Cover Letter and Executive Summary

Combatting High Employee Turn Over

Rates

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COMBATTING HIGH EMPLOYEE TURN OVER RATES

Niesha Turner

DeVry University

Professor O’Keefe

Technical Writing

November 29, 2015

Executive Summary

This document tackles the issue of employee turn over. Reasons behind employee turnover are numerous including poor working environment, lack of compensation, failure to reward employees, failure to involve employees in decision making among other reasons. This can have a negative impact on the performance of an organization noting that employees constitute the most important department to any organization; Human resource. Taking corrective measure thus is a must for any organization that notices the situations of employee turnover becoming prevalent. Such include among others rewarding employees, minding their health and welfare as well as taking interest in their development. Organizations ought to take care to avoid employee turnover and retain their work force for enhanced productivity.

Introduction

Employee turnover is a situation whereby employees leave a company by way of resigning, being laid off or having their contract terminated. Contracts can be renewed and being laid off can as well mean that there are problems within the organization. If mostly employees make personal decisions to leave an organizations especially by way of resigning, and then this happens to be done by many employees within an organization and within short durations of time, then it is usually a clear indicator that there I a problem that should be addressed. High employee turnover can lead to a negative image about a particular organization and it could lead to a problem by regulators if the situation looks massive. Every organization thus needs to ensure that there are measures in place to ensure that its employees are retained and as well act as ambassadors of the organization even when at work. This is only achieved when the employees are treated well and are satisfied with their jobs. When employees are happy and more satisfied with their work, they are usually more productive. Hiring the right people is the beginning point of employee retention since people that are unfit for a particular role can’t be satisfied with it especially if they do not perform according to their expectations. Besides hiring the right people, offering opportunities for growth and development of employees as well helps combat high employee turnover and so does offering flexibility in working, recognizing and rewarding employees and keeping compensation and benefits packages current.

Description and Background information

Several authors have looked into the issue of employee turn over. Almost all authors that look into the issue concur that organizational psychology can easily be used to explain the problems associated with employee turnover. With this regards, factors of motivation and demotivation are a wide range of individual elements that are very significant at determining if the employees are encouraged to keep their jobs or not.

Factors contributing to employees turn over

Factors that determine the employee turnover vary. Few things are identified as voluntary reasons that have no association with the work place situations. Examples could be retirement due to reaching the retirement age. Other than that, especially sometimes in the past, women especially used to quit working so as to take care of their families in full time capacities. This used to happen mostly out of agreements upon being married where one partner decided to be the traditionally called ‘bread winner’ while the other was a home maker (Mowday, et al 2013). Another issue in the same capacity would be getting incapacitated such that person can no longer work such as due to chronic illness which leads to such individuals quitting their jobs willingly and without work related pressures.

However, pressures related to work play bigger role at making employees quit their jobs or to be dismissed (Batt, & Colvin 2011). Excessive work is one of the few usually undisclosed reasons that affect majority employees. Despite most states having the mean working hours being around 40 hours, most deadlines that should be met necessitate employees to even work over time in situations that at times are not even compensated for. This creates inconveniences with the factors such as having an amiable work-life balance and often leads to fatigue (Kehoe, & Wright 2013). A related issue is however an unfavorable work environment from health and safety perspective. Employees can be injured or fall sick out of the health hazards that they are exposed to at their work stations. If the risks outweigh the benefits and where measures to minimize the risks are not taken, then employees often quit.

Unfavorable terms of remuneration and current benefits and compensation package as well can become a force that drives the employees out of an organization. In most situations, employees look for better opportunities elsewhere.

Lack of opportunities of development and employee growth can be a huge hindrance especially for younger employees who would like to have their careers advance and whose chances of promotion and upward trajectory of their job groups highly value this bit as an incentive. Therefore, they can comfortably look for work elsewhere where chances are better.

