufacturing plant leaders lack the information to develop and implement successful

strategies to reduce employee turnover. Therefore, a research on employee turnover is

necessary to provide manufacturing plant leaders helpful information that might enable

them to create new strategies that could be effective in reducing turnover in their

organizations.

Problem Statement

Employee turnover is a serious challenge for organizations because of lost

revenue and disruption to business operations (Li, Lee, Mitchell, Horn, & Griffeth, 2016).

The United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (2018) reported a

3.4% turnover rate in the manufacturing sector resulting in loss of 1.2 million employees

in 2017. The general business problem was that high employee turnover negatively

affects some manufacturing plants resulting in loss of revenue and reduced productivity.

The specific business problem was that some manufacturing plant leaders lack the

strategies to reduce high employee turnover.

Purpose Statement

The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies

manufacturing plant leaders use to reduce high employee turnover. The target population

was owners and managers from three manufacturing plants in South Florida who used

strategies that successfully reduced employee turnover. The results of this study may

contribute to positive social change through a decline in local unemployment rates,

through increases in revenue for the local manufacturing plants that may result in

supporting local programs and activities to improve the living standards of local

communities.

Nature of the Study

Dasgupta (2015) identified three research methods for studies: (a) quantitative, (b)

qualitative, and (c) mixed methods. I used the qualitative method because it was a fit for a

study when a researcher seeks to determine participants’ concerns, experiences, and

needs. A qualitative method is useful to answer questions about experience, meaning and

perspective, most often from the standpoint of the participant (Allen, 2015; Hammarberg,

Kirkman, & de Lacey, 2016), The qualitative method is suitable for an in-depth

evaluation of how leaders’ approach a given situation (Wong, 2014), such as exploring

strategies manufacturing plant leaders use to limit high employee turnover.

Researchers have also used the qualitative method in successful turnover studies

(Alkahtani, 2015; Dubey, Gunasekaran, Altay, Childe, & Papadopoulos, 2016). The

researcher did not consider the use of quantitative method because quantitative

researchers seek to investigate relationships or differences among groups using numbers

(Park & Park, 2016). The quantitative method was not appropriate because the intent of

this study was not to examine variables, relationships, or differences. Mixed method

research is suitable when the researcher is combining the qualitative and quantitative

methodologies (Archibald, Radil, Zhang, & Hanson, 2015; Morgan, 2015). The mixed

method was not suitable for this study because there was no quantitative dimension.

Therefore, a qualitative research method was the most appropriate for this study.A

multiple case study was ideal for this study, so the researcher would have more than one

case to compare and contrast. Multiple case study enables researchers to employ multiple

sources to generate an in-depth data from several distinct cases (Vannoni, 2015),

interviews conducted in real life settings (Dasgupta, 2015), and ensured a valid and

credible result from their contrasts and similarities. The phenomenological researcher

seeks to explore the meanings of participants’ life to gather information about the

phenomenon as it naturally unfolds (Dasgupta, 2015; Walsh et al., 2015). Therefore,

phenomenological was not suitable because exploring the meaning of real-life experience

was not the purpose of this study. Ethnography was not appropriate because researchers

use ethnography to explore and interpret a cultural or social group in a real-life setting

(Baskerville & Myers, 2015; Rashid, Caine, & Goez, 2015). Ethnographic was not a fit

because the purpose of this study was not to explore groups’ cultures.

Research Question

The overarching research question for this study was: What strategies do

manufacturing plant leaders use to reduce high employee turnover?

Interview Questions

1. What experiences can you share concerning high employee turnover in the

manufacturing plant?

2. Can you share the leadership strategies you have used and discovered to be most

helpful in reducing employee turnover in the manufacturing plant?

3. What leadership characteristics and indicators did you use to make sure that these

strategies worked in the manufacturing plant?

4. What leadership strategies were the least helpful in reducing high employee

turnover of manufacturing plant employees?

5. From your experience, what were the major challenges to implementing the most

effective strategies for reducing employee turnover in the manufacturing plant?

6. How did your organization overcome the major challenges to applying the

effective strategies for reducing employee turnover in the manufacturing plant?

7. What else will you like to share about reducing high turnover of manufacturing

plant workers?

Conceptual Framework

The conceptual framework for this qualitative multiple case study was the

transformational leadership theory. In 1978, James McGregor Burns created the

transformational leadership theory (Burns, 1978). The transformational leadership theory

is useful to explain leadership based on the assumption that leaders can influence

followers to forfeit personal expectations, perceptions, and motivations to work for

general goals (Effelsberg, Solga, & Gurt, 2014). Burns (1978) noted the following

constructs that underpin the theory; (a) idealized influence, (b) inspirational motivation,

leader with idealized attributes encourages teamwork and commitment among followers.

A transformational leader who exhibits idealized influence is a role model to followers. A

transformational leader with intellectual stimulation skill provokes creative ideas from

followers to challenge the status quo. A transformational leader with inspirational

motivation has a vision that inspires and motivates followers to achieve important goals.

A transformational leader with individualized consideration shows concerns with to and

providing the needs of followers. A transformational leader can exhibit the confidence

and authority that is necessary to inspire and motivate people to exceed normal

expectations (Sang, Goh, Muhammad Badrull, & Owee, 2016). Similar to this study

Mesu, Sanders, and Riemsdijk (2015) concluded that researchers used the

transformational leadership theory to capture how leaders reduced employee turnover and

achieved positive results in manufacturing. Therefore, Transformational leadership theory

was a likely lens that I used to explore strategies manufacturing plant leaders use to

reduce high employee turnover.

Operational Definitions

Employee turnover intention: Employee turnover intention refers to an

employee’s thought of leaving his job (Omar & Ramdani, 2017).

Servant leadership: Servant leaders are leaders who motivate followers by

focusing least on satisfying their own personal needs, and most on prioritizing the

fulfillment of followers’ needs (Hoch, Bommer, Dulebohn, & Wu, 2018).

Transformational leadership: Transformational leaders are leaders who exhibit

the confidence and authority that is necessary to inspire and motivate followers to exceed

normal expectations (Sang, Goh, Muhammad Badrull, & Owee, 2016).

Transactional leadership: Transactional leaders are leaders who use either reward

or punishment to ensure compliance by subordinates (Ahmad, Tariq, & Hussain, 2015).

Voluntary employee turnover: Voluntary employee turnover occurs if an

employee resolves to quit his job with a company (Kam & Meyer, 2015).

Assumptions, Limitations, and Delimitations

Assumptions

Lips-Wiersma and Mills (2014) defined assumptions as ideas that researchers

believe to be true but may not be able to validate. I made several assumptions in this

study, including that manufacturing plant leaders’ responses would be honest and

forthright, and that data would represent accurate in-depth descriptions of strategies based

on their perspectives and experiences. As leaders of the manufacturing plants, I assumed

that the participants would have valuable experience and knowledge of dealing with

employee turnover. Another assumption was that my choice of interview with

manufacturing leaders for data collection would be the best method to generate data on

the perceived reasons employees may choose, or have chosen, to leave their jobs in the

manufacturing plants.

Limitations

Limitations are likely weaknesses in a research that the researcher cannot regulate

(Singh, 2015). One anticipated limitation of this study was that since I would select the

participants from South Florida manufacturing plant leaders, it may affect the

transferability to other industries and geographical locations. The variables of employee

turnover within the manufacturing sector might differ from other sectors. Bean, Harlow

and Kendellen (2016) cautioned that data from participants in a restricted location could

limit the transferability of the findings to other locations. Therefore, the findings from

research on organizations in South Florida might not apply to other areas.

Delimitations

Delimitations are those attributes of the study that the researcher controls that

might impede the extent and determine the boundaries of a study (Marshall & Rossman,

2016; Yazan, 2015). Marshall and Rossman explained that delimitations could be from

data, participants, and the geographical area. The first delimitation was the data collection

because I used only semi structured interview and organizational documents to collect

data. The second delimitation was participant delimitation because I selected participants

from manufacturing plant leaders with proven successful strategies of reducing turnover.

The third delimitation was the geographical location restriction of leaders from

manufacturing plants within South, Florida.

Significance of the Study

Saleem (2015) stated that leadership and employee turnover has been a topic

among business leaders specifically on how leadership styles shape employee turnover.

The findings from this study might be of great value to manufacturing plant leaders

because it could include effective strategies that business leaders could use to reduce high

employee turnover. Caillier (2016) stated that leaders have the greatest role in reducing

turnover. Leaders could use this study to identify opportunities to forestall the drastic

impacts of turnover such as loss of revenue, and cost of hiring replacement employees

Contribution to Business Practice

Burawat (2016) demonstrated that high employee turnover remains a challenge to

the sustainability of the manufacturing business. This study could prove vital to

improving production efficiency in that it could be useful to reducing lost productivity

resulting from replacement employee’s lower productivity while training on the job.

Eckardt, Skaggs, and Youndt, (2014) posited that high employee turnover in the

production sector resulted in the loss of production-oriented knowledge; and that the loss

of such knowledge may disrupt business operations and have adverse effect on efficiency

and product quality. Through discovering ways to reduce turnover, manufacturing plant

leaders may be retaining employees with valuable production knowledge that would be

useful to maintaining business operations and reducing product defects. Holtom and

Burch (2016) determined that turnover could result in loss of customers due to disruption

in service. This study may also be valuable to improving customer satisfactions through

sustaining uninterrupted production and on-time delivery of products to customers.

Implications for Social Change

The results of this study may be favorable to the manufacturing plant leaders,

workers, and their host and other communities. Steiner and Atterton (2014) argued that

successful companies are more able to contribute to positive social change for their host

communities. The implication for positive social change from this study may result in

creating jobs in the local communities, donating money and resources to nonprofit

organizations, and supporting local programs and activities that may benefit other

communities. Qazi, Khalid, and Shafique (2015) claimed that a reduction in employee

turnover could reduce the cost of recruiting and training new employees and increase the

profitability of a company. Consequently, Gittings and Schmutte (2015) suggested that an

organization may channel cost savings from lower employee turnover to paying bonus or

salary increase. This could enhance the living standard of employees and their families,

and patronage of businesses within the communities.

A Review of the Professional and Academic Literature

The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies

manufacturing plant leaders use to reduce high employee turnover. To explore the

phenomenon of employee turnover, the review of the professional and academic literature

section includes a review, analysis, and synthesis of existing literature, books, and peer-

reviewed articles on the subjects relating to and on leadership and employee turnover. My

professional goal is for the findings of this study to contribute to the success of

manufacturing plant leaders dealing with high turnover of their employees, by helping

these leaders to attenuate the probability of their employees leaving to work for other

organizations.

I organized the literature review as follows; I used the first part to highlight the

conceptual framework that includes the transformational leadership theory and

supporting and opposing leadership theories (servant leadership theory and transactional

leadership theory). I used the second part to analyze and synthesize literature through the

works of many authors on employee turnover in the manufacturing and other industries.

The third part was an analysis of employee turnover workplace dynamics, and cost of

employee turnover. And, finally, I used the fourth part to identify strategies that leaders

could use to limit high employee turnover.

I used Walden University Library and Google Scholar as primary search tools to

gather online articles published within the last five years from databases such as Science

Direct, Emerald Management Journals, Sage Premier, ABI/Inform Complete, Business

Source Complete, EBSCOhost, ProQuest Central, and approved dissertations. For

seminal contributions that are relevant to the study, I went back more than five years to

get the required work. Furthermore, I set up article alerts through Google Scholar to

receive new peer-reviewed journal articles in my Walden email inbox. I used some

relevant keywords to search articles in databases, such keywords as transformational

leadership, servant leadership, transactional leadership, leadership styles, turnover

intentions, employee turnover, causes of employee turnover, cost of employee turnover,

reducing employee turnover, and manufacturing sector. I used Ulrich’s Global Series

Directory to cross-reference each source to ensure that I complied with the required

number of peer-reviewed articles. The total of sources in this literature review were 213

references, made up of 196 peer-reviewed articles that had publication dates of 2014 or

later, which equate to 92%. Of the 213 references, a total of nine articles were not peer-

reviewed, including one government publication, four published books, three published

dissertations.

Transformational Leadership Theory

The conceptual framework for this qualitative multiple case study was the

transformational leadership theory. In 1978, James McGregor Burns created the

transformational leadership theory (Burns, 1978). Burns suggested that leaders identify

what their subordinates’ value and help to align those values with that of the

organization. Burns implied that this congruence of values would result in achieving both

organizational and subordinates’ positive results. Hence, transformational leaders could

alter subordinates to work for organizational achievements, thus contributing to the

attainment of general organizational goals. Burns (1978) concluded that transformational

leaders are agents of change that guide subordinates in achieving positive goals.

The transformational leadership theory has evolved as a major measure of

evaluating the capability of leaders, and many researchers agree that transformational

leaders understand organizational challenges, and bring about positive organizational

changes (Appelbaum, Degbe, MacDonald, & Nguyen-Quang, 2015; Holten & Brenner,

2015). In their research, Appelbaum et al. (2015) examined how leadership styles can

address resistance to change in order to achieve desired organizational outcomes. For this

purpose, the authors reviewed, synthesized and connected recently published empirical

and practitioner research articles on organizational concepts and leadership styles.

Appelbaum et al. documented that transformational leadership style could be useful to

overcome challenges during organizational changes and achieve desired goals. Deinert,

Homan, Boer, Voelpel, and Gutermann (2015) supported Appelbaum et al. and claimed

that the use of transformational leadership is more effective than other leadership styles

to address issues that are relevant in the modern, changing, and uncertain work

environment. Deinert et al. reviewed numerous meta-analyses and studies on

transformational leadership and concluded that it has strong and universal endorsement

across cultures, different situations, and settings.

Transformational leaders could be the most effective in organizations. A

comprehensive literature review to contrast leadership and management theories

convinced Ronald (2014) that transformational leadership was the most effective to

influence the entire organization. Louw, Muriithi, and Radloff (2017) aligned with

Ronald and added that organizational leaders need to be knowledgeable in

transformational leadership in order to realize effective leadership. Louw et al analyzed

survey responses from 257 Kenyan bank workers to test if there is a relationship between

knowledge of transformational leadership and productive leadership. The authors

recorded a positive relationship between the variables.

The concept of transformational leadership is different from other leadership

concepts because transformational leaders enhance organizational development by

developing their subordinates to achieve common goals (Pradhan & Pradhan, 2015),

which could include turnover reduction. Based on the neurological research on the

individual differences in transformational leadership and behavior effectiveness, Liu,

Jing, and Gao (2015) agreed with Pradhan and Pradhan that transformational leaders

could transform an organization by developing their subordinates. Moreover, Avolio

(1999) affirmed that transformational leaders focus on developing followers.

Conclusively, Deinert et al. (2015) referenced burns (1978)’s work that stated

transformational leaders develop their followers to realize the greatest performance

levels.

Transformational Leadership and Employee Engagement

The use of transformational leadership system could enhance employees’

engagement and result in reducing turnover. Popli and Rizvi (2015) used a single cross-

sectional descriptive design to investigate the effects of various leadership styles on

employee engagement and turnover. Data from 106 managers in the private service sector

organizations in India made Popli and Rizvi claim that the use of the transformational

leadership style is most effective to encourage employee engagement and limit turnover.

In related finding, Carasco-Saul, Kim, and Kim (2015) conducted an extensive review of

empirical and conceptual studies to examine the relationship between leadership and

employee engagement. The authors supported Popli and Rizvi and identified that the use

of transformational leadership style enhanced employee engagement and reduced

turnover by transformational leaders presenting a good example that will encourage

subordinates’ emulation and engagement. However, Mozammel and Haan (2016) found

no significant relationship between transformational leadership and employee

engagement. The authors’ based their critic on their survey response from 128 employees

in the Bangladesh banking sector to evaluate the relationship between transformational

leadership and employee engagement. Consequently, Mozammel and Haan countered

existing researchers on transformational leadership and employee engagement that found

there is alignment between these variables.

Transformational Leadership and Employee Trust

Transformational leaders could initiate trust from their subordinates. Phong, Hui,

and Son (2018) used survey data from 368 employees at 63 Chinese firms to establish

that transformational leadership was positively related to trust in leaders. In prior

research, Ariyabuddhiphongs and Kahn (2017) generated data from managers in Thailand

to examine if there is a relationship between Thai managers’ prevalent leadership styles

and their roles in lowering turnover intentions. The authors identified that Thai managers’

use of transformational leadership resulted in lower employees’ turnover intention in

their organizations, and that trust was the mediating factor. Furthermore, Mittal (2016)

surveyed 420 employees of SME IT companies operational in India to examine the

impact of transformational leadership on building trust. The author identified that trust

was an intermediate in the relationship between employees and leaders that could

attenuate employee turnover intention. Moreover, Babalola, Stouten, and Euwema (2016)

generated data from 124 employees to investigate the impact of trust on coworker-

supervisor relationship. The authors indicated that employees that trust their leaders’

traits would likely incorporate such traits and could be more committed to the

organization. Therefore, such extent of trust and commitment could drastically mitigate

the chance of employee turnover (Ariyabuddhiphongs & Kahn).

Transformational Leadership and Employee Innovativeness and Creativity

The use of transformational leadership style could improve employees’

innovativeness and creativity. In multi-level study, Jaiswal and Dhar (2015) generated

data from 372 employees and their immediate supervisors to examine the use of

transformational leadership in predicting employee creativity. The authors established

that innovation and creativity are intrinsically linked and concluded that transformational

leaders could foster a climate for innovation that promotes employee creativity. In similar

study, Jyoti and Dev (2015) collected data from employees working at the Airtel and

Aircel call centers of J & K (India) to explore the relationship between transformational

leadership and employee creativity. The authors aligned with Jaiswal and Dhar and added

that transformational leadership training enabled attendees to stimulate creativity and

innovation on employees. The implication is that manufacturing plant leaders could

benefit from training programs that instill transformational leadership style. In addition,

data from 322 nurses and their respective supervisors working in public sector hospitals

led Afsar and Masood (2018) to accept the hypothesis that nurse managers’ use of

transformational leadership was related to innovative and creative work behaviors of

subordinate nurses. Moreover, research on leadership over the years on the emerging role

of transformational leaders led Ghasabeh, Soosay, and Reaiche (2015) to theorize that

transformational leaders underpin driving employee creativity and promoting a culture of

employee innovativeness. Likewise, 640 survey responses from Korean public employees

across 16 central government ministries made Campbell (2018) to report that

transformational leaders foster acceptance of organizational change and encourage

employees’ innovation and change-oriented behavior. Therefore, Liu et al. (2015)

concluded that transformational leaders benefit an organization by encouraging

employees to think creatively as well as promoting employees’ innovative spirit.

Constructs of the transformational leadership theory. Alatawi (2017)

identified (four I’s) as constructs that are fundamental to the transformational leadership

theory: idealized influence (II), inspirational motivation (IM), intellectual stimulation

(IS), and individualized consideration (IC). One or another construct could be useful to

limit turnover; therefore, an understanding of the differences could be useful for

manufacturing plant leaders in reducing employee turnover. Moreover, the four

constructs of the transformational leadership enabled leaders to be effective managers of

their organizations (Ghasabeh et al., 2015; Al-husseini & Elbeltagi, 2018). In another

research, Banks, McCauley, Gardner and Guler (2016) associated transformational

leaders with enhancing idealized influence by being role models to their followers.

