Employee Turnover Literature Review

Introduction

Employees turnover is the frequent employees' leaving their jobs in a business organization and it represents a great problem that business entities suffer due to the results it leaves passively on the organization such as the lack of experiences, the need to exert efforts and costs to train and prepare new employees to take the positions of those leaving employees and the limited time periods for getting new employees who may not be as good as those leaving members. In Oman; there are high rates of employees' turnover resulting from the high number of foreign employees working in Oman in both public and private sectors and due to the traditional leadership  styles used by leaders and the work environment in some business organizations as all these factors affect the way the organization is trying to retain its employees and then leads to high rates of turnover that affects the success of the company and leads to its failure and making great loss. The problem of employees turnover in A' Safwa Dairy Company SAOG has been dealt with in the first part of this assignment as the company suffered high rates of employees' turnover resulted from different reasons including leadership style, having foreign employees with high rates, lack of satisfying work environment and other reasons. The current paper is a critical review of the literature of part one of this assignment in order to evaluate the literature, relevant used theories and models with a clear justification for selecting these theories, models and techniques. The paper is also a reflection of the debates in the literature about the concepts used.

Critical review of the literature of part 1

According to Hom and Griffeth, (2001)employees turnover is defined as that ratio of leaving work by employees to be divided on the employees' total number and this can be true to some extent as according to Philips and Cornell, (2004), employees turnover means that the organization loses its employees suddenly and it can be voluntary or not. This definition can then decide that employees turnover can be voluntary or not but this research is discussing voluntary turnover of employees and the passive effects it leaves over business organizations. Shamsuzzoha and Shumon, (2015) discussed how employees turnover can be harmful on the organization and can cause different problems and losses for the business and they stressed on the need to study the reasons behind employees turnover in order to face them and find solutions for them. This view is also confirmed by Tariq, Ramzan and Riaz, (2013) who also stressed the need to make deep analysis for the real reasons behind employees turnover in the organization and that this requires understanding the way the organization is doing its work, how communication is applied, the nature of work environment and the leadership styles applied in the organization. The first part of the research discussed this in relation to A'Safwa business organization and referred to the organization's need to make such analysis and to investigate these reasons, it is also suggested that the organization tries to communicate with employees and leaders and try to identify the real reasons behind employees' turnover and if these reasons are resulting from employees' personal opinions or as a result of things that are found in the work environment and cause the employees to suffer and feel dissatisfied. O'Halloran (2012) reported that voluntary turnover is the most impacting type of turnover of employees as it has many negative outcomes that organizations suffer and that it can cause different losses on the business organization because it is not expected by the organization and that leadership suffers the lack of employees who can replace those leaving employees and that it is a shock to leadership to face high rates of turnover which makes it a great problem the organization suffers and should seek solutions. This view was also presented by Saeed et al, (2014) who added that voluntary turnover has deep intentions inside employees' minds and that most leaving employees are planning for it for long periods of time before leaving decisions are made and that is true that employees' voluntary turnover causes perplexity in the organization and makes leadership not able to take decisions with those employees as even punishment is not effective or acceptable especially when those leaving employees have the legal rights to leave work suddenly or they have short term contracts with the organization. The first part referred to involuntary turnover and tried to explain it through the literature according to Arokiasamy, (2013)who gave some information about it but although this is not needed here as the research is discussing voluntary turnover in A'Safwa Dairy Company SAOG, it was needed to explain it in order to focus that this research is not dealing with involuntary turnover and to show that it is completely different from voluntary turnover. The first part referred to views by Chang, (2009), as he referred to solutions that can be applied there in the business organization and reduce or end employees' turnover such as following practices and strategies that can reduce it including new leadership practices, applying employees' engagement effectively, following competitive compensation and making modifications on the work environment in order to make it more attractive for employees and retain them. This is confirmed by many authors such as Gerhart, (1990) who discussed the issue and confirmed that when employees are job satisfied, they usually feel belonging for the organization and feel not leaving it as they have high morale and high levels of job satisfaction and these things relate all to the organization and its work environment, the opportunities it presents to its employees, how far they are engaged and if there is a reward system that can really provide them with the appreciation needed for them and the promotion strategy and if it suits the employees' performance and can be promising for their future aspirations so it is good for the organization to investigate its current status and check if employees are satisfied with what they really have or there are complaints and dissatisfaction levels.

