Employee Turnover

Employee Turnover Defined

Statements like “I quit with immediate effective” or “We are going to terminate your contract” are often as a result of dissatisfaction between employees and their employers. Employee turnover has been continuously investigated since the start of the 20th century; Holtom et al (2008) pointed out that after more than fifty years of research and fifteen hundred published articles, scholars still continue to investigate this topic. In today’s ever changing corporate culture, employers still face the problem of retaining employees and maintaining their human resource capital. According to Mobley (1977), we can define turnover as a withdrawal decision process in a sequence of several psychological steps.

Effect of high Employee Turnover

Deery and Shaw (1997) stated that high employee turnover is considered a hindrance to achieving high levels of productivity and efficiency in business operations. The effects of high employee turnover on businesses are abundant and include high costs for the recruitment and training of new employees, disruptions in organizational operation and reduced customer service and quality. Boswell, Boudreau and Tichy (2005) stated the turnover affects not only the organization but the employee can also suffer, giving up known routines and the loss of personal connections can be quite stressful. Needless to say, identifying the possible reasons for employee turnover continues to be a topic of importance in modern day human resource management.

This review examines the existing literature on employee turnover in an attempt to identify the possible reasons for the high employee turnover currently experienced by Company X and possible ways of reducing it.

Research has produced several theories on the issue of turnover, the review of the literature highlighted 5 key models that identify the causal factors behind employee turnover. Through continuous research, the evolution of existing frameworks has allowed for the...