Idealized influence. Transformational leaders could use idealized influence to

maintain subordinates’ commitment. A transformational leader with idealized attributes

promotes teamwork and commitment among followers (Alatawi, 2017). In research,

multilevel regression analyses of questionnaire data from 61 naval cadets led Breevaart,

Bakker, Demetrouti, and Derks (2014) to surmise that leaders use idealized influence to

encourage followers to partner with them, and develop a relationship based on trust and

mutual respect. Burns (1978) established a similarity between idealized influence and

charisma. In addition, Banks et al. (2016) agreed with Burns (1978) that idealized

influence and charisma are similar and added that transformational leaders strengthen

idealized influence by showing charismatic attributes such as being role models to

followers. Moreover, Ghasabeh et al. (2015) noted that transformational leaders exhibit

charisma that gain them high admiration and trust from their subordinates. Furthermore,

Haile (2015) reported that leaders associated with the traits of idealized influence

improved employees’ admiration, enhanced organizational commitment, and job

satisfaction, which resulted in reduced employees leaving intention. However, Asrar-ul-

Haqak and Kuchinkeb (2016) cautioned that idealized influence could have either

positive or negative impact according to subordinates’ perception of their leader. The

authors analyzed data from 224 full-time Pakistan banks employees to examine the

impact of managers’ leadership styles on subordinates’ performance. Asrar-ul-Haqak and

Kuchinkeb theorized that idealized influence mean that subordinates would take actions

as a result of the behavioral influence of their leader. Hence, leaders that exhibit positive

behaviors could attenuate turnover intention while leaders that exhibit negative behaviors

could provoke turnover intention. In Kang, Gatling, and Kim (2015)’s research, it was

apparent that subordinates’ negative perception of a leader’s position or behavior resulted

in reduced morale, commitment and accrued more turnover intentions.

Inspirational motivation. Transformational leaders could inspire and motivate

subordinates to achieve beyond expectations. A transformational leader with inspirational

motivation has a vision that inspires and motivates followers to surpass normal

productivity and achieve important goals (Salem, 2015). Many researchers agree that the

transformational leadership theory helps to understand the behaviors of leaders and how

it impacts on employees’ productivity (Mathew & Gupta, 2015; Trmal, Bustamam, &

Mohamed, 2015). Likewise, results from regression analyses on a sample of 89 leaders

and their 643 subordinates to test the relationship between personality and

transformational leadership led Phaneuf, Boudrias, Rousseau, and Brunelle (2016) to

record that transformational leaders use inspirational motivation to inspire employees to

exceed their normal productivity rate by promoting a strong vision for the future.

Furthermore, Boies, Fiset, and Gill (2015) believed that a leader with inspirational

motivation is entirely focused on formulating an overarching vision that should unite a

group of otherwise disparate followers around a shared objective to increase productivity.

However, in apparent antagonism of the transformational leaders’ trait of productivity

improvement, Allen et al. (2016) cautioned that the use of transformational leadership

style could amount to waste of valuable time because a transformational leader devotes

excessive time to evaluating productivity. The authors implied that transformational

leaders devote more time to employees’ productivity, and less time to creating

sustainable growth.

Burns (1978) also noted that inspirational leaders employ emotions as

inspirational tools to convey their expectations of subordinates and inspire their

dedication to the organization’s vision. In addition, an examination of 375 Chinese

employees convinced Waldman, Carter, and Hom (2015) that the inspirational motivation

traits of transformational leaders are necessary to create professional relationships

between managers and employees, increase employees’ commitment, and curtail

employee turnover. Consequently, Popli and Rizvi (2015) emphasized that employees

who are committed would likely remain with the organization. Hence, manufacturing

plant leaders could use inspirational motivation to provoke and improve the level of

employees’ commitment and curtail turnover.

Intellectual stimulation. Transformational leaders could stimulate subordinates

to be creative and innovative. A transformational leader with intellectual stimulation

skills provoke creative ideas from followers to challenge the status quo and produce

effective and innovative ways to solve problems (Al-husseini & Elbeltagi, 2018). In

study, Deinert et al. (2015) postulated that intellectual stimulation comprises behaviors

that stimulate followers by reframing problems, by pushing them to develop creative and

innovative ideas, and by approaching old situations in new ways. Similarly, Burns (1978)

recognized that leaders with intellectual stimulation traits encourage followers, and

promote an atmosphere where workers can acquire initiatives to solve organizational

problems. Furthermore, multilevel data from 346 employees and 184 managers of 33

electronic engineering firms made Chang (2016) believe a leader that stimulates fresh

ideas from employees encourages an environment of creativity and could improve an

employee’s level of participation and job satisfaction, that could result in reducing

turnover.

In research, Al-husseini and Elbeltagi (2018) generated data from 250 employees

from public higher education institutions in Iraq to evaluate the impact of the four

components of transformational leadership on knowledge sharing. The authors noted that

the intellectual stimulation trait of transformation leaders has the strongest effect on

knowledge sharing than the other components. In addition, Boies et al. (2015) projected

that knowledge sharing would encourage leveraging each other's strengths to enhance

team performance and discover creative solutions. In their study, Anjali and Anand

(2015) used survey data from 150 IT professionals across six companies in India to

establish a negative relationship between intellectual stimulation and employee turnover.

Without intellectual stimulation, Anjali and Anand projected that employees will be

deprived of excitement, creativity, innovativeness in their jobs, and tend to remain

redundant in their job performance. The authors argued that redundancy will lead to job

dissatisfaction and the resultant effect is poor performance, absenteeism and stronger

voluntary turnover. Likewise, Haile (2015) recorded that organizations with leaders who

effectively stimulated or inspired their employees achieved a reduced employee turnover.

Individualized consideration. Transformational leaders could give subordinates

personalized attention. A transformational leader with individualized consideration shows

concern with followers and provide their individual needs (Ghasabeh et al., 2015. In their

study, Deinert et al. (2015) noted that a leader’s individualized consideration includes

providing a supportive climate and new learning opportunities. According to Waldman et

al. (2015), when transformational leaders show individualized consideration toward

employees, it enhances the bond between employees and their organizations, and elevates

employees trust and loyalty for their leaders, resulting in reduced turnover. Furthermore,

Ariyabuddhiphongs and Kahn (2017) documented that employees that trust their leaders

have more job satisfaction and would probably remain with the organization.

Leaders could anticipate the peculiar needs of subordinates and attend to those

peculiar needs. Zineldin (2017) used a sample of 128 leaders in Sweden to evaluate the

use of transformational leadership style among different professionals in different sectors.

The author justified that a transformational leader uses individualized consideration to be

a coach and advisor in response to the individual needs of followers. The implication is

that manufacturing plant leaders could use individualized consideration to offer coaching,

mentoring, feedback and opportunities for advancement to subordinates, and treat each

subordinate as a unique individual. Similarly, several authors demonstrated that leaders

who gave employees special attention improved their trust and commitment, resulting in

lower turnover intention in their organizations (Gyensare, Anku-tsede, Sanda, & Okpoti,

2016; Pohler & Schmidt, 2015). The researches that advance the transformational

leadership theory demonstrated its strengths are underpinned on how transformational

leaders influence subordinates to achieve positive organizational changes, which include

turnover reduction. While these strengths are good to proof that the use of

transformational leadership theory can tremendously change how employees’ function,

the researchers did not adequately discuss the drawbacks to the use of transformational

leadership theory.

Criticisms Against the Transformational Leadership Theory

Despite acclaimed global recognition of the transformational leadership theory,

numerous researchers have recorded some flaws of the theory. Alatawi (2017) collected

pertinent literature to evaluate the additive influence of transformational leadership

theory and to improve the understanding of the theory. The result of the evaluation made

Alatawi argue that the additive influence of transformational leadership theory is a myth

and that the four I’s do not have any additive influence. Alatawi concluded that the four

I’s might not be legitimate factors of transformational leadership. Moreover, Fischer

(2016) criticized the transformational leadership theory for the ambiguity of the

constructs. The author used extant literature on transformational leadership and nursing to

effectively analyze the concept of transformational leadership in the nursing context.

Fischer observed that the mechanism by which transformational leadership influences

patient outcomes remains unclear. Furthermore, Berkovich (2016) condemned the

transformational leadership theory for lack of a clear conceptual definition. The author

reviewed critiques of the transformational leadership theory with a discussion of the

utility and fit of the theory and suggested stopping the use of the theory.

The use of the transformational leadership system could result in health issues.

Arnold, Walsh, Connelly and Ginis (2015) projected that the practice of transformational

leadership theory could endanger leaders’ health. The authors warned that

transformational leaders’ sincere, deep, emotional attachment and concerns for their

subordinates’ tragedies could make them prone to early burnout and stress. Arnold et al.

has a strong implication for this study because manufacturing plant leaders have more

physical contact with their subordinates, unlike people in virtual teams. Therefore, this

constant physical contact could increase emotional attachment and result to early burnout

and could result in more turnover.

Transformational leaders could be unethical. Yasir and Mohamad (2016)

questioned the ethical values of transformational leaders. The authors opined that

transformational leaders could use deception and distortion to manipulate followers’

perceptions about problems and progress to their personal advantages. Contrarily, Muthia

and Krishnan (2015) disagreed with the findings of Yasir and Mohamad and argued that

transformational leaders do not involve in activities to manipulate their subordinates.

Muthia and Krishnan cited Bass (1999)’s most influential work, the transformational

leadership, where he laid out the basic ideas that moral development is an essential

characteristic of a truly transformational leader. In addition, Winston and Fields (2015)

aligned with Muthia and Krishnan when they reported transformational leaders provide

an ethical and transparent working environment in the best interests of their followers and

do not engage in self-interested actions.

Despite the above criticisms, Deinert et al. (2015) noted that the transformational

leadership theory continues to enjoy global recognition. Moreover, the result of

qualitative descriptive research to identify the emerging leadership style that successful

entrepreneurs practice led Paladan (2015) to claim that the transformational leadership

theory is among the major leadership models that have gained international recognition in

leadership literature and good support from empirical research. Like the conceptual

framework of this study, researchers such as Beato (2017), Osisiogu (2017), Smith

(2018), and Perev (2018) used the transformational leadership theory in successful

qualitative studies to explore employee turnover in organizations. Moreover, Mesu,

Sanders and Riemsdijk (2015) concluded that researchers used the transformational

leadership theory to capture how leaders achieved positive results in the manufacturing

sector. Therefore, the transformational leadership theory was the lens that the researcher

used to explore strategies manufacturing plant leaders use to reduce high employee

turnover.

Supporting and Opposing Leadership Theories and Models

To gain a thorough understanding of employee turnover, the researcher conducted

an in-depth review of some of the most common leadership theories researchers could

use to explore employee turnover in the manufacturing plants. Consequently, the

researcher finally selected to use the servant leadership theory as the supporting theory,

and the transactional leadership theory as the opposing leadership theory. Similarly,

Brown et al. (2016) suggested there might be a need to use more than one theory to fully

address a research problem.

The servant leadership theory. The servant leadership theory was first coined by

Robert K. Greenleaf in an essay titled the servant leader published in 1970 (Greenleaf,

1970). The premise of Greenleaf servant leadership theory is that one should be a servant

first and place follower needs above those of the leader. Greenleaf (1970) associated

servant leaders with the following behavioral traits: empathy, stewardship, persuasion,

awareness, healing, listening, conceptualization, foresight, commitment to the

improvement of followers and the community. Schwepker and Schultz (2015) postulated

that servant leaders use their traits to empower followers attain their greatest potential,

which could limit turnover. In addition, Greenleaf (1970) theorized that if employees

attain their greatest potential, they will be content with staying with the organization.

Therefore, servant leaders could be useful in limiting employee turnover.

Transformational and servant leaders share similar traits that could result in

lowering turnover. Hoch, Bommer, Dulebohn and Wu (2018) conducted a series of meta-

analyses to do a comprehensive assessment of empirical relationships between

transformational and servant leadership. The authors evaluated the variables in the extant

literature between the two leadership styles and concluded that both leadership styles

share common constructs that produced similar results, such as turnover reduction.

Moreover, Allen at al. (2016) recorded that both servant and transformational leaders

used the strategy of valuing human resources and supporting followers’ individual

development to lower turnover. Furthermore, Benawa (2015), Allen et al. (2016) and

Jang and Kandampully (2018) added that servant leaders increased organizational

commitment, resulting in turnover reduction. In related finding, Ariyabuddhiphongs and

Kahn (2017) noted that transformational leaders used improved employees’ commitment

to their leaders and organization to reduce employee turnover. The value of the above

cited studies is that manufacturing plant leaders could employ similar methods that

transformational and servant leaders used to achieve turnover reduction.

Transformational and servant leaders could use developing trust to reduce

turnover. The servant leadership theory is the supporting theory for this study because

van Dierendonck and Patterson (2015) claimed that servant leaders could create a trusting

relationship between leaders and followers to reduce turnover. In addition, Zhao, Liu and

Gao (2016) analyzed data from 293 employees in the hospitality industry in China to

investigate whether servant leaders could influence subordinates’ turnover intention. The

authors concluded that servant leaders used trust as a mechanism to reduce employee

turnover. Similarly, Mittal (2016) noted that trust was an intermediate in the relationship

between transformational leaders and employees that attenuated employee turnover

intention. Hence, manufacturing plant leaders could employ the tenets of servant and

transformational leadership theories to create trusting relationship with their employees

and lower turnover.

Transformational and servant leaders could use empowering and interpersonal

support to their employees to reduce employee turnover. Deinert et al. (2015) noted that

transformational Leaders demonstrate empowerment and interpersonal support to their

employees to reduce employee turnover. Similarly, DeConinck and DeConinck (2017)

used data from 600 sales managers located in the United States to examine the

relationship between turnover and servant leadership and established that servant leaders

used empowering employees to reduce turnover. The servant leadership is the supporting

concept to the transformational leadership because Jaramillo, Bande, and Varela (2015)

supported that servant leadership underpins interpersonal support and empowerment,

which align with the purpose of this study. The purpose of this study is to explore

strategies manufacturing plant leaders use to reduce high employee turnover. Moreover,

Ellingson et al. (2016) and Jaramillo et al. stated that servant leaders could use their traits

of empowerment and interpersonal support to reduce employee turnover. Therefore, these

authors supported that the prospect of manufacturing plant leaders developing employees

empowering traits of both the servant and transformational leadership concepts could

help to curtail turnover.

The transactional leadership theory. The transaction leadership theory is the

opposing leadership theory for this study. Bass (1985) created the transactional leadership

theory on the premise that leaders base on task completion to either reward or punish

followers. Bass revealed the following constructs of the theory: (a) contingent reward, (b)

constructive transactions, and (c) corrective actions. Researchers have recorded many

differences between transformational and transactional leadership theories (Asencio &

Mujkic, 2016; Burns, 1978).

How to reduce turnover through employees’ commitment could be a difference

between the two theories. Some scholars noted that transactional leaders employ extrinsic

reward mechanisms to seek loyalty from followers, while transformational leaders

employ intrinsic forms of motivation to seek loyalty through engaging with followers

(Burns, 1978; Pradhan & Pradhan, 2015; Wang, Kim, & Lee, 2016). Based on using

extrinsic reward, Pradhan and Pradhan (2015) opposed the use of the transactional

leadership style in organizations. The authors cautioned that if leaders relationships with

employees is hinged on only extrinsic reward mechanisms, it might not provoke a

commitment to organizations that could reduce turnover. In the context of this study,

Burawat (2016) noted that the manufacturing plants mostly cluster in secluded industrial

areas with strict competitions for skilled employees. Because employees could easily get

information about what competitors are paying (Wang, Zhao, and Thornhill, 2015), Pay

might not be able to provoke organizational commitment to mitigate turnover. Hence,

manufacturing plant owners could benefit from the use of transformational leadership

style than the transactional leadership to enhance organizational commitment to lower

turnover. Moreover, Ariyabuddhiphongs and Kahn (2017) concluded that organizational

commitment was a major factor that affects employee turnover.

How to reduce turnover through employees’ trust could be a difference between

the two theories. Asencio and Mujkic (2016) improved our understanding of the

differences between the transformational and transactional leadership styles by reporting

that use of the transformational leadership style was more effective in building

employees’ trust than transactional leadership. Asencio and Mujkic used survey data on

U.S. federal employees to investigate the relationship between employee perceptions of

transactional and transformational leadership behaviors and employee perceptions of trust

in leaders. The authors revealed that transformational leadership style was more effective

to advance greater levels of interpersonal trust than transactional leadership behaviors.

Relationally, Lan and Chong (2015) contended that transformational leadership is more

significantly related to employee psychological empowerment than transactional

leadership. If there is a relationship between leaders’ trust and psychological relationship

with employees and turnover, then it is proper to use transformational rather than

transactional leadership theory to examine strategies manufacturing plant leaders use to

reduce employee turnover. Allen et al. (2016) confirmed that leaders’ trust and

psychological relationship with employees resulted in limiting employee turnover.

Transactional and transformational leaders could have different impacts on job

satisfaction. Saleem (2015) used a quantitative method to investigate the impact of

transactional and transformational leadership styles on job satisfaction and found that

transformational leaders have a positive impact while transactional leaders have a

negative impact on job satisfaction. However, Sayadi (2016) disagreed with Saleem. The

author used data from 431 Iranian teachers to study the effect of transformational and

transactional leadership on job satisfaction and noted that transactional leaders rather than

transformational leaders achieved higher levels of job satisfaction. Conversely, Yıldız

and Şimşek, (2016) maintained that transformational leaders are known to inspire and

motivate their followers, resulting in enhanced job satisfaction. In the context of this

study, Job satisfaction is important because Inamizu (2015) found that job satisfaction

was a major cause of employee turnover. Therefore, the use of transformational

leadership than a transaction leadership will be more effective to secure employees’ job

satisfaction and limit turnover.

The use of the transactional and transformational leadership styles could have

different impacts on employees’ motivation. Phaneuf el al. (2016) implied that the use of

the transformational leadership style is the most effective to motivate employees and

reduce turnover than other leadership styles. Contrarily, survey response from 100

employees working in Pakistani banks led Zareen, Razzaq, and Mujtaba (2015) to argue

that transactional leaders could be more effective than transformational leaders to

motivate employees. Moreover, other scholars also found that transactional leaders used

the reward system to motivate employees and reduce employee turnover (Ahmad, Tariq

and Hussain, 2015; Dartey-Baah, 2015). However, Yahaya and Ebrahi (2016) criticized

this positive outcome and argued that such commercial relationship may not limit

turnover without non-financial motivation to employees. Furthermore, Pradhan and

Pradhan (2015) cautioned that employees expect more than reward benefits to be

motivated and remain committed to the organization. The authors theorized that

employees expect their leaders to exhibit transformational leadership traits such as a

strong vision, motivating and inspiring leadership, and productive engagements to form

and sustain a strong relationship with organizations that could limit turnover. Pradhan

and Pradhan’s study has a strong implication to this study because manufacturing

workers require strong motivation and morale to cope with the operational requirements

of manufacturing plants and remain with an organization.

Burns (1978) emphasized the inherent opposing and misalignment of

transactional and transformational leadership styles by concluding that organizational

leaders should employ either transformational or transactional style but not both to

resolve organizational challenges. Conversely, Martin (2015) disputed Burns (1978) and

posited that mixing of the transformational and transactional leadership styles is a good

strategy to deal with complex organizational challenges. However, Buck and Doucette

(2015) and Geier (2016) suggested that a leader need to adopt the ideal leadership style

that is a fit with the peculiar circumstance to solve organizational problems.

Consequently, in the context of manufacturing plant, the researcher will support the

proponents of the transformational rather than the transactional leadership style.

