Employee retention
Employee retention refers to the ability of an organization to retain its employees. Employee retention can be represented by a simple statistic (for example, a retention rate of 80% usually indicates that an organisation kept 80% of its employees in a given period). However, many consider employee retention as relating to the efforts by which employers attempt to retain employees in their workforce. In this sense, retention becomes the strategies rather than the outcome.
In a Business setting, the goal of employers is usually to decrease employee turnover, thereby decreasing training costs, recruitment costs and loss of talent and organisational knowledge. By implementing lessons learned from key organizational behavior concepts employers can improve retention rates and decrease the associated costs of high turnover. However, this isn't always the case. Employers can seek "positive turnover" whereby they aim to maintain only those employees who they consider to be high performers.
Retention Strategies
In order to retain employees and reduce turnover managers must meet the goals of employees without losing sight of the organization's goals, thereby creating a "win-win" situation. Valance and expectancy theories provided some of the earlier guidance for retaining employees.
Valence is the degree to which the rewards offered by an organization align with the needs employees seek to fulfill. High valence indicates that the needs of employees are aligned well with the rewards system an organization offers. Conversely, low valence is a poor alignment of needs with rewards and can lead to low job satisfaction and thereby increase turnover and decrease retention.
Job satisfaction can simply be defined as the feelings people have about their jobs.[1] It has been specifically defined as a pleasurable (or unpleasurable) emotional state resulting from