Why Employees Stay?
Although numerous studies have been conducted on employee turnover
(why people leave), according to some scholars, limited amount of literature
addresses employee job embeddedness (why people stay) (Kilburn & Kilburn,
2008; Zhao & Liu, 2010). Later, Lawler III (2005) stated that in these days
organizations are competing for talent rather than counting employees loyalty.
In this shift, organizations must utilize those practices which are in favor of
both employees and employers leading them towards higher performance levels. It
is important to recruit strategy driven and shrewd employees because it creates
sense of alignment between employee and organizational values and goals (Vignesh,
Babu 2014).
Employee job embeddedness may be defined as employees who become
part of a social web that connects them to an organization or social network,
ultimately reducing turnover costs (Mitchell, Holtom, Lee, Sablynski, &
Ezrez, 2001; Lee & Mitchell, 1994). Vos & Meganck (2009) indicated that
career development plan for the employees play a vital role in the retention of
employees. Providing these career development opportunities make employees stay
and increase their loyalty towards organization.
Links connect people to groups and teams; fit seeks to delineate
through the perspectives of individuals how they best fit into the job,
community, and organization; and, sacrifices, lend itself to changes or
transitions of a job (Mitchell et al., 2001). Given the importance of this
issue, employee job embeddedness theory warranted more attention (Crossley,
Bennett, Jex, & Burnfield, 2007; Holtom & Inderrienden, 2006). Within
that context, several theoretical schools of thought have been explored in
examining the needs and well-being of individuals from broader constructs to
include: (a) employee turnover and employee job embeddedness; (b) recruitment,
retention, and generational differences; (c) human relations; and (d)
leadership styles (Holmes et al., 2013).
Cowart believes that “Employee disengagement is the single most
important factor in declining productivity, which leads to higher absenteeism,
higher costs of doing business, and all around poor performance” (Cowart 2014).
The solution to engagement and retention issues is the ability of the manager
to truly understand what is in the hearts and minds of their employees and the
right dialogue can motivate employees to stick around and not just be part of
the change, but help drive it (Cowart 2014).
Table 1: What does your employee need? Discusses four domains of the employee needs as: (1) Looking for
careers and supporting growth; (2) Family balance; (3) Reward and Recognition;
and (4) Dignity and Respect.
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What Does Your Employee Need? When asking employees what would motivate them more on the job, managers can offer solutions to common employees’ answers. If the employee is looking for careers and supporting growth, the
manager can suggest:
If family balance is important, suggestions might include:
If reward and recognition are top motivators, the manager may revisit the way he praises his employees. Most effective praise is:
If the employee seeks dignity and respect to better engage,
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Source: Adapted from Love ‘em or Lose ‘em, Getting Good People to Stay—26 Engagement Strategies for Busy Managers Fourth Edition, by Beverly Kaye and Sharon Jordan-Evans.
Leaders might further understand how to recognize various degrees
of job embeddedness to develop retention plans and lower the escalated costs of
turnover (Swider, Boswell, & Zimmerman, 2011). The problem of turnover is
important and putting the joint forces of job embeddedness (fit, links, and
sacrifices) together to retain employees who stay highly embedded can be the
catalyst for change (Mitchell et al., 2001).
List of References:
Cowart, L., 2014. Why employee
morale matters-especially now. Public Manager, 43(1), p.44.
Holmes, P., Chapman, T. and
Baghurst, T., 2013. Employee job embeddedness: Why people stay. International Journal of Business Management & Economic Research, 4(5).
Kaye, B., 2010. Love'em or Lose'em: Getting Good People to Say. ReadHowYouWant. com.
Lawler III E. Edward. (2005), “Creating high performance
organizations, Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources”, Vol.43, No.10. pp.
10-17.
Mitchell, T. R., Holtom, B. C., Lee, T. W., Sablynski, C. J., &
Erez, M. (2001). Why people stay: Using job embeddedness to predict voluntary
turnover. Academy of Management Journal, 44, 1102-1121. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3069391
Swider, B. W., Boswell, W. R., & Zimmerman, R. D. (2011).
Examining the job search—turnover relationship: The role of embeddedness, job
satisfaction, and available alternatives. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96,
432-441. doi:10.1037/a0021676
Vignesh, A.P. and Babu, M., 2014.
Stay interviews: A missing facet of employee retention strategy. Paripex-Indian Journal of Research, 3(1).
Vos, D. Ans., & Meganck, A.(2009), “What HR managers do versus
what employees value Exploring both parties’ views on retention management from
a psychological contract perspective”, Personnel Review, Vol.38, No.1, pp.
45-60. | | Unpublished Dissertations and Theses
Zhao, E., & Liu, L. (2010). Comments on development of job
embeddedness about study on turnover and exploration into application in
enterprises. Asian Social Science, 7(6), 63-70. Retrieved from http://journal.ccsenet.org/index.php/ass/index
Agreed with your arguments. Further to understand the factors underlying employee retention; achievement, recognition for achievement, the work itself, relationship with supervisors, company policies and administration are the top criteria that employees use to decide whether they should jump ship or stay with an organization (Gupta-Sunderji, 2004).