Theories and models presented in the first part were presented due to the effect they leave in the literature and because there are many authors who stressed on the importance of using them; the research presented how the human relation theory discussed the needs of employees and the relation of these needs with people management; the theory was presented through the views of Rose, (2005) who stated how the theory is dealing with the human factor and raising its importance and the needs that individuals have in the workplace and that these needs may be physical or psychological or others but they need to be studied deeply by the leadership; the theory can also be viewed according to Warner, (2007) as he discussed the employees interests at work and how management can regard them in order to improve the morale of employees, he also confirmed on the need to compensate employees as much as possible and that they have to be protected by ensuring they have all they need as this helps in meeting the interests and needs of the organization itself. The first part used the theory in order to focus on the importance of giving interest to employees' interests by managers and leaders in a way that ensures applying their needs which can be explained through the human relations theory and this can well be seen through the leadership style as A'Safwa Dairy Company still suffering a transactional leadership style that needs to be replaced with a better transformational leadership style that depends on communication among employees and how to understand their needs by leaders in order to change the work environment to suit such needs and to raise employees' morale. Warrick, (1981) explained how the leadership style can affect the degree of employees' satisfaction in a business organization and he referred to the need of applying the proper leadership style and that employees can be retained by a leadership style that focuses on giving much appreciation to employees and raising their morale with a good motivation system and a strategy that depends on investing in employees and considering them a main asset of the organization, he also referred to the human relation theory and referred to work conditions and work climate and their need to assert human interests to retain employees by making them work in an acceptable work environment. He stated that a leader's style is the most important variable that can be focused on to affect employees' performance and satisfaction as job challenge and job interest added to the organizational work conditions are very important for employees' retaining because a good work environment where employees have enough opportunities to be promoted and grow can make them more self confident and can improve relationships between employees and leaders which is considered a consequence of the leadership style that should focus on communication and human relations mainly.

The first part of the research discussed soft systems theory and how leaders can act according where they live of real world and that this can in turn affect the way employees work and feel in the business organization, this was through the views of Coffey, (2009) as he discussed how leaders' attitudes can affect the job satisfaction of employees and that this can help employees be more satisfied when leaders thoughts and attitudes were positive towards achieving employees' needs and respecting them. The research also came near the hard systems theory and confirmed its importance in maintain employees within an organization as according to Ibrahim and Alsabbah, (2014), hard systems focus on the features of the objectives of the organization and how the organizational goals should mainly depend on retaining employees and considering them one of the main values of the organization as this can help in retaining employees and reducing their turnover rates through understanding them and considering their needs through the organizational goals. They also referred to other different systems such as the general systems theory and they confirmed that it is important as it helps understand the employees' way of working in the organization and if the organization is following soft or hard systems as this helps in realizing the way of thinking of employees and the organization's leadership which helps in retaining employees by focusing on their needs as hard competence for example can help the leadership motivate employees through encouraging them to have more skills related to the organizational success and that soft competence can improve the employees' morale by training them to have mores skills that can help them be promoted sooner and receive more recognition rewards from the organization. These theories were chosen in the first part due to their great importance in reducing employees; turnover, this can be seen and confirmed through the views of Dainty, Bagilhole and Neale, (1998) as they confirmed the need to retain professional employees in business organizations by increasing salary levels of employees and managers who are important to the business organization and they added that this helps in maintaining the stability of the work force which can help in improving the competitive advantage of the business in front of competitors and they referred to the need to apply both soft systems and hard systems theories in order to fill the gap in employees' skills and raise the level of experience by training employees which has long term effects on both employees and the organization. They confirmed that organizations where employees have competitive salaries are more able to retain its employees even if they are foreigners as this makes employees are more encouraged to stay in the jobs and they also confirmed that organizations that appreciate its employees are also able to retain them and make them more loyal to the organization where they feel a part of and where they have all they dream of ambitions they deserve. This makes it important to understand that foreigner employees who leave work in A'Safwa Dairy may be leaving jobs to their countries where they can be promoted easier than in Oman and this makes Omanization is not the only solution to retaining professionals who may not be found in Oman in the current stage.  