Turnover Intention

Turnover intention refers to the employees’ thought of leaving their current

workplace (Tziner, Rabenu, Radomski, & Belkin, 2015; Omar & Ramdani, 2017). In

research, data from a cross-sectional sample of 373 employees in various South African

organizations led Coetzee and Van Dyk (2018) to view turnover intention as a

premeditated and intentional willfulness to leave the organization. Coetzee and Van Dyk

noted that employers and practitioners continually strive to understand the workplace

factors that lead to turnover intention. Likewise, Madden, Mathias, and Madden (2015)

surveyed 200 healthcare employees to test a mediated model of positive relationships at

work and intent to turnover through a social exchange theory lens. The authors reported

that discovering the factors that employees’ value such as rewards, opportunities for

growth, and participation in decision making offers organizations the ability to affect

their employees’ turnover intentions.

Turnover intention and actual turnover. Although data from 106 nurses to

examine the relationships between predictors of turnover intentions and actual turnover

made Nei, Snyder and Litwiller (2015) claim no relationship between turnover intention

and actual turnover, Sun and Wang (2017) established a link between turnover intention

and actual turnover. Sun and Wang used quantitative method to investigate the

relationship between turnover intention and actual turnover and asserted that higher

turnover intention leads to higher actual turnover rate. The authors suggested that

examining turnover intention could help to stop actual turnover. Furthermore, Cohen,

Blake, and Goodman (2016) generated data from 180 U.S. federal agencies to investigate

the factors that provoked turnover intentions and believed that turnover intentions could

be a precursor to actual turnover.

Employee Turnover

Regardless of the definition, employee turnover could pose a significant challenge

for manufacturing plant leaders. Kam and Meyer (2015) defined employee turnover as

the ending of an employee’s relationship with the employer. Zhang (2016) traced the

research history of employee turnover to the beginning of the 20th century. Although

earlier articles on turnover appeared, Bills (1925) published the first empirical turnover

study in journal of applied psychology (Hom, Lee, Shaw, & Hausknecht, 2017).

Yang (2016) and Al Mamun and Hasan (2017) identified two types of employee

turnover; Voluntary turnover which is an employee’s voluntary resignation from the

organization, and involuntary turnover which is when an organization terminates the

employment of an employee. Holtom and Burch (2016) cautioned that voluntary

employee turnover is most concerning to organizations because employees depart for

their own reasons, which organizational leaders might not have direct control of.

Therefore, the aim of this study will be majorly at the situation of voluntary turnover.

Moreover, Rubenstein et al. (2017) agreed that it was timely to assess the progress made

in research on voluntary employee turnover to guide future work. Consequently, lee et al.

(2017) reviewed at least 2,000 articles on voluntary employee turnover to summarize

major contributions in the present and provide perspectives on the future directions of

turnover research. The authors found that contemporary turnover theories suggested

processes that unfold over time and ways to track these processes. lee et al. suggested

further investigating how the context in which employees reside influence employee

turnover. This study could be helpful to the manufacturing plants leaders to formulate

data-driven interventions on turnover specific to the organization and measure their

effectiveness.

In another research, Schlechter, Syce and Bussin (2016) employed an exploratory

research design to propose an approach and construct a model to predict voluntary

employee turnover based on demographic characteristics. The authors analyzed

secondary quantitative data in an existing human resources database from

2592 employees in a general insurance company operating in South Africa and Namibia.

The authors recorded that age was a major demography that impacted on voluntary

turnover, and that older workers are less likely than younger workers to leave. Schlechter

et al. has a connection with this study by using organizational data to identify the factors

that influence employee turnover.

Turnover could benefit an organization. Though many researchers argued that

turnover is bad for organizations, some also cautioned that turnover may not be bad

(Baldwin & Lafrance, 2014; Lee, (2017); Zhang, 2016; Zylka & Fischbach, 2017).

Baldwin and Lafrance examined the differences and similarities in the nature of turnover

and the competitive process for a cross section of Canadian manufacturing industries.

The authors surmised that turnover might be good in manufacturing companies because it

could enhance productivity gains resulting from the change of a less productive employee

to a more productive employee. In another research, Zhang (2016) expanded on the work

of Baldwin and Lafrance and projected that turnover might be good because it could

result in replacing low quality employees, and improving the creativity, flexibility and

adaptability of an organization. In addition, the turnover proponents such as Lee (2017)

suggested that the exit of an employee could create opportunities for a new employee

with fresh perspectives to join the organization. Similarly, Zylka and Fischbach (2017)

conducted a multidisciplinary literature review of individual voluntary turnover behavior,

with the focus on the consequences, and found that turnover may end an existing conflict

if one of the parties in the conflict leaves the company. Zylka and Fischbach argued that

voluntary turnover provoked by conflict might benefit a company, because it could

resolve existing conflicts and enhance organizational morale. In two related findings,

Siyanbola and Gilman (2017) and Lee (2017) proposed that an organization might require

a moderate rate of turnover. Siyanbola and Gilman claimed that zero rate of turnover may

surprisingly accrue higher retention costs as the organization strives to pay and prevent

the exit of top valued employees, and that turnover may afford an individual a career

advancement opportunity. Lee analyzed turnover data from agencies of the U.S. federal

government and implied that a low-to-moderate level of employee turnover is likely to

increase organizational performance. Despite all the reasons why turnover might be

advantageous, Smith and Macko (2014) examined employee engagement and turnover in

one of the largest retailers in the UK and concluded that the benefits of employee

turnover are less than retaining employees.

Employee turnover in the manufacturing and other sectors. The U.S Bureau

of Labor Statistics (2018) publication reported a 30.4% rate of turnover in the

manufacturing sector in 2017. In addition, Gylling, Heikkilӓ, Jussila, and Saarinen (2015)

noted that some managers have expressed concerns about retaining valuable employees

that would sustain the operations and profitability of the manufacturing sector. Therefore,

manufacturing is facing a serious challenge of high employee turnover that need limiting

to sustain the sector. Zarpelon Neto, Medeiros Pereira and Borchardt (2015) examined

problems manufacturing companies can face when providing services around the world.

Like this study, the authors interviewed manufacturing company owners and leaders from

different countries including Australia, USA, Canada and Brazil. Zarpelon Neto et al.

recorded that all the interviewees were of the same opinion that high turnover rate of

qualified employees to perform the services seems to be a common problem in all

the countries. In related research, Umamaheswari and Krishnan (2015) decried a high

turnover rate of manufacturing workers. The authors analyzed the factors influencing

employees' retention of ceramic manufacturing industries in India and highlighted that it

is critical to maintain a skilled workforce in manufacturing to sustain production and to

operate machinery. In another research, Chinomona and Dhurup (2014) noted that

manufacturing employees worked longer hours as against their wishes. Chinomona and

Dhurup collected data from 282 to accept the hypothesis that employees’ perceptions of

the quality of work life is related with their turnover intention. Hence, Umamaheswari

and Krishnan proposed incorporating opportunities for flexibility while creating

strategies to reduce employee turnover because it will enhance retention in the

manufacturing sector.

Furthermore, Burawat (2016) also decried the high rate of turnover in

manufacturing companies and associated the reason to the cluster of manufacturing plants

within an industrial area. Burawat postulated that this makes it easier for manufacturing

employees to compare the compensation, welfare, and other benefits offered by other

companies located within the same area. Consequently, the staff turnover rate will be

relatively high for most manufacturing companies. Similarly, Siyanbola and Gilman

(2017) aligned with Burawat that locational factors affect employee turnover in the

manufacturing sector. The authors contended that the high turnover in the manufacturing

sector was a factor of poaching of employees from other manufacturing competitors

within the same area. It is not possible to detail all factors of turnover in this study;

therefore, the researcher will discuss some of the major factors that previous researchers

have identified that influenced turnover in the manufacturing and other sectors.

Turnover and leadership. leadership styles could be one of the major roots of

turnover intentions. The role leaders play in organizations provoked the interest of

researchers to investigate the development of leadership as a concept, and how leadership

styles shape employee turnover (Samad, Reaburn, Davis, & Ahmed, 2015). In

relationship to the conceptual framework of this study, some researchers noted that the

leadership styles that organizational leaders practice impact on employee turnover

(Gozukara, Hatipoglu, & Gunes 2017; Jaramillo et al., 2015; Zhao et al., 2016; Saleem,

2015). Moreover, multiple researchers identified the deleterious consequences of bad

leadership style on turnover (Amponsah-Tawiah, Ntow, & Mensah, 2016; Lima, Loo, &

Lee, 2017; Saverio et al., 2018; Schmid, Verdorfer, & Peus, 2017; Tariq & Ding, 2018).

Amponsah-Tawiah et al. analyzed survey data from 255 mine workers from the Ghanaian

mining industry and recorded that inefficient safety leadership hindered effective

implementation of occupational health and safety policies and increased turnover

intention in organizations. Furthermore, Tariq and Ding (2018) and Dasgupta, Suar, and

Singh (2018) uncovered that abusive communication from leaders to subordinates

resulted in frustrations and promoted turnover intention. Moreover, Schmid, Verdorfer,

and Peus (2017) cautioned leaders with traits of self-interest and exploitative could

sacrifice employees’ welfare for their own, resulting in reduced organizational

commitment and job satisfaction, and culminating in employee turnover. In addition,

Meddour, Rosli, Majid, Auf, and Aman (2016) focused their research on variables that

affect employees’ turnover within sectors of the manufacturing industry in

Malaysia. Data from 247 respondents led the authors to accept the hypothesis that

leadership had significant effect on the decision to leave the manufacturing industry.

Meddour et al. is connected to this study because the authors reiterated the importance of

leadership in reducing turnover of manufacturing workers. Also, Bester, Stander, and

Van Zyl (2015) and Nei et al. (2015) aligned with Meddour et al. by asserting that

employees’ perceptions of their leaders resulted in turnover.

Turnover and millennial. Some specific factors could result in turnover

intention of younger employees. Christopher, Fethney, Chiarella, and Waters (2017) and

Omar and Ramdani (2017) specifically examined factors that resulted in turnover

intentions of younger employees or generation Y. Omar and Ramdani analyzed data from

80 young employees from a microcredit industry of Malaysia to examine the relationship

between perceived work environment, and turnover intentions among generation Y. The

authors found that working environment has a significant effect on the turnover intention

and behavior of generation Y employees. Likewise, Christopher et al. used a cross

sectional, web-based survey of 383 generation Y Australian nurses to accept the

hypothesis that bad work environment has a positive relationship with generation Y

turnover. Christopher et al. and Omar and Ramdani’s researches are important to this

study because BlS (2018) documented that manufacturing employees are predominantly

young people. In addition, Ouimet and Zarutskie (2014) and Ertas (2015) projected that

younger workers are 75% more likely than older workers to leave their jobs because

younger people are looking for new opportunities most of the times. Therefore, Omar and

Ramdani recognized that generation Y employees are job hoppers and advised

organizations to pay careful attention to control their turnover rate. However, Madariaga,

Oller and Martori (2018) questioned that age affected turnover. The authors used a data

set containing information about 1,199 workers to investigate the relationship between

socio-economic characteristics and turnover in a retailing company and found that wage

was the only factor that affected turnover.

Turnover and communications. Communication problems could result in

turnover intentions. Madera, Dawson, and Neal (2014) collected survey data from 130

hotel and lodging managers to examine the effect of language barrier to effective

communication on turnover intentions. The authors found that barrier in communication

among teams could possibly impede leader-follower relationships and enhance turnover

intention. The authors argued that an environment of communication barriers may hinder

understanding job demands and could manifest to confusion and conflicting

misunderstandings. Furthermore, Gloor, Colladon, Grippa and Giacomelli (2017) noted

that less engaged conversations led to employee turnover. Conclusively, Adil and Awais

(2016) documented that ineffective communication affected interpersonal relationship

between teams that resulted in employee turnover. Manufacturing plant leaders could

limit turnover by encouraging effective communications and positive relationships

among coworkers.

Turnover and personality traits. Employees’ personality traits could provide

clues to their turnover antecedents. Woo, Chae, Jebb and Kim (2016) broadened our

understanding of the personality-turnover relationship by integrating current directions in

both the personality and the turnover literatures. The authors proposed examining the

speed and reasons for leaving of manufacturing employees by incorporating their

personality traits and examining the role of time in these relationships. Woo et al.

analyzed survey data from 617 employees working in an electronics-manufacturing firm

in the United States and documented that understanding the personality traits of new

employees can predict their turnover direction. Manufacturing plant leaders could use

Woo et al.’s concept to predict employee turnover and other employees’ work behaviors.

Like this study, Kurnat-Thoma, Ganger, Peterson and Channell (2017) employed

qualitative method to explore turnover in the health sector. The authors gathered data

from interviews, evaluating organizational staffing statistics, exit survey data, and

research literature. Kurnat-Thoma et al. recommended that effective onboarding could

reduce employee turnover. In related study, Rombaut and Guerry (2018) supported that

organizational documents could be effective to predict and reduce turnover. The authors

used a real-life data set of a Belgian company to examine whether the available data in

the human resources (HR) system could result in reliable turnover predictions without

supplementary survey information and concluded that data in the personnel system

indeed lead to valuable predictions of turnover. Kurnat-Thoma et al. and Rombaut and

Guerry are aligned with this study because of the use of organizational documents to

predict turnover.

Turnover and credit behavior. Employees who feel unappreciated could leave

their jobs. Proell, Sauer and Rodgers (2016) analyzed survey responses from 111

employees working in different industries ranging from financial services to

manufacturing to examine the effect of leaders’ credit behavior such as recognition of a

job well done by subordinates and employees’ credit expectations on turnover. Proell et

al. noted that leaders’ refusal to give subordinates credit is one of the origins of high

employee turnover. In addition, organizational data from a Brazilian company to

investigate whether human resources practices, such as recognition affect employee

turnover convinced Ferreira and Almeida (2015) that failure to recognize employees’

performances resulted in turnover. These findings underscore the need for a deeper

understanding of how manufacturing plant leaders could use identifying and giving credit

to exceptional performing employees to limit turnover, because plant employees usually

don’t get a bonus or other financial pecks for doing a great job.

Turnover and organization commitment. Employees organizational

commitment could be associated with turnover intentions. Rabia, Kamaal and Ali (2017)

collected data from 467 teachers working in Sultanate of Oman public schools to

examine if organizational commitment resulted in employee turnover. After a path

analysis, the researchers found that weak organizational support resulted in employee

turnover. Moreover, Wong and Wong (2017) also supported that employees’ lack of

organizational commitment elicited turnover intentions. In another study, Salem (2015)

claimed that transformational leaders could improve organizational commitment and

reduce turnover. Salem analyzed questionnaire data from 327employees in five-star

hotels in Egypt and posited that transformational leaders can use inspirational motivation

on employees to improve organizational commitment and achieve lower employee

turnover intentions. So, manufacturing plant leaders may consider the use of

transformational leadership style to improve organizational commitment and reduce

turnover.

Turnover and psychological contract. Employees’ psychological contract could

result in turnover. Wang et al. (2017)’s research connected the theory of psychological

contract with employees’ organizational commitment, and turnover intentions. Wang et

al. projected that if employees’ psychological contract were not fulfilled, it could dent

their commitment, weaken their enthusiasm, and provoke thought of turnover. In

addition, Santhanam, Kamalanabhan, Dyaram and Ziegler (2017) also found that breach

of psychological contract provoked turnover intentions in the hospitality industry.

However, data from 226 frontline employees in Taiwan’s hotel industry led Chen and Wu

(2017) to claim that use of the transformational leadership style indirectly influenced

psychological contract breach to lower turnover intention. In addition, Du, Bhattacharya

and Sen (2015) supported the use of psychological contract to reduce turnover. Du et al.

draw upon research in corporate social responsibility (CSR)and psychological contract

theories to argue that CSR could be used to reduce turnover by supporting positive

psychological contracts between employees and firms.

Turnover and organization support. Organizational support could influence

employee turnover. Fazio, Gong, Sims and Yurova (2017) surveyed 217 hospital

employees to determine if organizational support has any impact on turnover and found

that perceived organizational support can directly impact turnover intention. In addition,

Islam, Khan and Bukhari (2016) and Islam, Ahmed, and Ahmad (2015) found that lack of

organizational support provoked turnover intentions in employees from the banking

sector. In related finding, Madden et al. (2015) examined the relationship between

perceived organizational support and turnover intentions through a social exchange

theory lens. Survey data from 200 healthcare employees convinced Madden et al. that

employees that felt organization support had lower turnover intentions. The implication is

that manufacturing plant leaders could limit employees’ turnover intentions by improving

practices that provide support to employees. Contrarily, Kim (2015) argued that

organizational support does not limit turnover. The author collected data from local

revenue officers in South Korea to examine the extent to which organizational support

influence turnover and recorded that organizational support has no significantly influence

in reducing turnover.

Turnover and stress. Stress could be a factor when employees initiate turnover

intentions. Amponsah-Tawiah, Annor, and Arthur (2016) collected survey data from 336

employees from manufacturing and other sectors in Ghana to examine the relationship

between stress and turnover and found that stress is positively related to turnover

intentions. Similarly, Han, Han, An, and Lim (2015) and Nei, Snyder, and Litwiller

(2015) also recorded that commuting stress constitutes a major source of stress that could

result in turnover. In related finding, Wong, and Laschinger (2015) reported that

healthcare managers who felt stressed because of inadequate resources to work with

considered looking for other jobs elsewhere. Moreover, data from 440 primary care

doctors in Chongqing, China led Wen, Zhang, Wang and Tang (2018) to accept the

hypothesis that stress from work pressure provoked turnover intentions. In another

research, Eberly, Bluhm, Guarana, Avolio, and Hannah (2017) suggested that

transformational leadership style could be a panacea to attenuating turnover intentions

resulting from stress. The authors examined the transformational leadership of U.S. army

unit leaders operating within the extreme context and surmised that transformational

leadership style can be useful to retain employees dealing with stress and trauma of

extreme events.

Turnover and burnout. Burnout could result in employees’ turnover intentions.

Jugdev, Mathur, and Cook (2018) applied existing theories of workplace burnout to study

project managers working in diverse sectors including manufacturing and asserted that

Project manager burnout was significantly related with turnover. Furthermore, Chan,

Wan, and Kuok (2015) surveyed 391 employees from six major casinos in Macau to

examine the level of casino employees’ burnout and the relationships between burnout

and turnover intention. The authors also found that employee burnout resulted in

employee turnover in the hospitality industry. Moreover, Kim (2015) concluded that

burnout is among the most common factors resulting in employees’ decision to quit. In

study aimed to deepen our understanding of the motivational mechanisms involved in the

relationship between transformational leadership and employee functioning, Fernet,

Trepanier, Austin, Gagne and Forest (2015) and Salem (2015) claimed that

transformational leaders are effective in limiting employee-burnout and attenuating

turnover intention. Hence manufacturing plant leaders could apply the tenets of

transformational leadership to reduce turnover resulting from burnout.

Turnover and work environment. Several work environment and safety factors

could be associated with employee turnover. In studies, Brown et al. (2016) and Ugoani

(2016) included environmental factors such as temperature and unpleasant ventilation as

work environment variables that resulted in employee turnover in the manufacturing

plants. Harhara, Singh and Hussain (2015) aligned with Brown et al. (2016) and Ugoani

(2016) and warned that environmental factors are lead predictors of turnover intentions

when compared to organizational factors. Moreover, study in India enabled Arekar, Jain,

Desphande, and Sherin (2016) to believe that the dynamic nature of the business ecology

could result in many factors that could provoke an employee’s decision to leave an

organization. In addition, Ching, Hung and Tan (2016) used data from 152 Malaysia

private higher educational institutions employees to confirm that Work environment

influenced employees’ work attitude and resulted in turnover. These findings implication

is for manufacturing plant leaders to curtail the negative impacts of the ecological and

environmental factors associated with working in the manufacturing sector so as to

reduce turnover. In related study, Huang et al. (2016) used the social exchange theory to

investigate the relationships between safety climate and employee turnover. The authors

collected survey data from 6207 truck drivers from two U.S. trucking companies and

established that inability of an organization to create a safe climate for employees

resulted to turnover. Moreover, Smith (2017) and Pandey (2015) also found that safety

climate was a strong predictor of employee turnover intention. The implication is that

employees who feel unsafe in their jobs would consider looking for another job.

