Employee Retention a Toughest Challenge: Why the Tide has Turned

 

In this rapidly changing economy, companies should be able to compete with other companies with technological innovations for their future existence. Even though, Today, most of the organizations are found to be technology driven, still human resources are required. Human resources made huge impact on the organization’s success. It can be termed the life-blood. So, securing and retaining skilled employees plays a biggest challenge except to managing these resources.

What is retention?

 

Employee retention can be defined as encouraging employees to stay with an organization for about given maximum period of time. In another way it is the ability of an organization to prevent employees leaving their job either voluntary or involuntarily. According to Bidisha (2013), defined this as “a process of keeping the employees with the organization for maximum period of time or till the date of the project completion”. In Mita (2014), explained employee retention as “a technique followed by companies to maintain an effective workforce by meeting operational requirements”. It is a key factor in an organization's ability to hold on to its employees. It is defined as the strategies an organization develops to mitigate employee turnover risks and the processes it puts in place to increase retention of top talent. Organizations must understand the difference between valuable and not-so-valuable employees and make efforts to encourage them to stay in the organization. Long-term employees are more loyal to the management and the organization, and are more familiar with the company's policies and guidelines. Above figure summarized whole retention process in to a simple professional and modern template which is useful for HR managers, company executives, startups regarding employee retention explanation.

Why is employee retention more important?

A positively motivated skilled employee is an asset for the organization's success. Employee turnover sets back productivity because it takes time for a new worker to get up to speed and produce at a comparable level. Also, the organization’s morale will be impacted negatively. High turnover can lead to decreased quality of work, lost productivity, burnout, and decreased employee engagement, which can lead to increased turnover and hinder the company's overall success. Companies must focus on replacing talent and addressing issues related to lost productivity and burnout to reduce turnover. Organizations can reduce recruiting costs and improve employee retention by focusing on employee retention. Implementing an effective employee retention process is very important to balance and maintain job performance and productivity of any organization. Benefits of employee retention can be shown as follows;

Below video explains about the importance of getting the right employee at the right time and keeping the employees happy long time, maintaining employee morale and securing reputation of company on social media. It indicates about the importance of employee retention.

Source : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csQAQbb9FAc

Conclusion

Employee retention is essential for successful organizations, as high turnover leads to costly replacements. Retention leads to “cost reduction, morale improvement, experienced employees, Efficiency in recruitment and training, Product increment, better customer experience, improved culture, better employee experience, increased revenue, job satisfaction... etc.” in an organization. This study attempted to bring forth all the factors related to employee retention, but further investigations are needed to better equip organizations with knowledge to improve their retention capability. However, It’s good to keep in mind, retain is much better than retrain.

References

Bidisha, L. D and Mukulesh, B. (2013) Employee Retention A Review of Literature. Journal of Business and Management, 14, 8-16. - References - Scientific Research Publishing . 2023. Bidisha, L. D and Mukulesh, B. (2013) Employee Retention A Review of Literature. Journal of Business and Management, 14, 8-16. - References - Scientific Research Publishing . [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.scirp.org/(S(351jmbntvnsjt1aadkozje))/reference/referencespapers.aspx?referenceid=1768924. [Accessed 02 March 2023].

Mita, M., Aarti K. and Ravneeta, D. (2014) Study on Employee Retention and Commitment. International Journal of Advance Research in Computer Science and Management Studies, 2, 154-164. - References - Scientific Research Publishing . 2023. Mita, M., Aarti K. and Ravneeta, D. (2014) Study on Employee Retention and Commitment. International Journal of Advance Research in Computer Science and Management Studies, 2, 154-164. - References - Scientific Research Publishing . [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.scirp.org/(S(i43dyn45teexjx455qlt3d2q))/reference/ReferencesPapers.aspx?ReferenceID=1768925. [Accessed 07 March 2023].

jordan.friedman. 2023. 14 Effective Employee Retention Strategies for 2023. [ONLINE] Available at: https://emeritus.org/blog/strategies-for-employee-retention/. [Accessed 10 March 2023].

Study on Determining Factors of Employee Retention. 2023. Study on Determining Factors of Employee Retention. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.scirp.org/html/18-1760883_66904.htm#return0. [Accessed 11 March 2023].