BUSI 342 Week 4 Discussion Board Forum 2 Replies Example

Discussion Board Forum 2 Replies: Employee Retention

BUSI 342 Human Resource Management, Discussion Board Forum 2 Replies

Thread by [Student Name]

The forum prompt, the two classmates and their threads are composites; the textbook, research and Scripture cited are real.

Reply to Courtney

Courtney, your thread made a clear case that pay keeps employees, and you are right that people who feel underpaid are more likely to look elsewhere. Your example of the warehouse that lost workers to a competitor paying a dollar more an hour was persuasive. I want to suggest, though, that pay may not be the strongest lever.

Griffeth et al. (2000) combined the results of many turnover studies to see which factors best predicted who would leave. Pay and pay-related variables had only modest relationships with turnover. Much stronger predictors were job satisfaction, organizational commitment, the employee's comparison of alternatives and, strongest of all, stated intentions to quit. Retention, as Mathis et al. (2017) present it, depends on the whole relationship between an employee and the organization, including supervision, the work itself and career opportunities. A raise may keep someone for a while, but if the supervisor is unfair or the work feels pointless, the next offer will be tempting too. Pay still belongs in the plan, but mostly as a way to stay fair and competitive rather than as the main reason anyone stays.

Scripture gives a picture of a workplace people would want to stay in. When Boaz came to his field, he greeted the reapers by saying the Lord be with them, and they answered with a blessing in return (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016, Ruth 2:4). The owner knew his workers and spoke to them with respect, and that respect was returned.

In the warehouse example, do you know whether the workers who left had complaints beyond pay, such as schedules or supervisors?

Reply to Marcus

Marcus, your argument for exit interviews was well supported, and I agree that an employer who never asks departing employees why they are leaving is wasting valuable information. Your suggestion to have someone outside the employee's department conduct the interview so answers are more honest was a practical touch.

I would add a step earlier in the process. Rubenstein et al. (2018) analyzed decades of turnover research and found that, along with satisfaction and commitment, job embeddedness, the web of connections, sense of fit and things a person would give up by leaving, was among the meaningful predictors of whether people stayed. By the time of an exit interview, those ties have already been cut, and the employee has little reason to be candid about a manager they may need as a reference. A stay interview turns the exit interview around, questioning current staff about their reasons for remaining and the things that might lure them elsewhere, early enough to respond. Mathis et al. (2017) recommend gathering retention data from current employees as well as departing ones, which fits this idea. The answers could be summarized by department every quarter, so patterns show up before they become resignations.

Proverbs calls it foolish and shameful to reply to a matter before hearing it out (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016, Proverbs 18:13). An employer that listens only at the exit has answered with silence for the whole time the employee was there.

How do you think employees would react to a stay interview? Would they be honest with their own manager, or should HR conduct those too? A short pilot in one department might answer that question before the company commits.

References

English Standard Version Bible. (2016). Crossway. (Original work published 2001)

Griffeth, R. W., Hom, P. W., & Gaertner, S. (2000). A meta-analysis of antecedents and correlates of employee turnover: Update, moderator tests, and research implications for the next millennium. Journal of Management, 26(3), 463-488. https://doi.org/10.1177/014920630002600305

Mathis, R. L., Jackson, J. H., Valentine, S. R., & Meglich, P. A. (2017). Human resource management (15th ed.). Cengage Learning.

Rubenstein, A. L., Eberly, M. B., Lee, T. W., & Mitchell, T. R. (2018). Surveying the forest: A meta-analysis, moderator investigation, and future-oriented discussion of the antecedents of voluntary employee turnover. Personnel Psychology, 71(1), 23-65. https://doi.org/10.1111/peps.12226