Turnover and job satisfaction. Employees who are not satisfied with their jobs

could start looking for another job. Inamizu (2015) collected survey data from 354

manufacturing leaders and 3,116 workers from 97 factories in Japan's electrical and

electronics industry to examine the relationships among a perspective index, job

satisfaction, and desire to leave one's job. The author recorded that job satisfaction

resulted in lower turnover in the manufacturing sector. In addition, Otchere-Ankrah,

Tenakwah, and Tenakwah (2015) and Huang and Su (2016) reinforced previous research

findings that employees who were not satisfied with their jobs, had more turnover

intentions. However, data from purposeful sample of 414 full-time nurses from two

regional hospitals in Taiwan led Liang et al. (2016) to suggest that transformational

leaders could indirectly influence employees’ intention to stay through improving job

satisfaction. In addition, Choi, Goh, Adam and Tan (2016) collected data from 200

nursing staffs to investigate the causal relationships among perceived transformational

leadership and job satisfaction and recorded a positive relationship between

transformational leadership and job satisfaction.

Turnover and pay. Pay could be a major determinant of employee turnover.

Grzenda and Buczyński (2015) collected survey data from 4,289 current and former

employees from a big manufacturing company in Poland to investigate the trend of

turnover in the manufacturing sector. Grzenda and Buczyński documented that the least

remunerated employees were more likely to leave than the higher paid. In another study,

Huang and Zhang (2017) also found that low wages encouraged turnover of employees in

Chinese manufacturing firms. The implication is that low pay was a contributor to

employee turnover. In apparent contrast, Qiu, Haobin Ye, Hung, and York (2015) and

Saleem and Qamar (2017) argued that low pay was not a major factor that elicited

turnover intentions. Qiu et al. interviewed 13 supervisory employees from a hotel in

Shenzhen, China to explore the antecedents of hotel employee turnover. Qiu et al.

identified that pay was the least factor that resulted in turnover. However, Ayuninnisa

and Saptoto (2015) contradicted Qui et al. and Saleem and Qamar by revealing that low

pay was one of the major causes of employee turnover intentions. Ayuninnisa and

Saptoto analyzed data from 183 employees of an automotive manufacturing company in

Indonesia to examine the direct and indirect effects of pay satisfaction on turnover

intention. The authors showed that pay satisfaction significantly attenuated turnover

intention. Moreover, Anwar, Sidin and Javed (2017) concluded that fairness of wages is

important in the context of manufacturing sector to reduce turnover. The implication of

this study is that manufacturing plant leaders should consider the use of pay to reduce

turnover intentions.

Turnover and employee engagement. Low level of employee engagement could

result in turnover. Shantz, Alfes, and Latham (2016) probed into the commonly held

assumption that a low level of work engagement leads to higher employee turnover. For

this purpose, the authors generated survey data from 175 employees from manufacturing

organization in the United Kingdom and recorded a negative relationship between work

engagement and turnover intention. Shantz et al. contribute to the turnover literature by

enhancing the external validity of prior research that has positioned engagement as a

determinant of turnover. Likewise, Memon et al. (2018) surveyed 409 employees from

the oil and gas to examine the impact of work engagement on turnover intention and

found that work engagement influenced employees’ turnover intention. In addition, data

from 571 survey responses from Korean organizations made Kim (2017) to support that

low work engagement resulted in turnover. In related study, Kim (2015) found that less

employee engagement resulted in turnover in an organization. However, a sample of

1,074 employees in a cross-sectional study in Germany led Hentrich et al. (2017) to claim

that transformational leaders may be able to reduce turnover by enhancing employee

engagement. The authors argued that transformational leaders could use coaching and

mentoring of employees to sustain employee engagement and curtail turnover intention.

Turnover and employee well-being and work-life balance. Employees well-

being and work-life balance could make employees develop turnover intentions. Anwar,

Sidin and Javed (2017) carried an extensive review of the literature to evaluate the factors

influencing work exhaustion and its mediating role on turnover intentions in the context

of Pakistan manufacturing and services sectors. The authors supported the view that

work-life conflict is among the major contributors of work exhaustion that resulted in

employee turnover. In their views, Chang, Chiu and Liu (2017) found a direct and

significant relationship between employees’ well-being and turnover intention. In study,

Zito et al. (2018) expanded on the work of Chang et al. by including that factors such as

employees’ well-being and the perception of the quality of working life encouraged

turnover intentions. In addition, Seyrek and Turan (2017) and Kim (2017) depicted that

work-life -balance issues were factors that have statistically significant negative effects

on employees’ turnover. Furthermore, Omar and Ramdani (2017) claimed that lack of

supervisor’s support for flexible working time was responsible for turnover intention

among generation Y or millennial employees. However, Salem (2015) found that

transformational leaders have a positive impact on their employee’s well-being. Salem

claimed that transformational leaders could use the inspirational motivational trait to

improve employee well-being and reduce turnover intentions. Moreover, Van

Dierendonck, Lankeste, Zmyslona, and Rothweiler (2016) collected survey from 830

employees from 12 countries to conclude that companies HR well-being practices that

allow incorporate work-life balance were the most beneficial practices in terms of

reducing employee turnover.

Turnover and job embeddedness. Job embeddedness could result in turnover.

Kiazad, Holtom, Hom and Newman (2015) developed a conservation of resources

(COR)-based job embeddedness model to postulate that job embeddedness constitutes a

major factor that resulted in turnover intent. However, Sender, Rutishauser and

Staffelbach (2018) expanded on Kiazad et al.’s COR theory by investigating the effects

of job embeddedness on employee turnover across countries and found both negative and

positive effect. The authors generated data from 373 employees in China and 268

employees in Switzerland to investigate both the additive and the buffering effects of

on‐the‐job and off‐the‐job embeddedness on turnover. Sender et al. found that on‐the‐job

embeddedness reduced turnover in Switzerland, while the buffering effect of off‐the‐job

embeddedness increased turnover in China. Sender et al. contribute to the understanding

of the relative role of on‐the‐job and off‐the‐job embeddedness on turnover in different

countries. In addition, data from 422 health-care workers to examine the relationship

between job embeddedness and turnover intention enabled Dechawatanapaisal (2018) to

argue that less embedded employees would leave. In different research, Liang, Tang,

Wang, Lin, and Yu (2016) connected transformation leaders with job embeddedness and

limiting turnover. Data from 414 full‐time nurses from two Taiwan regional hospitals led

Liang et al. to claim that transformational leaders could create strategies that enhance job

embeddedness and satisfaction and lower turnover. However, a multi-state longitudinal

panel survey of registered nurses from 34 states and the District of Columbia in the USA

enabled Brewer et al. (2016) to counter that there is a significant relationship between

transformational leaders and reducing employee turnover. Conversely, Tews, Michael,

Xu and Drost (2015) maintained that leaders who created strategies that enhanced job-

embeddedness reduced employee turnover.

Turnover and lean manufacturing. Lean manufacturing could have both

positive and negative effects on employee turnover. In their research, Rodríguez, Buyens,

Van Landeghem and Lasio (2016) posited that lean production could be useful to

enhance manufacturing techniques that could increase job satisfaction and result in

reducing turnover. Moreover, De Freitas and Costa (2017) did a systematic study on the

impacts of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) on organizations and concluded that lean production

could have an indirect impact on reducing employee turnover. Contrarily, Basu,

Chowdhury and Alam (2015) argued that lean manufacturing could encourage turnover

in the manufacturing industry. The authors projected that there could be a point where

lean manufacturing leads to diminishing return because increasing workers’ utilization

might improve productivity in the system in the short run but at the cost of workers’

welfare. Basu et al. depicted that if employees’ welfare is not proportionate with their

workload, it could lead to dissatisfaction and result in turnover. Furthermore, survey

responses from 226 frontline managers (FLMs) from Chinese manufacturing companies

to examine the impact of lean production on FLMs well‐being led Huo and Boxall (2017)

to support that lean production could impact workers welfare and result in turnover. The

value of these studies is that manufacturing plant leaders could use perceptions of

distributive justice and commensurate pay to attenuate the impact of work overload and

exhaustion, and limit turnover.

Turnover and career advancement. Lack of career growth could make

employees to leave. Chin (2018) called attention to the lack of career advancement

opportunities for manufacturing workers. The author analyzed survey data from

employees in the manufacturing industry to examine which factor of job satisfaction that

contribute most to employee turnover and found that it was career development. In

apparent contrast to Chin, De Beer, Rothmann, and Pienaar (2016) used sample from five

South African corporate organizations to investigate differences in male employee

experiences and turnover. The authors found that employees career development was

unrelated with increased turnover intention because employees showed lack of interest in

career advancement. Conversely, Okyere-Kwakye et al. (2018) and Saverio et al. (2018)

maintained that career growth is becoming a major consideration for employees’ desire to

stay or leave the organization. Okyere-Kwakye et al. warned that employees who

envisage glass ceiling within the organization might have no option than to leave the

current employer for a better option that will provide room for advancement. Moreover,

Mitchell and Zatzick (2015) and Yang (2016) previously justified that lack of career

development opportunities could make employees to leave.

Turnover and training. Lack of training opportunities could result in employee

turnover. In study, survey data from 320 employees from Nigerian companies led Ugoani

(2016) to establish a positive relationship between job training and employee retention.

Moreover, several researchers found that lack of training resulted in turnover (Al Mamun

& Hasan, 2017; Santhanam et al., 2017; Yang, 2016; Zhang, 2016). However, Fogarty,

Reinstein, Heath, and Sinason (2017) countered that training could reduce turnover. Data

from mentored accountants revealed that training and mentoring is associated with

building protégé implicit knowledge of the organization but proved unrelated to turnover

reduction. Conversely, Kim (2015) used a quantitative method to assert that training

opportunities resulted in retaining both new and senior employees in the travel industry.

Moreover, Ertas (2015) conducted a regression analysis of public sector workers and

concluded that increased attention to employee training reduced intent to quit.

In related research, Wang, Kang and Zheng (2016) proposed a factory-level

dynamic operator allocation policy called the bubble allocation policy to limit loss of

time and money during anticipated turnover in the manufacturing sector. The authors

proposed training all employees to operate different machines. The rationale is that in the

event of a turnover, any employee could operate any machine. Wang et al. argued that

since this policy has no requirements for additional cross-training, it could mitigate

negative effects of turnover such as loss of production time and slower learning process.

Wang et al. provided researchers of turnover in the manufacturing sector a clue on the

peculiar job duties of the manufacturing workers, and how that is different from other

sectors in relation to employee turnover. Wang et al.’s policy is similar with the proposal

of Lyon-Maris, Edwards, Scallan and Locke (2015) to reduce turnover among British

general practitioner (GP) doctors. Lyon-Maris et al. proposed restructuring positions

within the organization to allow the use of GPs skills in other areas, for instance training

GPs to provide ambulatory or non-ambulatory chronic care, so as to encourage

movement across service areas. The authors argued that this might enhance flexibility

that could reduce workload in specific areas, reduce monotony, and encourage GPs to

remain with the organization.

Cost of Employee Turnover

Employee turnover could result in both financial and no-financial costs.

Employee turnover has financial cost implications to the organization such as recruitment

costs, vacancy advertisement, interview, and training of new hire, and could limit

profitability (Saverio et al., 2018). In another study, Vnoučková and Urbancová (2016)

decried that turnover resulted in waste of resources and increasing costs. The authors

found that turnover made an organization inefficient and unproductivity. Moreover,

Seyrek and Turan (2017) and Wang et al. (2015) postulated that the departing of a

creative and innovative employee could have negative affect on the revenue generation

capabilities of a firm. Consequently, high turnover rate easily brings heavy financial loss

to the enterprise (Yang, 2016). In addition, Meddour et al. (2016) added that the cost of

turnover in the manufacturing sector also included overtime payment to temporary

workers. In their research, Al Mamun and Hasan (2017) and Harhara et al. (2015)

reported that turnover negatively affects the organization in terms of overall expenditure

and the abilities to distribute the minimum required services.

Turnover could affect the productivity level of an organization. Turnover reduced

the productivity capacity of an organization and increased accident rates (Li et al., 2016).

Moreover, employee turnover could disrupt operations and affect the productivity of an

organization (De Winnie et al., 2018; Ugoani, 2016). Wang et al. (2016) explained that

employee turnover in the manufacturing sector reduced productivity because the

replacement worker will be slow until he masters the job. Consequently, as a result of

employee turnover, the necessary manufacturing operations may not function properly

(Gylling et al., 2015). In related finding, Seyrek & Turan (2017) opined that apart from

financial costs, employee turnover has several other possible implications such as loss of

experienced personnel because the departing worker will go with the knowledge and

skills they acquired in the organization. Seyrek and Turan demonstrated that turnover in

the manufacturing plants could entail loss of valuable production formula that might be

hard to transfer to the replacement staff. Eckardt et al. (2014) claimed that manufacturing

sector loss of an employee’s valuable production knowledge could result to defective

products, and lead to loss of customers, and revenue.

The cost of turnover could be quantifiable and unquantifiable. Holtom and Burch

(2016) aligned with the views of Eckardt et al. (2014) that turnover could result in loss of

customers due to disruption in service. Alkahtani (2015) highlighted that turnover could

affect the morale of the remaining employees to function optimal, leading to reduced

commitment and engagement. Furthermore, Schlechter et al. (2016) included lost time

and voids in productivity as the replacement staff masters the job and stressed that

turnover is the biggest threat to business sustainability. Moreover, Grzenda and

Buezynski (2015) noted that employee turnover affects every business venture of all sizes

and types. Conclusively, Yang (2016) implied that turnover is costly to the individual,

organization, and the national economy of the country.

The Role of Leaders in Reducing Employee Turnover

Leaders should play active role in reducing turnover. The common quote that

people leave the job due to bad leadership underscores the vital role of leaders in

reducing turnover (Lima et al., 2017). Waldman et al. (2015) found that employees stay

with organizations due to the traits of their leaders. Therefore, Demirtas and Akdogan

(2015) suggested leaders exhibit traits of ethical leadership to reduce employee turnover.

Consequently, Babalola et al. (2016) and Lee, and Ha-Brookshire (2017) listed the traits

of ethical leaders to include being impartial and preserving employees’ self-esteem.

Similarly, Ariyabuddhiphongs and Kahn (2017) noted that employees with perception of

leader’s trait of trust would not leave. In addition, Jiang and Probst (2015) claimed that

the level of perception of employees’ trust influenced many aspects of the relationships

between leader and employees including turnover intention.

Leaders that provide support could reduce turnover. Shukla and Rai (2015) found

that supportive leadership was effective in reducing employee turnover intention.

However, Kim (2015) found that supportive leadership did not reduce turnover of new

workers in the travel sector. Conversely, Nelso (2017) projected that a leader’s support

will be a compensation for other lacking rewards that could encourage employees’

staying. Hence, Zhang (2016) suggested leaders establish an employee communication

and feedback mechanism to handle employees’ complaints. Moreover, Saverio et al.,

(2018) expanded on Zhang and added leaders address issues affecting employees

instantly and professionally. Therefore, Cho, Rutherford, Friend, Hamwi, and Park

(2017) maintained that leaders who pay attention to the feelings of their employees, could

attenuate taught of employee turnover.

The use of the transformational leadership style could reduce turnover. A

conceivable way to achieve turnover reduction is to ensure that employees receive

individualized support (Gyensare et al., 2016, Haile, 2015). Consequently, Caillier (2016)

recommended that business leaders should instill the transformational leadership trait of

individualized consideration on their managers. Cailler showed that employees are likely

to stay longer in organizations that have transformational leaders because of the

individualized attention such leaders offer to employees. In related finding, Bester et al.

(2015) linked the empowering trait of transformational leaders to turnover reduction.

Bester et al. detailed that employees’ perceptions of their leaders’ empowering behavior

played a role in the retention of manufacturing workers. Therefore, leaders should train

their managers on developing the transformational leadership style (Jyoti, & Dev, 2015),

to provide the right level of stimulation, encouragement, and motivation to employees

(Harhar et al., 2015).

Leaders could use multiple strategies to reduce turnover. Dasgupta, Sugar and

Singh (2014) suggested that leaders could reduce turnover by implementing flexible

working policies, enhancing job design, and incorporating employees in vital decisions.

Moreover, good working environment enhanced employees’ job satisfaction,

engagement, and organizational commitment, resulting in reduced turnover (Hanaysha,

2016; Keating & Heslin, 2015; Ugoani, 2016). In addition, Deery and Jago (2015)

showed that if leaders enhanced employees’ work-life balance, they would drastically

reduce turnover intention. Moreover, Carasco-Saul et al. (2015) postulated that if leaders

want to reduce turnover, they need to improve their employees’ engagement and well-

being. Similarly, Ruiz-Torres, Alomoto, Paletta, and Pérez (2015) determined that

assigning employees to jobs they preferred resulted in job satisfaction and reduced

turnover rate. To this effect, leaders could create and implement strategies to ensure

person-job match to enhance job satisfaction of their subordinates (Zopiatis, Constanti, &

Theocharous, 2014). In another study, Saverio et al. (2018) claimed that a leader who

could give direction and guidance to employees could win their hearts to reduce turnover.

Therefore, managers could use effective communication methods with employees to

avoid issues that could result in turnover (Dasgupta et al., 2014).

Leaders could use pay to reduce turnover. Schlechter, Hung, and Bussin (2014)

believed that pay is among the major factors that are necessary to limit turnover.

Schlechter et al. theorized that if employees receive fair pay, it will provoke commitment

and lead to job satisfaction, and increase the probability of not leaving. Although, Gupta

and Shaw (2014) agreed with Schlechter et al., the authors cautioned that pay could lead

to cheating the organization and suggested the use of pay with other incentives.

Consequently, Vong and Tang (2017) advised that leaders could use the following factors

to reduce turnover; (a) training and advancement opportunities, (b) pay, (c) working

conditions, and (d) work-life balance. Moreover, researchers recorded that the use of

multiple reward scheme reduced turnover (Ferreira & Almeida, 2015; Ghosh et al., 2016;

Pohler & Schmidt, 2016). In conclusion, Caillier (2016) demonstrated that leaders should

have the greatest role in reducing turnover.

High employee turnover is a serious challenge to organization leaders. The

researcher used the literature review to evaluate and synthesis available literature on the

causes, cost, and effects of turnover on the employees and employers in the

manufacturing and other sectors, and various professions and geographical locations. The

literature review also consists of a discussion on leadership and turnover, with focus on

transformational leadership as the conceptual framework, servant leadership as the

supporting theory, and transactional leadership as the opposing theory; I used the

transformational leadership theory to focus on the phenomenon all over the research. The

researcher suggested strategies that manufacturing plant leaders could use to reduce

turnover.

Transition and Summary

In section 1, the researcher discussed the background, problem statement, purpose

statement, and nature of the study. Other elements of the section included the research

question, interview questions, conceptual framework, operational definitions, and

significance of the study. In addition, the researcher highlighted the quantifiable and

unquantifiable implications of voluntary employee turnover on both leaders and the

organizations they lead. In the professional and academic literature review, I analyzed

concepts around leadership, transformational leadership, servant leadership, transactional

leadership, manufacturing plant, voluntary employee turnover, causes and the cost of

employee turnover, causes of employee turnover, the cost of employee turnover, and

leaders’ strategies for reducing voluntary employee turnover.

