The retention of personnel is one of the key processes of Human Resources Management. The management model is understood as the set of decisions taken by the top managers of a company regarding the retention of employees called talents, and that is applied to meet the needs of human capital and that the strategy of the organization. The retention of talent is important in a company due to the high costs that employee turnover generates. A high turnover rate adversely affects the productivity of the entire team. Hence it is essential to invest in strategies to improve this rate and ensure that the best employees remain in their positions, always engaged and productive.
Furthermore, building a successful team is not an easy task, thus after this achievement, it is worth investing in some efforts to maintain it. Engaging employees is one of the great challenges facing organizations today. Every manager wants to have more committed professionals in their team, who carry out their activities with maximum commitment and are aligned with the values and principles of the company. The engaged employee is not only the one who is satisfied and motivated but also connected to the vision of the organization both intellectually and emotionally. It is difficult for an employee with little time in the company to reach this level of commitment. The more involved with the goals of the company, the greater the likelihood of satisfaction and engagement (Campbell, Ganco, Franco & Agarwal, 2011). Likewise, productivity is directly linked to engagement, since the more committed and dedicated employees are, the more they produce.
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Professionals with goals and values aligned with the company are naturally more productive, perform their tasks more quickly and make decisions more effectively. Retention of talent ensures that team productivity is not disrupted.
Management Programs and Practices
The objective of the training is to stimulate new knowledge, update skills, prepare people for changes in their careers, rectify deficiencies in skills and knowledge and improve the attitudes of employees towards work. Training raises commitment levels among personnel. It can be affirmed that individuals are the greatest source of knowledge retention, given their ability to remember, articulate and experience as well as integrate information with non-human elements such as systems, structures, procedures, and strategy. Employees who receive the constant message that the organization values and cares for them readily identify with the mission of the company. For many highly qualified employees, it is essential to develop and improve their professional skills constantly.
Remuneration policies also play a crucial role in the retention of employees. Organizations have considered that offering the employee salaries and wages above the average salary would be the basis for an important strategy of retention. However, people change their priorities, and so, the experience is demonstrating that it is not as important as optimizing benefits, which focus on the reconciliation of private interests with those of the organization through the flexibility of work shifts, quality of life, workplace environment and organizational culture.
It can be argued then that money has limits increasing job satisfaction, which leads to the question of how to continue to satisfy the workers, beyond the remuneration granted to them. Besides, it will not always be possible to continue increasing the amounts of wages given to employees. There are different conceptualizations of emotional salary which can contribute to increasing the satisfaction of employees and ensure their permanence in an organization. Emotional salary is a concept associated with the remuneration of an employee which includes issues of a non-economic nature, whose purpose is to satisfy the personal, family and professional needs of the worker, to improve the quality of life, and to promote labor conciliation. This type of remuneration can act as a motivating factor for the employees and thus improve the opinion that workers have of the company. For that reason, it is not about receiving a greater amount of money, but receiving benefits that the worker understands as more valuable than a pay rise. One of the most significant advantages of this remuneration policy relates to the attraction and retention of talent. Therefore, it is of vital importance to resort to the best strategies to keep the employee at ease within the company (Kwak, Mo & Yoon, 2016). To achieve this goal, the only effective recipe is to provide a demanding, effective and positive environment for work.
Promoting a positive work environment is a determining factor in the retention of talent since employees want to feel comfortable and maintain good social and professional relationships. The organizational climate, also called labor climate, work environment or organizational environment, is crucial for competitive organizations that seek to achieve greater productivity and improvement in the service offered. Conducting a study of organizational climate allows detecting key aspects that may be impacting the working environment of the organization importantly. If the human potential is the competitive weapon of the company, it is very important to assess and pay due attention to it especially in the contemporary world. The positive consequences of a good working environment include achievement, affiliation, identification, discipline, collaboration, productivity, low rotation, satisfaction, adaptation, and innovation. A positive climate encourages greater motivation and therefore better productivity on the part of the workers. Another important advantage of a positive organizational climate organizational is an increase in commitment and loyalty to the company. Moreover, the recognition of the organizational climate allows for planned changes to be introduced in training, incentives, promotions, rotations, welfare, and improvement of instruments or machinery as well as modify the attitudes and behaviors of the members.
The company’s staff have well-defined career goals and certainly expect recognition and rewards for their good performance. One strategy that is widely used today and which has proven to be very effective in retaining talent is the creation of a benefits program, which consists of setting goals and offering challenges, with bonuses for achievements.
It is important to say that the rewards do not need - and should not - be just cash bonuses. The main point should be the possibility of professional growth and investment in employee development. Scholarships in language courses and specializations are great examples, as well as training and coaching that seek to improve the skills of employees. That said, the retention of employees is a subject that cannot be ignored by organizations. It is worth investing in for recruited personnel to feel satisfied and willing to remain in the company.
Evaluation System for Assessing the Effectiveness of Retention Management Methods
High rates of turnover during the period of adaptation that is 3-6 months, indicate mistakes in the selection of personnel (selection criteria, conformity of candidates) and its adaptation (adaptation process, availability of mentoring systems, etc.), inconsistency of personal motives and corporate culture, and relations with management (Phillips & Connell, 2004). The indicators of the evaluation system enable the company to:
assess the costs of staff losses and their appropriateness;
evaluate the effectiveness of retention processes (competitiveness of the system of rewards and benefits, motivational programs, graduation programs, and career development programs);
plan the number and costs of functions (budgeting costs);
plan the amount of necessary resources in the field of training and development of personnel;
identify problems in the management of staff performance; and
identify the motives behind high turnover.
Low absolute indicators of staff turnover (up to 5% per year) in most cases contribute to the timely updating of the team and do not require prompt intervention in the process. A small coefficient of fluidity is even useful for the organization, as the composition of the organization is updated (new practices are introduced). If the company's staff turnover is close to 0% or well below the market median in a comparable industry, then perhaps it is worth paying attention to the qualitative characteristics of the staff (the structure of the staff by age, length of service, and qualifications) and the efficiency of employees.
The average (acceptable) level of staff turnover is usually (without regard to industry specificity) is 5 to 10%. At the same time, the costs of recruitment and adaptation of personnel inevitably increase, labor productivity decreases and losses associated with them arise.
The high level of personnel turnover (excluding industry specificity) from 10 to 30% may indicate that the company is either unable to monitor the loss of key employees, or characterize the retention strategy. In the first case, this is an alarm signal, which leads to the destabilization of the company's development. If the indicator is significantly higher or significantly lower than the industry level, an additional analysis of the reasons for the layoffs is necessary. The increase in the natural turnover of staff in relation to the total amount of layoffs reveals problems in the retention strategy (in the area of determining the size and composition of remuneration, the system of motivation and benefits, the opportunities for training and career development, and the value proposition of the employer).
References
Campbell, B., Ganco, M., Franco, A., & Agarwal, R. (2011). Who Leaves, Where To, and Why Worry? Employee Mobility, Entrepreneurship, and Effects on Source Firm Performance. Strategic Management Journal , 33 (1), 65-87. doi: 10.1002/smj.943
Kwak, B., Mo, K., & Yoon, N. (2016). Manager Retention and Post-Bankruptcy Performance: Evidence from South Korea. Emerging Markets Finance and Trade , 52 (11), 2530-2545. doi: 10.1080/1540496x.2016.1196588
Phillips, J. J., & Connell, A. O. (2004). Managing Employee Retention . Routledge.