Effects of employee turnover on the organization

There are several negative effects of employee turnover in an organization. The most obvious of them all is a negative public image. Negative publicity results to other issues that are easily related to that. It is harder or a firm or an organization that has a high employee turnover to be able to hire new employees especially the competitive to talents. Only those that are green in their careers and those that work out of desperation or as a means of survival become available. Such employees have low productivity and need a high involvement of the management on their training and development. Similarly, there are higher costs of hiring the new employees (Judge, & Kammeyer-Mueller 2012). First of all, the cost of hiring is rather high. This doesn’t mention the benefits and compensation claims by the employees that are either laid off or by those who quit. New employees as well require a heavy deal of investment in them to develop their skills to top levels that would enhance e higher productivity. There is also a chance that regulators would as well be interested in understanding the factors that result to the situation with employees. Besides, stakeholders including customers may have a huge negative perception of the company which can affect the clientele and/or customer base as even loyal ones switch allegiance. Finally, it is worth noting that such a group of employee that remains after colleagues move out does so for reasons that still happen to force them to do so other than motivate them. Therefore, this implies that they are generally demotivated. Demotivated employees have very low levels of productivity not to mention lack of regard for the employer which as well directly influences their loyalty and commitment to the company. Correctional measures need to therefore be taken to curb the problem before a company suffers especially in the long term.

Measures to take in order to curb employee turn over

Remedies to the problems are the basic that would enhance employee job satisfaction which in turn acts as an incentive not only ensure that they are retained but also act as a ‘bait’ to attract other top talents within the organization.

Ensuring the work place follows OSHA recommendations is extremely necessary especially with regards to enhancing work place health and safety standards (Edmans, 2012). This is in addition to offering covers to employees such as insurance covers while at work. Offering medical covers beside the basic personal covers that other normal people have is also a huge incentive that shows the interest of the general well-being of the organization for the employee.

Offering opportunities for career advancement is also necessary. The opportunity comes in terms of training and development and advancing the tasks given top the employees with time where by fresh challenges give the worker a new experience and opportunity to learn. This not only gives the employees identified the morale to continue working harder but also makes them more efficient and creates chances for others to learn from those that get to be trained.

Allowing employees to have general freedom at the tasks and duties that they do motivates them by making them feel that they have a role to paly which highly builds their confidence. In simple terms, this implies that excessive monitoring and supervision can not only demotivate employees but also make them doubt their credibility and ability which effectively reduces their self-esteem and the associated positive performance.

Recognizing and rewarding performing employees also helps to motivate them and encourage them to work harder which in turn leads to increased productivity. Others as well are encouraged to work hard. Recognition can be of different forms such as giving opportunities for training to performing employees and promoting them as well.

Taking care of employee welfare also is important. Nursing mothers can have their own section where children can be taken care of. Simple things like having the company provide meals like lunch and tea as well as having team building and recreation activities organized by the company goes a long way in boosting employee morale and commitment to the organization. Freedom to have the management being involved in personal affairs of the employees as well boosts their morale and confidence in the company for the support.

Involving employees in decision making makes them to feel appreciated. Indeed, they become ‘owners’ of the company other than being owned as a means to achieve an end by the company. Such an initiative as well offers an excellent opportunity to ensure that decisions made are considerable and do not subject employees to unfavorable circumstances.

Conclusion and recommendation

In their analysis, Glebbeek and Bax (2004) argue that high employee turnover is always highly discouraged since it portrays any company negatively. As a matter of fact, it is bound to lose stake holders, have a negative public image and make it hard for it to hire new employees. Therefore, it is crucial to have the management doing anything possible to minimize employee turnover and enhance commitment and loyalty.

References

Batt, R., & Colvin, A. J. (2011). An employment systems approach to turnover: Human

resources practices, quits, dismissals, and performance. Academy of management Journal, 54(4), 695-717.

Edmans, A. (2012). The link between job satisfaction and firm value, with implications for corporate social responsibility. The Academy of Management Perspectives, 26(4), 1-19.

Glebbeek, A. C., & Bax, E. H. (2004). Is high employee turnover really harmful? An empirical test using company records. Academy of Management Journal, 47(2), 277-286.

Judge, T. A., & Kammeyer-Mueller, J. D. (2012). Job attitudes. Annual Review of psychology, 63, 341-367.

Kehoe, R. R., & Wright, P. M. (2013). The impact of high-performance human resource

practices on employees’ attitudes and behaviors. Journal of Management, 39(2), 366-391.

Mowday, R. T., Porter, L. W., & Steers, R. M. (2013). Employee—organization linkages: The psychology of commitment, absenteeism, and turnover. Academic Press.