In Section 2, I restated the purpose of the study and details of the participant

selection process, protocol, and ethical obligations. In addition, I analyzed my role as the

researcher and the criteria for participants selection. The other elements of section 2

included (a) the research design, (b) research method, and (c) population and sampling. In

addition, section 2 included subsections such as ethical research, instrument and

strategies for collecting, organizing, and analyzing data. I concluded section 2 with

discussions on reliability and validity.

Section 2: The Project

Section 2 was an overview of the research method and design for this study. In

this section, I included a restated purpose statement, a review of the role of the

researcher, and an overview of ensuring ethical research. I also used this section to detail

the procedure for participant recruitment, population and sampling, description of

reliability and validity. Furthermore, this section includes a detailed discussion about the

data collection instrument, data collection technique, data organization technique, data

analysis, transition, and a summary of section 2.

Purpose Statement

The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies

manufacturing plant leaders use to reduce high employee turnover. The target population

was owners and managers from tree manufacturing plants in South Florida who used

strategies that successfully reduced employee turnover. The results of this study could

contribute to positive social change through a decline in local unemployment rates,

through increases in revenue for the local manufacturing plants that could result in

supporting local programs and activities to improve the living standards of local

communities.

Role of the Researcher

Yin (2014) stressed that the role of a qualitative case researcher is vital to success

of the study. Researchers noted that the primary roles of a researcher include being the

primary data collector and recruiting participants (Yin, 2014), ensuring collection of

unbiased data and protecting participants (Sutton & Austin, 2015), transcribing and

analyzing the participants’ data (Fusch & Ness, 2015), and finally presenting impartial

findings of the study (Cairney & St. Denny, 2015). Therefore, the researcher’s role in this

study was to conduct semi structured interviews with nine manufacturing plant leaders

from three manufacturing plants, protect participants, explore literature and study

available organizational records on employee turnover, synthesize information related to

high employee turnover, and finally present impartial findings.

As the researcher, I have no personal or professional relationship with the

prospective participants of this study. My relationship with this topic is from my job as

HR Manager in a manufacturing company, having a first- hand experience of the nature

and negative impacts of employee turnover to the operations, and profitability of an

organization. Researchers found that turnover resulted in low productivity and reduced

the financial strength of an organization (Wang, Zhao, & Thornhill, 2015). I was

motivated to explore the phenomenon of employee turnover as a result of dealing with

the issue frequently. Srinivasan, Loff, Jesani, and Johari (2016) highlighted that

researchers could leverage knowledge of a research topic to advance objectivity. My

relationship with the research area is that I live and work in South-Florida, and this factor

would reduce cost of access to participants for face to face interviews.

I received approval from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of Walden

University before I started collecting data for this study. In addition, I also ensured

maintaining ethical standards for the protection of participants by making participants

anonymous and keeping to data confidentiality, as required by the Belmont Report for

research relating to human beings (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 1979).

Ingham-Broomfield (2015) and Sutton and Austin (2015) cautioned that a researcher

must follow required codes of conduct, legal requirements, and social responsibilities, in

relation to studies involving human participants. Therefore, I ensured the compliance of

the Belmont Report on the protection of all participants through the adoption of the

principles of justice, beneficence, and the respect for human rights. I was aware of the

importance of protecting human participants when conducting research and completed

the National Institute of Health Office of Extramural Research certificate as proof of my

capability (Appendix D).

To mitigate bias, Overgaard (2015) suggested the use of a strategy known as

bracketing to keep away cynical thoughts about the topic of research. To avoid viewing

data through a personal lens, I kept away previous feelings and views about employee

turnover in the manufacturing sector. Yin (2014) and Yazan (2015) suggested that the use

of multiple sources of data and attaining data triangulation could be effective to reducing

bias. Therefore, I used multiple sources of data such as interview, organizational records,

and employees’ records that provided clues on turnover. I also used member checking to

ensure that participants crosschecked the interview transcriptions against personal bias

and made inputs if necessary. Researchers attested that member checking helps to limit

researcher’s bias in a qualitative study (Harvey, 2015; Oleszkiewicz, Granhag, &

Kleinman, 2017; Overgaard, 2015). Therefore, member checking and use of multiple

sources of data were effective to limit personal bias.

The rationale for developing an interview protocol is to ensure conditions

necessary for quality interviews (Castillo-Montoya, 2016), and to ensure standardization

of the interviewing processes (Dikko, 2016). Therefore, I used an interview protocol

(Appendix B) to articulate the time and venue of the interview and ensured the interview

questions (Appendix A) aligned with the research question. Researchers suggested

employing a protocol strategy to guide data collection and analysis (Castillo-Montoya,

2016; Yazan, 2015). An interview protocol was useful to maintaining uniformity by

asking the same set of questions to all participants on successful strategies that

manufacturing plant leaders used to reduce employee turnover.

Participants

Maramwidze-Merrison (2016) and Ingham-Broomfield (2015) suggested that

researchers identify participants fit for their studies to generate credible data. Therefore, I

set participant eligibility criteria to be owners and managers of manufacturing plants

within South Florida with experience of successfully reducing employee turnover in their

organizations. Martínez-Mesa et al. (2016) suggested that study participants represent

entire sample included in the baseline. I used the purposeful selection method to select

participants with relevant experiences and knowledge of creating and implementing

effective strategies to reduce turnover. Participants with relevant experience and

knowledge of the research phenomenon are eligible for the study (Maramwidze-

Merrison, 2016; Merriam & Tisdell, 2015).

Amundsen, Msoroka, and Findsen (2017) and Monahan and Fisher (2015)

suggested the use of multiple sources such as searching journals, public sources, existing

networks to gain access to research participants. Consequently, the primary strategy I

used and gained access to participants was using internet to search the databases of South

Florida manufacturing association and County business record to obtain the publicly

available website directory of manufacturing plants in South-Western region of Florida

such as company names, websites, contact names, postal and electronic mail addresses,

and telephone numbers. Maramwidze-Merrison (2016) used the internet to identify

potential organizations and interview participants and noted that it was effective, fast, and

cheaper. The internet search resulted in obtaining contact information of senior leaders of

the manufacturing plants. Thereafter, I contacted the senior leaders and request

permission to study their managers and owners. Researchers noted that establishing a

contact and then requesting approval from an organization to conduct research is a way to

gain access to eligible participants in a study (Maramwidze-Merrison, 2016; Peticca-

Harris, deGama, &Elias, 2016). In addition, I also leveraged my membership of Human

Resources Association of Broward county (HRABC) to negotiate access with fellow

members that work in manufacturing plants or solicit their referrals to other

manufacturing plants. Karjalainen, Niemistö, and Hearn (2015) found that researchers

can use official process to gain access to participants through professional associations

membership, HR, CEO, other gatekeepers, and unofficial personal networks through

friends and relatives. Upon approval from any senior leader or representative of the

company, I then requested a list and contact details of potential participants that met the

study criteria.

Researchers suggested that communication, respect, and trust resulted in

establishing good relationships between a researcher and participants (Sandvik &

McCormack, 2018; Wang, 2015). Therefore, after I received the contact details of

potential participants from the representative of an organization, I used phone call and

email to establish a direct contact with them. I used both emails, and phone conversations

to respectfully engage them in interesting topics such as the purpose of the study and how

it would be beneficial to solving a business problem, and the background of the problem.

I also used the email and phone communications to convince them that I would respect

their confidentiality, while paying attention to their concerns about participating and

addressing such concerns to their satisfaction. Dikko (2016) and Petrova, Dewing

and Camilleri (2016) noted that respecting confidentiality is essential for building new

research relationships. The above strategies were effective for establishing trust and

respect that resulted in a good working relationship.

To ensure that the participants’ characteristics aligned with the research question,

I selected leaders of manufacturing plants in South-Western region of Florida as

participants. Yin (2014) suggested researchers focus on their study topics while selecting

participants. I created a questionnaire or survey on turnover and used emails and phone

calls to test the prospective participants’ knowledge and experience of dealing with high

employee turnover, and determined if they would produce the data I needed from

answering the research question. Marshall and Rossman (2016) and Peticca-Harris et al.

(2016) suggested that researchers select participants with relevant knowledge and

experience of the topic so they can answer the underlying research questions. From my

email and phone calls with prospective participants, I selected those that exhibited

reasonable knowledge and experience of effectively reducing turnover, and I did not

select those that failed to meet the standard. Sandvik and McCormack, (2018) implied

that researchers must guarantee alignment between the participants’ attributes and the

overall research question.

Research Method and Design

Research Method

I used a qualitative research method for this study because the focus was to

explore strategies manufacturing plant leader use for addressing high employee turnover.

Researchers use the qualitative method to understand meanings and perspectives of the

participants in the context of a phenomenon (Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2016; Sneison,

2016), and observe and document participants’ behaviors within a natural setting (Sutton

& Austin, 2015). I used qualitative method because it was a fit to analyze organizational

documents, conduct open ended interview with the participants to gather their views and

perspectives on successful strategies for reducing employee turnover in the

manufacturing plants. Gustafsson Jertfel, Blanchin and Li (2016) posited that the use of

open-ended interviews makes it easier for participants to give their complete and

voluntary answers to the interview questions.

Researchers adopt the quantitative research method to test hypotheses, to

investigate relationships or differences among groups, and use numbers and statistics to

represent findings (Park & Park, 2016; Barnham, 2015). Therefore, a quantitative method

was not a fit for this study because there were no hypotheses to test, and I did not

examine variables, relationships, or differences. In addition, researchers stated that

quantitative users do not concentrate on the participants’ knowledge to understand a

phenomenon (Groeneveld, Tummers, Bronkhorst, Ashikali, & van Thiel, 2015). Since the

aim of this study was to grasp participants’ knowledge and report a detailed description

of such, it was better to use a qualitative rather than a quantitative method.

Mixed methods research is suitable when the researcher is combining the

qualitative and quantitative methodologies (Archibald, Radil, Zhang, & Hanson, 2015;

Snelson, 2016). Though Snelson (2016) suggested that researchers could use mixed

methods to gather more data through combining qualitative and quantitative sets of data,

Yin (2014) countered that mixed methods could be useful and cautioned that it could

hinder researchers from addressing complex research questions and collecting rich data.

This study does not have any quantitative element, so, I did not use the mixed methods.

Therefore, I used the qualitative research method.

Research Design

I used a multiple case study for this study, so I would generate data from various

participants from more than one organization. The use of a multiple case study enables

researchers to employ multiple sources to generate an in-depth data from several distinct

cases (Yazan, 2015), interviews conducted in real life settings (Dasgupta, 2015), and

ensured a valid and credible result from their contrasts and similarities. In addition,

multiple case studies enable the researcher to answer what and how research questions

that was vital to have a detailed investigation of the phenomenon (Henry & Foss, 2015;

Yin, 2014). The use of a case study design was useful to extract data from participants

about the successful strategies manufacturing plant leaders used to limit turnover.

Aside from case study, other key qualitative research designs are phenomenology

and ethnography (Yin, 2014). The phenomenological researcher seeks to explore the

meaning of participants’ life to gather information about the phenomenon as it naturally

unfolds (Dasgupta, 2015; Marshall & Rossman, 2016;). Therefore, phenomenological

was not suitable because the intent of this study was not exploring the meaning of real-

life experience. The purpose of this study was to explore a real-world phenomenon in an

organizational setting that the findings would be useful to organizations. Ethnography

was not appropriate because researchers use ethnography to explore and interpret a

cultural or social group in a real-life setting (Baskerville & Myers, 2015; Rashid, Caine,

& Goez, 2015). Ethnographic was not a fit because the purpose of this study was not to

explore groups’ cultures. Furthermore, ethnographic researchers focus on how people

interact in a social environment. Hence, it would not be useful to generate the right

information that would have been vital to exploring the phenomenon of this study. I used

the case study design because researchers have used it for successfully turnover studies in

the manufacturing sector (Amponsah-Tawiah, Annor, & Arthur, 2016; Burawat, 2016).

Fusch and Ness (2015) suggested that researchers have a clear plan on how to

attain data saturation. For this research, I used multiple sources of data to achieve data

saturation such as transcripts from the interviews, employee records and company

documents. I interviewed one owner and two managers from three different

manufacturing plants and investigated employee records and organizational documents to

collect data on successful strategies manufacturing plant leaders used to limit employee

turnover within the city of South Florida. Harvey (2015) stated that data saturation

involves the use of multiple sources of data. Furthermore, I used the same set of

interview questions for all participants (see Appendix A) and used of an interview

protocol (see Appendix B). I attained data saturation during interviewing the participants

after no new themes, codes or information emerged. Data saturation in qualitative

research occurs when the researcher receives no new themes or information to enhance

the research discovery (Boddy, 2016; Sutton & Austin, 2015).

Population and Sampling

The target population for this study was nine leaders (Two managers and one

owner) from three different manufacturing plants in South-Western region of Florida that

demonstrated they used effective successfully strategies to reduce turnover. Researchers

claimed that a purposeful sampling method is the most suitable to select participants with

high levels of expertise of the topic (Rahman, 2017), and guarantees more response rate

(Etikan Musa, & Alkassim, 2016). Consequently, I used purposeful sampling method to

select participants with relevant knowledge and experiences of the research topic to

achieve maximum response rate. Researchers affirmed that purposeful sampling is useful

for a researcher to recruit the best participants through determining prospective

participants that meet all the set criteria of the study (Barratt & Lenton, 2015; Heywood,

Brown, Arrowsmith, & Poppleston, 2015). The nine participants exhibited varied

knowledge, qualifications, experiences, strategies and leadership skills related to turnover

in the manufacturing plant, relevant to generate a valuable data, and led to credible

findings. Researchers suggested to select participants in a research from a population that

has in-depth knowledge of the phenomenon (Barratt & Lenton, 2015; Marshall &

Rossman, 2016). To ensure data saturation, I conducted a face to face interview with

participants and reviewed organization documents related to employee turnover. By

interviewing three leaders from tree different manufacturing plants which were nine

participants, I collected enough data to achieve data saturation. Boddy (2016) claimed

that three organizational leaders would be an ideal sample size to achieve data saturation.

However, if I did not achieve data saturation, I would have followed Yin (2014)’s

suggestion that continue interviews with more participants could help to achieve data

saturation. Therefore, I would have kept interviewing additional participants and

exploring the documents until no new data emerges, which implies I have reached data

saturation. Fusch and Ness (2015) and Sutton & Austin (2015) documented that data

saturation happens when a researcher cannot see any new data from interviewing

additional participant.

Colombo, Froning, Garcia, and Vandelli (2016) suggested researchers ensure that

the participants will be reachable and have a link with the research phenomenon.

Therefore, the researcher’s limitations with resources and time to access participants and

the participants’ availability for a face to face interview included the criteria for selecting

organizations and participants within South Africa. I also focused the assessment of

participants eligibility for this study of high turnover in manufacturing plant setting on

individuals with experience and knowledge of successfully managing the phenomenon

directly through daily communication with employees, and indirectly through creating

and approving policies to mitigate high turnover. Beato (2017) noted that qualitative

researchers must choose participants with a vast experience and knowledge of the

researching topic. The participants of this study shared at least one basic characteristic,

which was the fact that they have common knowledge and experience of successfully

managing turnover in a manufacturing plant. Asiamah et al. (2017) stated that people in

the population of a study must share at least a single attribute or interest. To select the

participants, I used communication channels such as emails and phone calls to determine

that all the participants exhibited a fit with the set standards of the study in order to

generate thick data. Researchers suggested to schedule interview at a place that is familiar

and comfortable to the participants (Dikko, 2016; Okal et al., 2016). The interviewing

happened at a reserved and conducive venue at participants respective manufacturing

plants, so the setting limited distractions and enabled the researcher to record the

interviewing efficiently. Dikko (2016) and Sandvik and McCormack (2018) noted that

interview venues must be without distractions and noise to capture the best voice

recording of the interviewing. Aside from face to face interview, I could also have

interviewed through video conferencing, or through phone calls, according to

participant’s preference. McIntosh and Morse (2015) and Rahman (2017) proposed that

researchers could interview participants through face-to-face or use several

communication methods such as phone and video conferencing. To ensure confidential

and honest communication, the participants were always in a private setting during all

interviews. Smit et al. (2016) found that private settings could increase the confidentiality

of participants to communicate openly and honestly.

Ethical Research

According to Ingham-Broomfield (2015) and Yin (2014), the IRB is responsible

for granting approval to conduct any study involving human subjects. Therefore, after

getting Walden University’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval with approval

number (08-07-19-0588487), I started the data collection. The first step was to request

the approval of prospective organizations to conduct my research at their sites. Upon

getting the approval from select organizations, I started looking for prospective

participants from the leaders of the selected organizations (Appendix C) and provided

informed consent form to them (see Appendix B). Rahman (2017) asserted that for a

research to be ethical, it is necessary for the researcher to get informed consent from

participants. I used the informed consent form to detail the purpose of the study, the

interview and data collection procedures, address data confidentiality and privacy,

benefits and potential risks of the study, and that participants were free to withdraw at

any time without penalty. The informed consent document provides participants with a

written description of the components of the study (Brookes & Normore, 2015;

Maramwidze-Merrison, 2016). I followed up with phone call and sending an email to

people that declared an interest to participant in the research, to set up an informed

consent meeting at a convenient date and time. At the meeting, I reviewed details of the

informed consent form and addressed any concerns or misunderstandings the prospective

participant had. Therefore, I ensured that prospective participants received enough

information to make an informed decision on whether to participate or not in the study.

After the review, participates that agreed to participate signed the informed consent form.

Fusch and Ness (2015) and Wall and Pentz (2016) implied that an informed consent

meeting between researcher and participants affords the participants the opportunity to

ask questions about the study and accept voluntary participation through the signing of

the informed consent form. In most cases of research involving human subjects, respect

for persons demand that subjects enter into the research voluntarily and with adequate

information (Maramwidze-Merrison, 2016; The Belmont report, 1974).

I addressed the aspect of ethical coercion by reinstating to all participants that

their participation in this study was voluntary and they can withdraw at any time.

Although Marshall and Rossman (2016) confirmed the right of participants to withdraw

from the study at any time. However, I requested that any participant who wished to

withdraw from this study to inform me by email, phone call, or in person.

Bouter (2015) and Watson, Robinson, Harker and Arriola (2016) postulated that

researchers can offer incentives to participants in exchange for participation. However, as

stated in the informed consent form, participation in this study was voluntary and with no

incentives. Alternatively, I sent a thank you email to participants to appreciate their time

and inputs to this study.

Wall and Pentz (2015) and Roets (2017) advised researchers conducting studies

involving human participants to ensure the protection of dignity, rights and well-being of

human participants. Therefore, I applied security measures to protect the rights and

confidentiality of participants in this study. I used the memory of a personal laptop with

password protection as primary data storage and two flash pin devices as back-ups to

store the consent forms, and other confidential data. I also used my secured Walden email

address for all email communications with participants. To further protect the

participants, I got a secured box in my bedroom to store the flash pins, tapes of interview

recording and all device containing confidential data for five years. Rahman (2017)

implied that researchers must ensure the ethical protection of their participants while U.S.

Department of Health and Human Services (2014) noted that the protection of an

individual’s rights and privacy must remain a priority. Walden (2016) suggested that a

five-year period is the appropriate storage time for keeping research evidence. Therefore,

I will delete the secured emails and destroy the devices after 5 years of completing the

study.