ReplyDeleteYes Iresha. However, despite the vast literature on employee turnover, which is aimed at
Deleteidentifying factors that cause employees to quit (Griffeth, Hom, & Gaertner, 2000), much less is known about the factors that compel employees to stay. For example, Maertz & Campion (1998) noted “relatively less turnover research has focused specifically on how an employee decides to remain with an organization and what determines this attachment…retention processes should be studied along with quitting processes”.
Steel, Griffeth, & Hom (2002) added “the fact is often overlooked, but the reasons people stay are not always the same as the reasons people leave”.
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ReplyDeleteAgreed. According to Curtis and Write (2001), employees who are highly organizationally committed with membership value and in agreement with the goals and value systems are likely to stay and further prepare to work hard on its behalf.
ReplyDeleteYes Jayashi. However, throughout history, reducing employee turnover remained high on the agenda of leaders of every industry across the nation because of the burdensome costs associated with it (North, Rasmussen, Hughes, & Finlayson, 2005). Many traditional attitudinal theories on turnover emerged throughout the 1980s and 1990s with new ideas on job satisfaction, commitment, and alternative job search (Felps et al., 2009).
DeleteAgreed with what you stated. Motivation is a significant factor that urges people to give their best execution and help in arriving at big business objectives. (Jain , A. et al., 2019)’’. With higher level of motivation it is obvious that the organization can achieve better employee engagement and finally it will lead to lesser turnover and satisfied workforce who drives the organization towards its goals and objectives.
ReplyDeleteYes Roshini. As evidenced from the findings of the literature review, the higher an individual is embedded in the social web or net, the more likely the person binds to both the job and the organization; whereas, the lower an individual is embedded, the more likely the person shows interest in leaving (Mitchell, Holtom, Lee, Sablynski, & Ezrez, 2001)
DeleteAgreed. Further, motivated employees are more engaged in their work (Rich 2006), their performance is of higher quality (Cerasoli et al. 2014) and they profit more from occupational training (Massenberg et al. 2015). Additionally, they are more strongly committed to their work, work longer hours, pick more challenging goals to achieve (Becker et al. 2015), and are more willing to share knowledge at the workplace (Lin2007).
ReplyDeleteAgreed Nuwan. Theoretical insights into human relations positioned organizations to view employees as human beings with cares and needs, rather than as property or machines (LaRue et al., 2006). Extant research suggested that exploring theories on job embeddedness opens a variety of avenues to develop strategies that may motivate employees to stay with an organization; thus, significantly widening the scope and depth of the existing literature (Sekiguchi et al., 2008; Zhao & Liu, 2010).
DeletePeople who respect and appreciate their team members, have a tendency to get along with the team and the sense of team belonging is a big reason why people stay with the companies (Jackie, 2020 ).
ReplyDeleteYes. Carmeli, Dutton and Hardin (2015) have suggested that relationships more directly influence the creative process by enhancing individuals’ capacities and motivating them to engage with others. In particular, if individuals interrelate in ways that foster respect, relationships serve as means for endogenously resourcing individuals and fostering creativity. This endogenous resourcing viewpoint complements a more exogenous resourcing approach, as captured in a social exchange perspective.
DeleteI would like to point out an interesting fact, Great employees stay because giving up that something special is giving up too much. Work has purpose and meaning: There are long-term employees that stay simply because they're comfortable. Great employees have unique talents; they want to excel and succeed by doing work that has purpose and meaning (Ducoff, 2017).
ReplyDeleteRight. Since individuals spend the majority of their time from the age of 20 to 70 in organizations and relationships are central to the meaning of being, relationships in the workplace are of paramount importance (Dutton and Ragins, 2007; Gini, 1998). They are the seed-corn for important human accomplishments such as creativity (Carmeli et al., 2015).
DeleteAgreed with your argument. I would like to add few point. If organization need to stay their employees , they must having good leadership. leader can make a better place to employees. Then, employee will stay long time. Leadership style is said to be an important factor of employee retention amongst other factors such as career growth, interpersonal relationships with co-workers and pay (Bhatnagar, 2007) and previous research has found that a relationship exists between leadership style and employee retention (Kleinman, 2004).
ReplyDeleteThanks Sanjeewani for sharing your point. Sharma and Jain (2013) define leadership as a process by which a person influences others to accomplish an objective and directs the organization in a way that makes it more cohesive and coherent. And according to Zaccaro and Klimoski (2001) positions of leadership are established in work settings to help organizational subunits to achieve the purposes for which they exist within the larger system.
DeleteYes, One of the useful techniques to encourage teamwork is to celebrating your employees during Employee Appreciation Day which is on First Friday in March. Figaro (2021) argues "While employers have been incredibly grateful for the workforce’s flexibility, Employee Appreciation Day might just be the best day to honor what employees have been through and celebrate the positive that lies ahead".
ReplyDelete