The ethical protection of participants will be a priority in this study. Therefore, I

adhered to the three fundamental considerations for ethical research involving human

subjects established in the Belmont Report (1976); (a) respect for the person-

acknowledge people’s autonomy and protect individuals with weakened autonomy, (b)

beneficence- a maximization of benefits and minimization of potential harms, and (c)

justice- fair distribution of benefits and burdens of the research. In addition, I completed

the National Institute of Health (NIH) certification course on protecting the rights of

human participants. Hammarberg, Kirkman and Lacey (2016) and Yip, Han and Sng

(2016) suggested that a general overview of ethical principles could enable researchers to

carry out their studies in accordance with the best practices. To ensure additional ethical

protection of participants, Zayour and Hamdar (2015) and Snelson (2016) suggested

researchers use the coding system. Therefore, I did not include data that identifies

participants and organizations but instead, I used alphanumeric codes to identify

organizations and participants, thus achieving confidentiality. For example, I used the

alphanumeric tags 01, 02, and 03 to represent the3 manufacturing researching

organizations. I also identified participants by codes. I used PO to identify plant owners

and L to identify the plant leader participants. For example, I identified plant owner

participants as follows; PO01 for the plant owner of organization O1, PO02 for the plant

owner of organization 02, and so on. Furthermore, I used L1O1 to identify the first plant

leader participant from organization 01, L201 for the second plant leader participant from

organization 01 and so on. I also used L102 for the first plant leader participant in

organization 02, L202 for the second plant leader participant in organization 02, and so

on. Similarly, I applied alphanumeric codes to all the respective organizational

documents and records that I reviewed. I created a different code for each document or

record corresponding to the organization. For example, data of employees exit interview

for the employees of organization 01 corresponded to the following file nametag: EEI01,

and EEI02 for similar data from organization 02, etcetera. Cole and Harbour (2015) and

Dasgupta (2015) claimed that using unique coding to substitute the organization and the

participants guarantees the protection of their confidentiality and privacy. Therefore, the

unique coding was effective to protect the names of individuals or organizations and to

keep them confidential.

Data Collection Instruments

Fusch and Ness (2015) and Marshall and Rossman (2016) documented that

qualitative case study researchers are usually the main instrument for collecting data from

participants. Consequently, I was the chief data collection instrument through

triangulation that enabled me to explore both participants’ views, and available

organizational documentary facts related to the phenomenon. Triangulation is collecting

data from multiple sources. Various researchers confirmed the efficacy of multiple data

collection sources in a case study to enhance in-depth exploration and understanding the

phenomenon of study (Houghton, Murphy, Shaw, & Casey, 2015; Oleszkiewicz et al.,

2017). For this study, I collected data from three distinct cases, through semi structured

interviews, and company documents to explore the strategies manufacturing plant leaders

use to reduce high employee turnover. Hammarberg et al. (2016) and Yazan (2015) noted

that a qualitative researcher could collect numerous data such as organizational

documents, audio recording and notes of interviews.

Dikko (2016) defined semi-structured interview as in-depth interview where the

respondents have to answer preset open-ended questions. I employed the use of semi-

structured interviews because it was useful to improve the reliability and validity of the

data collection instrument. Kallio, Pietilia, and Johnson (2016) and Rahman (2017)

asserted that a qualitative semi‐structured interview contributes to the objectivity and

trustworthiness of studies and make the results more plausible. Brinkman (2016) and

McIntosh and Morse (2015) asserted that semi structured interview questions are the

most popularly used in qualitative studies to generate data on a particular situation or

phenomenon. The use of face to face semi structured interview enhanced personal

communications between researcher and participants. Dasgupta (2015) and Dikko (2016)

Kramer and Danielson (2016) advised qualitative researchers to create an interview

protocol to maintain uniformity of the semi structured interview questions and ensure

consistency and reliability in their data collection. Therefore, the researcher had an

interview protocol (Appendix B) for semi structured interviews that comprised a set of

seven open-ended questions and follow up questions (Appendix A). The interview

protocol was useful to getting and retaining participants’ cooperation while interviewing

and ensured asking the same set of questions to all participants. I scheduled the

interviews at a venue and time of participants preference and the duration was between

25-45 minutes. Interview timing should suit the participants but must also be long enough

to gather enough data (Sandvik, & McCormack, 2018). Kurnat-Thoma, Ganger, Peterson,

and Channell (2017) evaluated organizational documents to explore antecedents of

turnover in the manufacturing sector. Likewise, Rahman (2017) and Yin (2014) claimed

that researchers could use organizational or archival documents as secondary data source

to enhance exploring the research phenomenon from an extensive view and in

triangulating the findings. Therefore, as a secondary data source, I reviewed

organizational documents (i.e., employee handbook, hiring and termination records, exit

interview, and current retention plan) to unearth variables and leaders’ view on the topic

that helped answer the research question.

Cole and Harbour (2015) and Harvey (2015) suggested that qualitative

researchers could employ member checking to promote the reliability and validity of their

studies. Consequently, the researcher used member checking to enhance the reliability

and validity of the data collection instrument and interview process. Member checking

entails a researcher giving the data interpretations to the participants, so they can

comment on and clarify the information (Allen, 2015; Sandvik, & McCormack, 2018).

To increase rigor, reliability, and validity of collected data, I included the member

checking process in the interview protocol (Appendix B). Member checking was

effective to ensure reliability and validity because it enabled participants the opportunity

to clear misconceptions and offer more information about the interview data.

Data Collection Technique

The data collection technique for this study were semi structured interview and

review of organizational documents for methodological triangulation. Dikko (2016) and

Sutton and Austin (2015) suggested that interviews take place at venues that are

comfortable and guarantee good recording quality. Therefore, I conducted on-site data

collection because it was the best process to generate data from manufacturing plant

leaders on how they limit high employee turnover due to their challenges with internet

and time. Furthermore, going to the sites ensured minimal disruption to the

manufacturing operations and enabled me to collect data in one short period such as

during lunch break or employee downtime. The research question for this study is “what

strategies do manufacturing plant leaders use to limit high employee turnover”?

Therefore, a semi structured face to face interview was appropriate to generate data from

one owner and two leaders from three different manufacturing plants who are

knowledgeable on the phenomenon of study. Wang and Zhu (2015) believed that semi

structured interviews are useful for an in-depth investigations or explorations of a

phenomenon, while Barr et al. (2017) noted that the face-to-face interview method helps

to guide follow-up questions resulting from verbal and nonverbal observations. I used

phone and email communications to schedule a date and time with each participant for

the interview. As stated earlier, I contacted the organizational leaders to reserve a

convenient venue for the interview that promoted participants’ privacy and

confidentiality. Prior to starting the interview, I requested that participants let me record

interviews via voice recording so I can review and transcribe the recorded interview later.

I used the interview protocol to start the proper interview (Please see Appendix B). I

started the face to face interview process with greeting the participant to establish a

friendly and relaxing atmosphere that could encourage participant’s full cooperation.

Thereafter, I explained the purpose of the study and provided all necessary information

during the brief opening statement to establish a rapport with the participant. Building

rapport and establishing comfortable interactions in the qualitative interview is very

important to elicit cooperation and is most effective at the start of the interview (Dikko,

2016; Sandvik & McCormack, 2018). Furthermore, I used a semi-structured interview

format to ask a set of seven interview questions and follow up questions (Appendix A).

All the interview questions aligned with the original research question so that the

participants’ responses were relevant to the central focus of the study. However,

additional questions arose as a follow up to a clue or to probe further. During the

interviewing, I made a note of responses I received from each participant differently and

looked out for body language of the participants for nonverbal clues in addition to audio

recording. Sutton and Austin (2015) implied that audio recording and note taking are two

major techniques for conducting effective interviews. I also requested and upon approval

reviewed all organizational documentations that would detail clues to turnover such as

exit interviews, termination data. Brookes and Normore (2015) and Yin (2014) asserted

that organizational documents could be helpful to provide more proof to back information

generated from interviews. At the end of the interview, I thanked the participant and

provided my contact information for further questions or concerns.

Yin (2014) viewed the interview process as a useful technique for data collection

in qualitative case research. Furthermore, the interviewing process could allow

participants to provide their subjective and detailed perspectives relevant to the study

(Rahman, 2017). Researchers also identified some advantages of semi structured face to

face interview to include catching nonverbal cues that may not be adequately captured

through the audio-recording and asking follow up questions accordingly (Sutton &

Austin, 2015; Wang & Zhu, 2015; Yin, 2014). Moreover, McIntosh and Morse (2015)

included the researcher’s flexibility to probe participants and elicit unstructured responses

as benefits of using the semi structured interview. Similarly, Wang and Zhu (2015) noted

that semi structured interview makes it possible for the interviewer and interviewee to

immediately resolve any misunderstanding during the interviewing. However, Oltmann

(2016) identified the disadvantages of semi structured interview to include small sample

size, and the dependency on the participants’ subjective experiences. Oltmann further

decried the waste of time and money involved in the face to face interview because the

researcher must travel to the participants. In addition, McIntosh and Morse (2015)

cautioned that the semi structured interview might seem intrusive to the participants.

McIntosh and Morse argued that the interviewer’s physical presence could result in

unwanted influence on the participants such as the possibility of shifting during the

interviews in irrelevant directions. In their qualitative research, Kurnat-Thoma et al.

(2017) found that the combination of review of employee records and documentation,

and face-to-face interviews improved the validity of the data. Similarly, Yin (2014)

argued that some advantages to reviewing documents and records include the accuracy of

content, cost effective, and time flexibility. However, Brookes and Normore (2015)

identified limitations with reviewing documents and records to include the participants’

concerns with sharing official company’s data, the subjectivity of the data, and the

volume of time required for the review.

Morse (2015) and Vance (2015) noted that the use of member checking could

reduce the misinterpretations of the interview data. Therefore, I used member checking

steps to validate the interview data. After interviewing participants, I employed member

checking by transcription the data into word document. After interpreting the data, I gave

to each participant and allowed participants to state whether the data represents their

views or not. As suggested by Fusch and Fusch (2015) and Moreland and Apker (2015),

if the member checking process elicit any contradictions by any participant, I will

schedule a corrective meeting with the participant. Houghton et al. (2015) and Morse

(2015) asserted that the participant verification of member checking process reduces the

probability of misinterpretations of data.

Data Organization Technique

I started the logical data organization process for this study by using recording

devices and kept a reflective journal while interviewing the participants. Researchers

demonstrated that keeping reflective journals was useful to organize their thoughts and

evaluated the actions they performed or plan to perform (Cengiz & Karatas, 2015) which

aids in data organization. Scholars advised researchers to leverage on a labeling system as

a data organization technique to manage data effectively (Arnold, 2016; Thomas, 2016).

Consequently, I used the alphanumeric code to label separate documents for easy

identification, storage, and retrieval of data. I created a portfolio of files and labeled

appropriately to specify their contents to enhance data tracking and working on the data.

Cole and Harbour (2015) and Dasgupta (2015) identified coding as an effective data

organization method to protect the privacy and confidentiality of participants.

Alphanumeric code labeling system was effective to protecting both the identity of the

participants and the manufacturing plant organizations. I also leveraged the code labeling

system for easy identification of themes and patterns in the data. The use of codes could

ensure the accuracy of themes and patterns, and thereby reduce misrepresentation in

organizing the data collection process (Dasgupta, 2015; Sutton & Austin, 2015).

The researcher used a personal laptop that I protected with password as the

primary data storage for this multiple case study. In addition, I stored hard copy

documents in locked cabinet, and used Microsoft Office, CD and flash drive backups to

secure all online documents in digital files. Walden University (2016) require all research

data to be secure for at least 5 years. Therefore, I will store all date relating to this study

for five years. Afterward, I would delete or destroy the data in the most efficient method

that guarantee participants’ confidentiality. Wall and Pentz (2015) stressed that

researchers must protect the privacy and confidentiality of participants.

Data Analysis

Yin (2014) noted that data analysis entails the collection, analysis, and

interpretation of the generated research data. The researcher earlier noted the use of

multiple sources of gathering data to include semi structured interviews and

organizational documents. Consequently, the use of multiple sources was effective to

triangulate the data. Hammarberg et al. (2016) and Thomas (2016) stated that researchers

use triangulation to unify data and arrive at precise and credible conclusions. Yin (2014)

identified four types of triangulation: (a) data triangulation, (b) investigator triangulation,

study, I used methodological triangulation to triangulate interview responses from

manufacturing plant leaders and available organizational documents. Cairney and St.

Denny (2015) and Overgaard (2015) noted that methodological triangulation involves the

combination of multiple sources, such as review of organizational documents, semi

structured interviews reports, and field notes. Therefore, methodological triangulation

was the best fit to analyze the data of this study.

Marshall and Rossman (2016) postulated that the use of data analysis is to

understand the logic in the data from a research process. I started the logical analysis

process for this study by interviewing the participants using recording devices and

keeping a reflective journal. Yin (2014) acknowledge that software may be helpful in

research process but maintained that researchers have the major role for conducting a

perfect study. Consequently, I listened carefully and slowly to the interview voice

recordings, and then manually transcribed the content into a Microsoft Word document to

ensure data backup and easy retrieval. Interviewers need to listen carefully and be

attentive to discover and understand themes from interview recordings (Cole & Harbour,

2015) and ensure accurate transcription (Dasguta, 2015). The process of reading through

the data helped to organizing the responses from the participants to coherently identify

relevant themes and patterns and to answer the research questions. The third step was to

send the interview transcription to participants for member checking verification and

requested that participants conclude their review within eight working days. To establish

accuracy toward achieving data saturation, I also reviewed relevant organizational

records and documents that were relevant to triangulating the data from the participants.

My focus was to incorporate the conceptual framework, the literature review, the research

purpose and question to effectively identify relevant themes while analyzing the data.

Houghton et al. (2017) and Snelson (2016) suggested that qualitative researchers

could use software programs to extract, screen, code, and implement the data analysis

processes. Therefore, I used NVivo software to enhance identification and coding of

emerging similar themes and patterns into groups. Woods, Paulus, Atkins and Macklin

(2015) argued that NVivo software is useful to improve auto- identification and coding of

themes and patterns, and to ensure a comprehensive data analysis process. After

participants verified the interview transcription through member checking, the researcher

transferred the data and the organizational documents into NVivo software. Thereafter, I

used NVivo in the analysis process to identify and code all similar themes, patterns, and

concepts that were persistently visible throughout the literature. Cole and Harbour (2015)

and Sutton and Austin (2015) implied that qualitative researchers could use codes to

highlight discovered ideas, themes, and patterns that relate to the study. Furthermore,

Yazan (2015) noted that researchers use data analysis processes to unearth reasonable

themes by looking for patterns in the data, which answer the research question of the

study. I also used NVivo to evaluate the similarities or dissimilarities that I identified,

presented the data in a graphical portrayal of categorized and coded concepts and ideas to

enhance viewing and explaining. Yin (2014) suggested that the conceptual framework of

a qualitative study could be useful to enhance data analysis. Therefore, I compared the

key themes that emerged from participants interviews and organizational documents to

the four constructs of Burns (1985) transformational leadership theory, and prevalent

available literature on employee turnover. Consequently, I was able to identify the most

recurrent themes that were helpful to answer the research questions for limiting high

employee turnover in the manufacturing plant.

Reliability and Validity

Marshall and Rossman (2016) and Yin (2014) stated reliability and validity are

the conventional criteria for determining the quality of research. It is important to

enhance the reliability and validity of a turnover study in the manufacturing plants so

manufacturing plant leaders may consider the findings for policy implementation.

Reliability

Hammarberg et al. (2016) and Sayed and Nelson (2015) saw reliability as using

the same method to obtain the same results. To enhance reliability, I adhered to the

required parameters of the study and used an interview protocol to ensure uniformity in

the interview questions with participants. In addition, I asked the right interview

questions that aligned with the purpose of the study. Furthermore, I asked colleagues to

review my work and confirm that I was maintaining the methodology, and to check bias,

data accuracy and for replicability purposes. Noble and Smith (2015) suggested

researchers to seek feedback from fellow researchers, to reduce bias and error, and

enhance the reliability and dependability of a study. Marshall and Rossman (2016) and

Dasgupta (2015) suggested that methodological triangulation could be useful to enhance

research reliability. Therefore, I used data from semi structured interviews with

participants, and review of relevant organizational documents on employee turnover to

achieve data triangulation and enhance reliability.

Harvey (2015) claimed that researchers could use assuring a study’s dependability

to enhance the reliability. Therefore, I used member checking to confirm the

dependability of data from participants and ensure reliability, by asking participants to

confirm if the transcribed data was an accurate account of their views on the research

topic. Birt, Scott, Cavers, Campbell and Walter (2016) and Sandvik and

McCormack (2018) noted that qualitative researchers could use member checking to

confirm the trustworthiness of results, thereby enhancing the dependability of the study.

Validity

The validity of a qualitative research is judged with the rigor and researcher’s

appropriate use of the processes and tools such as data collection, analysis, and

conclusions for addressing the overarching research question (Forero et al., 2018; Leung,

2015). To secure validity, I used methodological triangulation. Kern (2016) confirmed

that researchers could use methodological triangulation to ensure the validity of a study

by triangulating multiple data sources to achieve richer data and enhance the

confirmability of the results. Barkhordari-Sharifabad, Ashktorab, and Atashzadeh-

Shoorideh (2017) and Marshall and Rossman 2016) identified three components that are

useful to ensure the validity of a qualitative study: (a) credibility, (b) transferability, and

and confirmability.

Harvey (2015) and Sutton and Austin (2015) noted that credibility is the

confidence that research findings are true, credible and believable. Yin (2014)

documented four methods to enhance credibility: (a) peer examination, (b) triangulation,

member checking to confirm the interview transcript, thereby, ensuring I gathered the

true thoughts and feelings of the participants on employee turnover. Harvey (2015)

claimed that researcher could use member checking to ensure the process captures

participants subjective views. Researchers could use member checking to validate the

participants interview information and confirm the credibility of the data (Birt et al.,

2016). Furthermore, I also reviewed company’s documentation such as turnover records,

memorandums, and official publications related to managing turnover.

Transferability could be the ability of readers to determine if research findings are

generalizable or transferable to different contexts, settings, or population (Forero et al.,

2018). Researchers can enhance transferability through including detailed information of

the study that can help readers determine the transferability (Forero et al., 2018; Marshall

& Rossman, 2016). Some of the factors that can determine the transferability of a study

are the method, sampling and population, geographical location, and participants

(DeVault, 2016). To promote transferability, I provided information that readers would

use to judge the transferability of this study such as method, sampling and population,

geographical location, and participants. DeVault (2016) approved the use of purposive

sampling to enhance transferability because the participants who provide the research

data share a characteristic. Therefore, the use of purposeful sampling and providing

details of the research processes ensured transferability.

The confirmability of a research could be a factor of the extent to which scholars

might corroborate and accept the findings (Forero et al., 2018; Peake-Andrasik, 2014).

Yin (2014) noted that confirmability is the degree to which the researcher accurately

represents participants’ viewpoints. To ensure confirmability, the researcher asked

colleagues to review the draft for personal bias that might impact on accurate

representation of the participants’ perceptions. Noble and Smith (2015) suggested that

researchers seek feedback from fellow researchers, to reduce bias, and enhance

confirmability. Elo et al. (2014) and Harvey (2015) implied that the accurate

representation of the participants’ viewpoints is a major booster to research

confirmability. Therefore, I used member checking of interview transcriptions to enhance

confirmability. Moreover, data from multiple sources such as participants’ interviewing,

and organizational documents would ensure data triangulation and enhance

confirmability (De-Vault, 2016).

Morse (2015) and Nelson (2016) viewed data saturation as the point during data

collection when no new or relevant information emerge from the research questions, and

therefore, no need to continue data collection. To ensure I achieved data saturation, I

interviewed participants until no new data emerged. I achieved data saturation easily

because the participants for this study were nine manufacturing plant leaders. Fusch and

Ness (2015) and DeVault (2016) demonstrated that data saturation could occur more

quickly if all participants are from the same group. However, if I had discovered that new

data I collected from each participant was inconsistent, or has no patterns, I would have

recruited additional participants and used the same interview protocol until there was no

new information or themes.

Transition and Summary

In section 2, the researcher detailed key issues around the role of the researcher,

the process for selecting participants, and justifications for adopting a qualitative multiple

case study. In addition, the researcher expounded on the value of ethics in research, and

the methods of collecting, organizing, and analyzing data. The researcher also outlined

how to leverage multiple data sources or methodological triangulation, such as

manufacturing plant leaders interview responses and organizational document sources

from three manufacturing plants in South Florida to achieve data saturation. Section 2

also contained the methods to ensure reliability and validity in this study. In section 3, the

researcher discussed and applied the details of the findings to professional practices and

social change. In section three, the researcher also provided logical and actionable

recommendations from the findings for future studies, and reflections and conclusions

from the entire study.

Section 3: Application to Professional Practice and Implications for Change

In Section 3, I presented an introduction to the study, discussed the presentation

of findings, applications to professional practice, implications for social change,

recommendations for action, and recommendations for further research. This section

concluded with my reflections and conclusions derived from the study.

Overview of the study

The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies that

manufacturing plant leaders in southwestern Florida use to reduce high employee

turnover. After I received Walden University IRB approval to collect data and obtained a

letter of cooperation from the research partners, I used semi structured interviews and

collected data from nine manufacturing plant leaders that used successful strategies to

reduce employee turnover from three manufacturing plants. All nine participants

completed the informed consent process prior to the interviews that they responded to

seven open-ended interview questions (see Appendix A). The interviews took place at the

designated places of participants’ preferences in the manufacturing plants and lasted

between 25- 45 minutes. To ensure triangulation, I reviewed available organization

documents and archival records related to turnover such as employee handbook, hiring

and termination records, memorandums, and current retention plan. I took measures to

ensure confidentiality and used codes to hide the names of the participants and the

organizations

After I transcribed the interview data, I employed a member-checking process to

share the results with the participants for revalidation to enhance the credibility of the

study. During the member checking process, I interpreted and summarized the transcripts

of each participant’s interview data and sent to the participants to check for error and

verify their accuracy within seven days. After the seven days to review my summaries

and make amendments, all participants confirmed my interpretations were accurate. To

achieve accuracy in data classification and analysis, I conducted data analysis using

NVivo 11 to identify codes, keywords, and emerging themes regarding strategies used by

manufacturing plant leaders to reduce high employee turnover. Thereafter, I selected

themes that resonated with the research question and the conceptual framework. The

findings showed that manufacturing plant leaders reduced high employee turnover

through practicing effective and credible supportive leadership styles, offering

competitive compensations and benefits, offering on-the-job training and career

progression to employees, maintaining a safe, healthy, and respectful work environment,

Using formal and informal methods to seek for employees inputs and incorporating such

in policies, appreciating and rewarding employees for their skills, talents, and

contributions.

Presentation of the Findings

The analysis of the data led to the identification of three themes that

manufacturing plant leaders used to reduce high employee turnover: (a) supportive

leadership styles, (b) offering competitive compensations and benefits, and (c) offering

on-the-job training and career progression to employees.

Theme 1: Supportive Leadership Reduced Turnover

The first prominent theme thorough analysis of the participants’ responses and a

review of organizational documents was that all the nine participants (100%) expressed

supportive leadership was the greatest strategy to reduce employee turnover in the

manufacturing plants. (L101, L201, L102, L202, L103, L203, PO01, PO02, PO03).

According to L202: “Many people leave because of lack of support from their boss or

their boss’s boss.” PO02 supported L202 and stated: “The thing that is consistent with

turnover is that people leave their leaders and not their jobs, so employees that have

supportive leaders will likely remain with the company.” L203 further underscored the

importance of leadership support and connected it with policy making by arguing: “since

leaders are responsible for making policies, they can retain employees through making

effective policies that curtails turnover at the plant.” L101 claimed that support bonds

leaders with employees: “I provide support to my team members in every situation and

this has brought us close and created a bond that may be difficult for turnover to break.”

The findings that supported leadership reduced employee turnover substantiated the

findings of Sun and Wang (2016) in the literature review. Sun and Wang found that

supportive leadership resulted in reduced employee turnover and unsupportive leadership

increased employee turnover. In a different study, Nelso (2017) projected that a leader’s

support will be a compensation for other lacking rewards that could encourage

employees’ staying.

Majority of the participants (80%) explained that their major strategy to reduce

turnover was supporting their direct reports to achieve job satisfaction (L101, L201,

PO01, PO02, PO03, L202, and L203). L201 decried that job dissatisfaction was among

the key causes of turnover in the manufacturing plants and advised leaders to ensure

employees are satisfied to forestall their leaving. Moreover, L203 mentioned that his

major strategy of reducing turnover was supporting his subordinates to attain job

satisfaction because if employees are satisfied with their job, the taught of leaving will be

highly curtailed. In addition, three other participants also shared that employees with

supportive managers expressed job satisfaction and remained with their companies while

employees whose managers were not supportive reported job dissatisfaction and left

(L101, PO02, and PO03). Huang and Su (2016) reinforced previous research findings

that employees who were not satisfied with their jobs, had more turnover intentions. In

relation to the conceptual framework, Sayadi (2016) and Liang et al. (2016) suggested

that transformational leaders could indirectly influence employees’ intention to stay

through improving job satisfaction. In addition, Choi, Goh, Adam and Tan (2016)

recorded a positive relationship between transformational leadership and job satisfaction.

When asked about the most efficacious strategy that reduced turnover, L203

answered that the support she provided to her team during their difficult times increased

their trust in her and organizational commitment. Other participants attested to the

effectiveness of trust in reducing turnover (L101 & L201). L201 also shared: “through

supporting my team, I was able to gain their trust which helped to keep them.” In

addition, L101 shared that supportive managers were effective at earning employees trust

and retaining them because employees will reciprocate the care. The points raised by the

participants aligned with the findings of Babalola, Stouten, and Euwema (2016) and

Ariyabuddhiphongs and Kahn (2017) who asserted that employees that trust their leaders’

traits would likely incorporate such traits and would not leave.

Other participants reported that they used supportive leadership to reduced stress,

increased productivity, and earned employees’ trust (L201, PO01, L102, & L203). L201

shared that he supported employees to relieve work stress and curtailed their turnover

intentions and asserted that stress was a major cause of turnover. Eberly, Bluhm,

Guarana, Avolio, and Hannah (2017) suggested that transformational leadership style

could be a panacea to attenuating turnover intentions resulting from stress. PO01 stated:

“supportive leadership was useful to both reducing turnover and increasing productivity

which is good for business.” In answering to what else can you share about turnover,

L103 stated: “Turnover is related back to the manager. If employees do not get the proper

leadership support, they may get frustrated and leave.” Theme 1 is related to Caillier

(2016)’s finding, that concluded leaders have the greatest role in reducing turnover. The

correlation between the findings that supportive leadership was useful to retain

employees by supporting them over their challenges and the transformational leadership

is apparent. Afsar and Masood (2018) asserted that transformational leaders support their

employees to overcome challenges by providing personalized support that will help them

attain a greater result. Further analysis of the participants’ interview showed four codes

relating to the theme of supportive leadership as strategies that reduced employee

turnover. The codes were: (a) communication and engagement, (b), safe and good work

environment, (c) coaching and mentoring, and (d) effective flexible scheduling.

All nine participants (100%) reported that communication and engagement with

employees were useful to understand and render the support they needed (L101, L201,

L102, L202, L103, L203, PO01, PO02, PO03). L101, L202, PO01, and L103 shared that

they reduced employee turnover through communications with subordinates to know

their personal issues and providing required support to them. Two participants (L102 and

L202) mentioned that honest communication between manager and employees was a

successful strategy to limit employee turnover intentions. L102 queried: “How can you

support employees if you don’t know their limitations or problems?” L202 stated that his

open communication channels enabled employees to communicate their issues, and he

was able to support them to overcome such issues. L202 stated: “The strongest strategy I

used to reduce turnover was good communication to listen and understand each

employee’s professional and personal needs; I try to talk and figure out with my team if

there are challenges and it makes them feel they are valued and part of the team. I

provided each employee the support he needed to move on.” The findings that supportive

leadership was useful to retain employees by supporting them overcome their challenges

is aligned with the conceptual framework. Afsar and Masood (2018) asserted that

transformational leaders use their individualized consideration trait to support their

employees overcome challenges by providing personalized support that will help them

attain a greater result.

When asked about the most helpful strategies to reduce turnover, L101 indicated

that it was honest communication with employees to listen to their problems and provide

necessary support. PO01 further asserted that:

All issues that can result in turnover such as pay, work life balance and job

satisfaction can be resolved if there is an open communication channel between

the leader and employee. I always advise all managers to ensure that their

employees can always approach them, and for managers to be honest during their

communications with employees. It will make employees to understand and

remain with them.

The importance of open communication, as expressed by some of the participants

was aligned with some literature sources. For example, Adil and Awais (2016)

documented that ineffective communication affected interpersonal relationship between

teams that resulted in employee turnover. L201 added that managers should communicate

deadline or target expectations and reasons to employees in advance and understand they

have other commitments outside work.

Some participants listed that communication was a means to engagement

employees and obtain their feedback in matters critical to reducing turnover (L101,

PO03, L202, and L103). This findings on leader and employee engagement collaborated

the conceptual framework - transformational leadership. Hentrich et al. (2017) claimed

that transformational leaders may be able to reduce turnover by enhancing employee

engagement. From the interview data, participants approved the use of both formal and

informal forms of employee engagement. PO02 and L203 approved informal means of

engagement as effective strategies that reduced turnover. PO02 argued:

I place a locked box in the employee lunchroom that I use as informal means of

engagement to obtain anonymous feedback from employees on what can make

them to stay. I made all employees know that I am the only person that can open

the box and collect the suggestions in it. I can attest that employee engagement

was more effective through informal engagement because their identity was

hidden, and they were free and comfortable to communicate more than through

formal means of engagements.

L203 also noted that he used unofficial informal engagement to convince some

employees to forestall their turnover intentions. In addition to informal engagement,

some participants PO01 and PO03 expressed they successfully used formal engagements

such as town halls and employee satisfaction surveys to engage their employees and get

their feedback on issues pertinent to reducing employee turnover. PO01 explained that

the employee satisfaction survey is part of the annual performance review but specifically

meant for employees to provide feedback on what they expect the company to do better

or introduce. He concluded that it was helpful to know the overall feelings of employees

in his plant. In addition to the successful engagement, L202 emphasized that it is

important for leaders to pay critical attention to the feedback from employees and take

transparent steps to addressing them fairly. Three participants (PO01, PO02, and PO03)

expanded on the importance of feedback mechanism by stating they always found out the

reasons why employees leave and take steps to ensure such situations will not happen

again. PO02 explained he always read employees exit interview to know reasons

employees left his plant and provide the necessary support required to forestall the

reoccurrence of such reasons. PO01 and PO03 shared that they get monthly turnover

report including exit interviews from HR. Overall, engagement and feedback through

communication helped to know why turnover occurred and useful to create

commensurate measures to curtail employees’ departure from the plants. I found

congruence between leaders’ strategy and that of Cho, Rutherford, Friend, Hamwi, and

Park (2017), who maintained that leaders who pay attention to the feelings of their

employees, could attenuate taught of employee turnover. In alignment with the

conceptual framework of the study, Hoch, Bommer, Dulebohn and Wu (2018) found that

communication trait of transformational leaders helped to improve employee engagement

and reduced turnover.

Eight of the participants (90%) voiced that leadership support for a safe and good

working environment reduced turnover (L101, L201, L102, L202, L103, L203, PO01,

PO02, PO03). L202 shared that working in the manufacturing plant involves

predominantly manual activities with risk to injury, stress and burnout and could result in

turnover intentions. PO02 explained that he reduced turnover because he supported his

employees to alleviate burnout and stress by ensuring a safe working environment,

providing improved machines and materials to make their jobs easier. PO02 concurred

that If a leader can improve the working environment or conditions, it will help to reduce

turnover. The importance of a safe and good working environment, as voiced by majority

of the participants, aligned with some the literature sources. Christopher, Fethney,

Chiarella, and Waters (2017) and Omar and Ramdani (2017) found that working

environment has a significant effect on the turnover intention and behavior of employees.

Furthermore, Brown et al. (2016) and Ugoani (2016) validated the claim that safe work

environment variables reduced employee turnover in the manufacturing plants. In

addition, Smith (2017) and Pandey (2015) also found that safety climate was a strong

predictor of employee turnover intention in the manufacturing sector.

Three of the plant owner participants (PO01, PO02, and PO03) shared that they

have used improving their machines and manufacturing processes to improve job

satisfaction and limit turnover. PO01 regretted losing one of his best managers after he

saw his request for machinery upgrade as a waste of money and not necessary and

rejected the request. He cautioned that lack of support for such request can lead to

frustration and job dissatisfaction. PO02 stressed he gave prompt action to complains

about working environment and manufacturing machines and methods to maintain

employee’s morale and avoid turnover. PO03 shared he supported employees by

investing in current machines to improve the manufacturing methods and achieve

employees job satisfaction. PO02 echoed that introducing new machines and

manufacturing methods was a great support to employees not satisfied with their jobs that

made a positive impact on their job satisfaction and remaining with the company. The

findings from the participants interviews aligned with extant literature on leadership

support for a safe and good working environment. For example, Rodríguez, Buyens, Van

Landeghem and Lasio (2016) posited that updating manufacturing machines and

techniques could increase safety and working conditions of employees and job

satisfaction and reduce turnover.

Other participants shared that supportive leaders increase job satisfaction and

reduce stress (L201 and L203). According to L102, job dissatisfaction was among the

key reasons why manufacturing employees left their jobs. L202, L103, and PO02

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explained that leadership support is necessary to attain job satisfaction and decrease

employee turnover. Some participants articulated that they used enforcing safety tips and

standards to reduce turnover (L101, L201, L102, L202, L103, & L203). L101, L102, and

L103 shared they used enforcing safety policies to bring down injury and turnover rates.

PO01 articulated that a safe working environment may be expensive to maintain but the

cost of injury and turnover is more. He went on to explain that aside from loss of skillful

and talented employees from unsafe work environment, the company may have a stigma

that will prevent new talented employees from taking up employment. PO02 and PO03

both echoed that they strive to support a safe working environment because it keeps their

employees, money and reputation. As apparent in the literature sources, Amponsah-

Tawiah, Ntow, and Mensah (2016) recorded that supportive safety leadership improved

effective implementation of occupational health and safety policies and decreased

turnover intention in the manufacturing industry. PO02 voiced that employees can sue the

company if they were injured from unsafe working machines and conditions after they

depart. PO03 also shared that safe working conditions boost employee’s morale to remain

with the organization.

Some participants (80%) also discussed and identified that leadership support

with employees coaching and mentoring was helpful to reduce turnover because it

improved employees’ knowledge to explore new creative and innovative ways of

working (L101, L102, L202, L103, L203, PO02, & PO03). The views of the participants

resonated with transformational leadership. Afsar and Masood (2018) and Al-husseini &

Elbeltagi (2018) reported that managers’ use of transformational leadership’s trait of

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intellectual stimulation was related to innovative and creative work behaviors of

subordinate that reduced turnover. L203 stated: “Coaching and mentoring was helpful to

put new hires on the right path and saved the initially frustrating from starting a new job

that could result in turnover.” L101 added that coaching and mentoring helped retain

employees because it made them learn better and easier ways of doing their jobs.” L103

concurred that coaching and mentoring was a personalized support that was useful to

reduce turnover because it enabled employees to get specific help in relation to their

individual developmental needs. The points raised by the participants aligned with the

findings of Zineldin (2017) who justified that a transformational leader used

individualized consideration to be a coach and advisor in response to the individual needs

of followers. Furthermore, Deinert et al. (2015) noted that transformational Leaders

demonstrate empowerment and interpersonal support to their employees to reduce

employee turnover.

Other participants shared they reduced turnover by devoting a significant amount

of their times towards eliminating employees’ limitations through personalized coaching

and mentoring (L202, L203, PO02, & PO03). L202 stated: “My coaching and mentoring

support was helpful to reduce turnover because my employees viewed me as a mentor

who want the best for them.” L101 presented his views this way:

My coaching and mentoring support was underpinned on individual development

plan (IDP). I usually start the IDP process with accessing the individual needs

because it focuses on the individual development. The second step is to agree with

the individual the steps to follow to achieve the developmental goals.

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Valuing individual development has a relationship with the transformational

leadership theory because Allen at al. (2016) recorded that transformational leaders used

the strategy of valuing human resources and supporting followers’ individual

development to lower turnover. In addition, several authors demonstrated that

transformational leaders’ use their trait of individualized consideration to give employees

special attention which improved their personal needs and resulted in lower turnover

intention in their organizations (Gyensare, Anku-tsede, Sanda, & Okpoti, 2016; Pohler &

Schmidt, 2015).

Six participants (70%) shared they leveraged on effective flexible employee

scheduling to support employees work life balance and limit employee turnover (L101,

L201, L202, L103, L203, & PO03). LI02 asserted: “Managing employee scheduling in a

plant that operate 24/7 with three different shifts (morning, afternoon, and night) is a

difficult task that could affect an employee’s personal commitment because they have life

outside of work.” L103 regretted that some manufacturing plant leaders only focus on

meeting production target and don’t consider employees’ personal programs. Some

participants stated they used flexible scheduling to gain employees commitment by

showing understanding and support when their circumstances required work rescheduling

(L101, L201, L202, L103, & L203). PO03 stated: “I have an employee that takes care of

his sick wife so I allowed him to come in earlier and leave early and I would have lost

him if not for that opportunity”. L202 aligned with PO03 and queried: “Which employee

will continue working for a company that denied him genuine adjustment to work

scheduling so as to care for a sick family member or to go see a Dr?”. The findings from

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the interview corroborated with the literature sources. Several authors claimed that lack

of supervisor’s support for flexible working time was responsible for turnover intention

of employees (Kim, 2017; Omar & Ramdani, 2017; Seyrek & Turan, 2017).

L101 stated: flexible schedule also applies to regular weekday 9-5 office

employees. Upon demand, I give my team the flexibility to come in earlier or later to suit

personal circumstances that may conflict with normal working time, and it helped to

reduce turnover.” L203 said: “We are flexible with employees work schedules and it

helped to improve employees’ retention because they reciprocate such gesture.” L2O2

claimed that Flexibility is a good retention strategy that he will suggest to every manager

because it enhanced employees’ trust and commitment, increased productivity and job

satisfaction, and reduced absenteeism and turnover. L101 explained that when

employees see that their flexibility is incorporated, they will remain and contribute to the

success of the company. L103 added that he understands employees’ responsibilities to

their families can alter their work schedules so the need for flexibility in scheduling to

balance their work life and avoid turnover intentions. The findings that effective

scheduling reduced turnover is similar to Ng’s (2016) who reported that effectively

employee scheduling improved work life balance and reduced employee turnover

intentions. In a different study, Lambert, Qureshi, Frank, Keena, and Hogan (2017)

aligned with the findings of the interviews by stating that leaders used flexible employees

scheduling to improve subordinates’ quality of life through limiting conflict from

balancing work and family, and reduced employee turnover. In alignment with the

conceptual framework, Paladan (2015) indicated that the transformational leader’s

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Individualized consideration trait enabled leaders to supportive subordinates overcome

their personal and professional issues. Furthermore, Van Dierendonck, Lankeste,

Zmyslona, and Rothweiler (2016) and Zito et al. (2018) concluded that companies

practices that allow work-life balance were the most beneficial practices in terms of

reducing employee turnover.

I also reviewed organizational documents relevant to leadership support to curtail

employee turnover and the findings aligned with the interviews. The data from one

memorandum that was displayed on the information board in the 01-lunch room

emphasized the need to reduce turnover. It showed: “Department managers must provide

the support their employees need to deal with both work and personal issues in order to

retain them.” The plant owner used the above memo to emphasize on the effectiveness of

supportive leadership as a means of reducing turnover, which resonates with the findings

from the interviews. The retention policy of 02 showed that employees with performance

challenges were given support in form of performance improvement plan (PIP). The PIP

is tailored towards each employee’s individual needs and personalized support was given

by the manager to ensure the employee improves within a time frame. However, if

employees fail to meet the goal of the PIP at the end of the time frame, they will be fired.

While reviewing employee turnover documents of 03, I also found PIP in one of the

turnover reduction memorandums. The memo stated:

Managers should make their employees to stop seeing PIP as a punishment or a

step to termination. The PIP is a turnover reduction strategy that provides better

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support through personalized coaching and feedback to increase elimination of

performance gaps in earlier stages before it results in turnover intentions.

In reference to the conceptual framework, Choi, Goh, Adam, and Tan (2016)

noted that transformational leaders use the trait of individualized consideration to provide

personalized coaching and feedback to their followers, that support enhancement of

skills, resulting in achieving desired outcomes.

Table 1

Subthemes Under Supportive Leadership

Codes

No of participants

Percentage

Communication and

Engagement

100%

Safe and Good

working

environment

90%

Coaching and

Mentoring

80%

Effective employee

flexible scheduling

70%

Theme 2: Competitive Pay and Benefits Reduced Turnover

The findings from the detailed data analysis of participants’ responses showed

that all the nine (100%) participants agreed competitive pay and benefits were effective

strategies that reduced turnover. Some participants explained that their organizations

offered a competitive pay and benefit package for employees that includes an hourly pay

for non-exempt and salary for exempt employees, commission and bonuses, paid time off

(PTO), paid bereavement leave, 401, retirement benefits, and good health insurance for

employees and their families (PO01, L202, PO03, & L103). Saleh (2017) found a

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significant relationship between employee commitment, job satisfaction, employee

performance, employee turnover, and a well-balanced compensation package. By

offering a well-balanced compensation package, a leader can improve an employee’s

commitment and increase job satisfaction, which reduces employee turnover (Saleh

2017). L101 stated: “We always review our pay and benefit package and compare with

the market standard and ensure that the leadership team are aware of any changes. This

strategy has helped us curtail turnover of employees.” Participant L103 stated that the

organization has both monetary and non-monetary benefits that have helped to reduce

turnover. Participant L101 also reiterated the importance of using competitive pay and

benefits as a tool to reduce turnover. Further analysis of the responses by the participants

detailed five prominent codes relating to the theme of pay and benefits. The codes

identified were: (a) competitive pay, (b) health insurance, and (c) acknowledging and

thanking.

All the nine participants (100%) voiced that maintaining the average pay standard

was among the most effective strategies to curtail turnover. PO01 noted that: “there are

manufacturing plants located around this industrial area competing for skilled employees

and employees are always looking for better pay. If your pay is not good, your

competitors will collect your best employees.” Siyanbola and Gilman (2017) and

Burawat (2016) aligned with O101 and associated turnover in the manufacturing

companies with the cluster of manufacturing plants within an industrial area that cause

competition for workers. PO02 shared that he is always matching new pay offers offered

to employees by competition companies in order to stop them from quitting. Multiple

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participants shared that employees are always searching for how to earn an extra dollar

(PO01, L101, L103, PO02, L201, & PO03). L103 and PO03 shared that most production

employees are young and care less about health benefits but looking for more pay. Eight

participants (90%) explained that although health and other non-monetary benefits are

important, instant monetary compensation such as salary, commissions, and bonuses

were more important to curtail turnover (L101, L201, L202, L103, L203, PO01, PO02, &

PO03). The data from the participants aligned with extant literature on the importance of

using fair pay to reduce turnover. Anwar, Sidin and Javed (2017) concluded that fairness

of wages was important to reduce turnover of manufacturing workers. In answering to

what was the challenge with implementing the most successful turnover reduction

strategy, six participants (70%) agreed that budget limitation was the challenges with

using pay as turnover reduction strategy (L101, L201, L102, L202, L103, & L203).

Seven participants (80%) agreed that offering health insurance reduced employee

turnover (L101, L201, L202, L103, PO01, PO02, & PO03). PO02 and PO03 expressed

that the health insurance they offered helped retain some employees because either them

or their family members covered in the insurance rely on it to manage their medical

conditions. Five participants shared that numerous of their employees have told them that

they are still with the company because of the health insurance coverage (L101, L201,

L202, PO01, & PO03). Other participants related good health insurance to saving money

and planning for health challenges. PO01 stated:

I used my self as an example in the situation of not having a good health

insurance because I have diabetes and take daily prescriptions. I negotiated with

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the insurance provider to have one of the cheapest employee premiums and out of

pocket payments for my employees. Health challenges is not desired but can

happen so everyone plans for it.

L101 also noted that the good health insurance his company offers saved some

employees from bankruptcy after unexpected health issues. Three participants noted that

their insurance package includes on site free gym and fitness trainers that employees

would not like to do without (PO01, L101, & L102). L101 went on to explain that the

free gym and trainer was useful to retaining some employees and enhancing their healthy

lifestyles. moreover, L102 supported that employees value the benefit of having a free

gym and personal trainer at work fully funded by the organization. PO01 also echoed that

employees may not like to lose the onsite free gym and fitness classes because it saves

them time and money and keeps them fit and healthy. The findings that supported

company health and wellbeing policies reduced employee turnover were shared by many

authors in the literature. Chang, Chiu and Liu (2017) and Zito et al. (2018) found a

direct and significant relationship between employees’ well-being and turnover intention.

Moreover, Van Dierendonck, Lankeste, Zmyslona, and Rothweiler (2016) concluded that

companies HR health and well-being practices were the most beneficial practices in terms

of reducing employee turnover.

Five participants (60%) shared that they used acknowledging and thanking

employees after a good result to limit turnover (L101, L102, L103, L203, and PO02).

L1O2 stated that he usually thanks employees when they do overtime and it has helped to

bring us closer and retain them. In his own words, L202 stated: “recognitions and thanks

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give employees a sense of value and appreciation that brings out a feeling of staying in

them.” Other participants shared that they sent employees cards on their birthdays and

additional years of employment with the company (L103 & L203). PO02 shared: “I as

the CEO personally writes to thank any employee after accomplishing an extra ordinary

task and can relate it with motivating employees to continue working for us.” In addition,

L103 stated that they have award program for the best performing employee quarterly.

He went on to share that most of the people that receive such awards are still with the

company. This finding is vital in the context of this study because Proell, Sauer, and

Rodgers (2016) noted that leaders’ refusal to give subordinates credit is one of the origins

of high employee turnover in the manufacturing plants.

I reviewed organizational documents and found that there are existing policies for

pay and benefits to reduce turnover. Company 03 has a reward program called “reward

for results” for on time training completion, reducing product defects and injury rates,

and retention of employees. 03 organizational documents have a compensation for the

best performing employee in each quarter. 03 has annual employment anniversary and

long service reward schemes that gives each employee a gift each additional year with the

organization. The reviewed and analyzed documents from 02 revealed that the

organization adheres to the state of Florida and Federal Family and Medical Leave Acts

(FMLA) by allowing employees to take up to three months to go and take care of their or

family members severe health problems with 70% pay. The document review also

showed that female employees are allowed three weeks with half pay as a maternity

leave. The organizational documents from 01 and 02 showed the company used tuition

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reimbursement to improve employee retention and curtail turnover. While 01 policy

stated that employees will receive a full tuition reimbursement if they maintain a grade,

that of 02 stipulates that employees must maintain not lower than B grade to receive the

tuition reimbursement. Also, both 01 and 02 organizations have different years that

employees must work for them after completing their studies before they can leave; 01 is

two years while 02 is three years, or they will pay back the money to the companies.

However, the company policy showed that this training fee reimbursement program is

subject to stringent application process by employees and approval from the leaders after

determining the usefulness of the training to the employee and the organization.

Organizational documents from the three companies revealed they all have a policy of

paying competitive salary according to the market rate. 01 and 02 policy mentioned that

give employees a chance to have a share in the company profits through commission on

sales, while 03 matches 401 contribution up to 10% for employees.

Table 2

Subthemes under competitive pay and benefits

Codes

No of Participants

Percentage

Competitive pay

100%

Health Insurance

80%

Acknowledging and

Thanking

60%

Theme 3 Training and Career Development Opportunities Reduced Turnover

All the nine participants (100%) agreed that training and career development were

major strategies that reduced employee turnover. Ali Mamun and Hasan (2017) and Yang

(2016) previously justified that lack of career development opportunities could make

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employees to leave. PO02 stated that their investment in employees’ training and talent

development provoked a sense of loyalty that made them remain with the company.

Further analysis of the responses by the participants detailed two prominent codes

relating to the theme of training and career development as a strategy for reducing

employee turnover. The codes identified were: (a) career growth and promotion, and (b)

Knowledge of job and regulatory compliance.

Nine participants (100%) shared they used training and career development to

advance employees career growth and promotion to higher positions within the

organizations which helped to retain them (L101, L201, L102, L202, L103, L203, PO01,

PO02, & PO03). The Participants provided the rationale for believing that training and

career development strategies reduced employee turnover by offering career growth and

opportunities. For example, L203 indicated that efficacious training showed employees

the career growth and promotion opportunities and helped them leverage on those

opportunities to grow and remained in the company. PO03 aligned with L203 and stated:

“we used offering training and development opportunities to retain our employees. We

have employees that started as machine operators but are now managers because they

leveraged on the training and development opportunity to enhance their knowledge.”

L103 corroborated that training was useful to retain employees by stating: “Our

talent development and training program was useful to retain some employees because

they felt it is proper to pay back by not leaving or they cannot leave because of the terms

of the training especially for college degree and post degree training.” Three participants

also indicated that training gave some employees the opportunities to grow in the

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company and therefore, remained with the company (PO01, L102, & L202). L101

elaborated that: “training in the manufacturing sector is very vital not only to develop and

retain high performing employees but to be in compliance with regulatory and legal

requirements of the sector.” PO02 similarly stated:

Career development and training was a strategy to retain employees because it is

used to motivate them. It also made them feel valued and believed there is an

opportunity for them to grow in the company. When employees felt valued, they

stayed in the company.

L2O3 aligned with PO02 and stated: “Training provokes a sense of belonging on

employees and is a way of showing that the company values and cares for their growth,

and training makes them envisage being in a senior position in the company in the

future.” The findings that career growth opportunities reduced employee turnovers were

similar to Vong and Tang (2017), who found that leaders used the career advancement

opportunities to reduce turnover. Two participants echoed that career growth

opportunities were among the key strategies to retain high performing employees (L201

& L103). L201 stated: “The growth factor motivated employees to be more loyal

because they appreciated the growth opportunities.” L103 cautioned that some employees

will not remain with a company after they concluded there was no career progression for

them. L101 also echoed that lack of promotion opportunities could demoralize employees

and result in increased turnover. This finding aligns with Okyere-Kwakye et al. (2018),

who warned that employees who envisage glass ceiling within the organization might

have no option than to leave the current employer for a better option that will provide

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room for advancement. However, PO01 also expressed reservation with using training

and development as a strategy to reduce turnover. He regretted that some employees that

were trained left for other companies after acquiring more knowledge and experience.

Overall, all the nine participants (100%) agreed that training offered employees career

growth and promotion opportunities that helped to retain them.

Eight participants (90%) mentioned that training was useful to improve

employees’ knowledge and skills on the job and regulatory compliance which helped to

improve job satisfaction and curtailed turnover (L101, L201, L102, L202, L203, PO01,

PO02, & PO03). The Participants justified their believe that knowledge of job and

regulatory requirements reduced employee turnover. For example, PO01 stated: “without

training, employees may not be able to understand their jobs and may be frustrated and

leave.” L1O2 went further to claim that training increased employees’ knowledge,

productivity, job satisfaction and hence, reduced turnover intentions. This finding aligns

with Ugoani (2016), who established a positive relationship between job training and

employee retention. In relation to the conceptual frame, burns (1978) stated

transformational leaders develop their followers to acquire knowledge and realize the

greatest performance levels.

Five participants shared that manufacturing plant leaders used the regulatory

training to enhance employees’ knowledge regarding compliance with various mandatory

rules and regulations and guaranteed safe working environment which helped attenuate

employee injuries and turnover (L101, PO02, L201, L202, & L203). PO02 expressed that

some employees in the plant encounter hazardous chemicals and that it is vital for

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employees to have the required knowledge to avoid accidents and injuries which could

lead to turnover. In addition, L102 echoed that OSHA requires employees to have a

certificate as a proof of knowledge before they can perform certain job tasks. Further

analysis of interview data indicated that all participants took training very seriously

because employees in the manufacturing sector must complete various regulatory training

which non-compliance results in heavy monetary penalty or at worse business closure.

Moreover, PO01 also indicated that regulatory training was important to both fulfil

compliance purposes and enable employees became aware of current trends in the sector.

Other participants (PO01, L203, and PO03) shared that compliance with regulatory

training improved productivity and reduced waste, increased employees’ skills and

engagement, and reduced turnover. The value of job and compliance training, as

indicated by some of the participants, aligned with some literature sources. For example,

Wang, Kang and Zheng (2016) reported that training employees on the job to operate

different machines reduced turnover in the manufacturing plant. In addition, the response

from the participants corroborated the conceptual framework. Al-husseini and Elbeltagi

(2018) asserted that the intellectual stimulation trait of transformation leaders includes

providing a new learning opportunity and has the strongest effect on knowledge sharing

with employees that can reduce turnover.

From the review of the company documents, I identified training and talent

development as an emerging theme. A memo from 01 stated: “Our employees are our

greatest asset. The company views training and developing employees as a means of

developing and retaining a committed workforce.” 02 documents showed that the

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company invests much money on training “to develop and retain a knowledgeable team.”

The reviewed document also indicated that the company pays employees for the times

they spent on training and offer tuition reimbursement. 03 emphasized that; “we will use

training and career development to recognize and develop individual talents and skills

that will enhance their job performance and productivity.” 01 and 03 underscored the

importance of training by linking it to bonus payment. Review of organizational

documents also revealed that the companies emphasized on ensuring that regulatory

training schedules must be strictly adhered to prevent penalties and heavy monetary fines

on employees or the business from non-compliance to the regulations. According to the

documentation, the regulatory training was a requirement for sustaining employees’

eligibility for some jobs and obtain certifications such as DOT, HazMat, First Aid, CPR

and AED.

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Table 3

Subthemes under training and career development

Codes

No of participants

Percentage

Career growth and

promotion

100%

Knowledge of job

and regulatory

compliance

90%

Applications to Professional Practice

The need to reduce employee turnover especially in the manufacturing sector

cannot be overstated because of the apparent negative impact on the business. Employee

turnover in the manufacturing sector has financial cost implications to the organization

such as recruitment costs, vacancy advertisement, interview, and training of new hire, and

could limit profitability (Saverio et al., 2018). Manufacturing plant leaders and managers

must take steps to limit turnover or, it will result in waste of resources and increasing

costs (Meddour et al., 2016), and make an organization inefficient, unproductivity or

could lead to business closure (Yang, 2016). As apparent in the literature, implementing

efficacious strategies to reduce turnover will increase the productivity capacity of the

manufacturing plant and lower accident rates (Li et al., 2016), limit disruptions to

operations (De Winnie et al., 2018; Wang et al., 2016), and improve productivity and

company growth which promotes the survival rate of business (Ugoani, 2016).

Manufacturing plant leaders may find the findings of this study useful to limit turnover

because they comprise successful strategies shared by various departmental leaders and

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owners who successfully reduced turnover in multiple manufacturing plants. The findings

are categorized into three key themes and sub themes as follows:

Table 4

Themes and Subthemes

Themes

Sub-Themes

Supportive Leadership

Reduced Employee

Turnover

a) Communication and

engagement

b) Safe and good working

environment

c) Coaching and mentoring

d) Effective employee

flexible scheduling

Competitive pay and

benefits reduced employee

turnover

a) Competitive pay

b) Health Insurance

c) Acknowledging and

Thanking

Training and career

development opportunities

reduced employee turnover

a) Career growth and

promotion

b) Knowledge of job and

regulatory compliance

Implications for Social Change

Yang (2016) reported that turnover in the manufacturing sector is costly and

negatively affects the employees, organization, and the national economy of the country.

If a company is not profiting due to turnover, it will not be able to take care of the

stakeholders such as manufacturing plant leaders, workers, and their host and other

communities and people benefiting from the company may suffer. The results of this

study could be favorable to the stakeholders because if implemented, it will curtail the

loss of finance to them. Steiner and Atterton (2014) argued that successful companies are

more able to contribute to positive social change for their host communities. The

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implication for positive social change from this study could result in creating jobs in the

local communities, donating money and resources to nonprofit organizations, and

supporting local programs and activities that could benefit other communities. Moreover,

researchers posited that organizations who always donate to communities are more

probably viewed as practicing corporate social responsibility (Chalmeta & Viinikka,

2016).

Qazi, Khalid, and Shafique (2015) claimed that a reduction in employee turnover

could reduce the cost of recruiting and training new employees and increase the

profitability of a company. Consequently, Gittings and Schmutte (2015) suggested that an

organization could channel cost savings from lower employee turnover to paying staff

bonus or salary increase. This could enhance the living standard of employees and their

families, and patronage of businesses within the communities. successful organizations

have a positive impact on both the direct stakeholders such as employees and indirect

stakeholders such as the host communities (Du et al., 2015). Therefore, available

literature aligns with the assertion that if manufacturing plant leaders in South Florida

reduce turnover, it could improv the finance of the organization, the employees, the local

communities, and the national economy.

Recommendations for Action

Rubenstein et al. (2017) agreed that it was timely to assess the progress made in

research on voluntary employee turnover to guide future work. The study of employee

turnover is crucial not only in the manufacturing sector but in other sectors because it has

implications for employees, host communities of companies, and the government. This

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study’s participants are from manufacturing plant leaders, but the findings will be useful

to leaders in other sectors who are facing employee turnover. The key finding is that

leadership support for employees’ personal and professional challenges is crucial to

reducing turnover. In the context of the manufacturing plant, leadership support for

flexible employee scheduling is a key strategy that leaders will implement to retain plant

workers. When conducting interviews with participants, I found out that leadership

support could attenuate other lacking factors such as pay that could provoke turnover. If

manufacturing plant leaders support flexible scheduling, good and safe working

environment, open communication, commensurate benefit packages, training and career

growth opportunities, they will be able to reduce turnover.

To disseminate the findings of this study, I will provide the results to South

Florida Manufacturing Association, all the participants and ask them to share with peers

and other managers in the manufacturing plants. I will also make the study available for

publication in the ProQuest/UMI dissertation database so people can access it. I will also

share the findings through informal avenues such as work and education platforms and

explore formal avenues such as leadership conferences, and training opportunities.

Recommendations for Further Research

The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies

manufacturing plant leaders use to reduce high employee turnover. The target population

were owners and managers from three manufacturing plants in South Florida who used

strategies that successfully reduced employee turnover. Grzenda and Buezynski (2015)

noted that employee turnover affects every business venture of all sizes and types.

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