The first part of the research discussed the need of the contingency approach in analyzing the organization and finding out the reasons behind employees' turnover as this was presented through a discussion of the views of Zeffane, (1994) who discussed the theory importance in that regard as it helps understand the relationship between the leadership style and the employees' values as the theory stated that some leadership style can be better in retaining employees and other can't but they may be very serious and can cause employees' turnover such as bureaucratic leadership styles such as the transactional leadership as it may lead to employees' turnover due to the lack of communication that enables leaders realize the employees' needs and then to apply them. This approach was chosen for the need to have employees' retention practices within the organization by applying a type of contingent retention to employees that depends on the corporate activities that can be used to retain employees such as compensation practices which are very important in retaining employees especially in multinational organizations where discrimination can be found and this is very important to be applied in A'Safwa Dairy group as it can be seen that salaries of Omani workers are higher than salaries of the same workers from other foreign countries. This was confirmed in a study for Reiche, (2008) who added that contingent retention depends mainly on applying fairness and justice among employees to protect employees from temptations of other business organizations and to keep talents in the organization and he confirmed on the need to have monetary incentives to retain employees as this encourages the core employees to be retained in the organization and reduces loss resulting from their turnover. The first part discussed the avoidability matrix for retaining employees as this was presented through the views of Morrell, Clarke and Wilkinson, (2015), as they discussed the unweaving leaving of employees referring to their voluntary leaving their jobs and organizations and discussed the avoidability matrix as it is a model for measuring the rates and numbers of the employees who left the jobs and classifies them into categories and each category refers to a specific reason or a group of reasons that made them leave work. This was confirmed by She et al, (2013) as they discussed the need to apply the avoidability matrix in the business organization as they explained that the matrix can have the turnover type and that it can either be actual or perceived and that turnover intents can be avoidable or not and that there should be a prevention and control orientation to be practiced by the organization to reduce turnover of employees and the matrix show that entrepreneurial attitudes can change employees' intents of leaving the job as they can control the levels of dissatisfaction among employees by meeting their needs and ensuring a safe environment for them to work in.

The first part of the research referred to Wang, (2007) views about how to reduce employees' turnover levels through applying an evaluation system model that can be used for analyzing the risk of employees' turnover in the business organization and discussed the system which provides some factors that can lead to employees turnover and they are found in the business organization and its work environment, the system was referred to due to its importance in measuring the real turnover attitudes in the organization and the factors impact individually as this can help in managing employees' turnover in the organization by leadership practices and the different motivating activities of human resources management. This can also be asserted by Yan and Yan, (2015) who referred to the evaluation system model as the model focuses on the talent resources in the organization and how to evaluate the talented employees' skills and needs and measure their level of satisfaction and then to work hard to improve their skills as well as their satisfaction as the model measures the cost and the level of individuals turnover by using system configuration management in addition to risk management criteria as turnover is considered a risk that threatens the organizational stability and lead to different losses. This view confirmed that assessment is very important to be applied in the business organizations in order to focus on the real reasons behind turnover and then to fix them. The first part of the research referred to the core self theories and that they can be used by the leadership of the organization in order to apply core self evaluation practices via the usage of critical analysis that can measure employees' turnover and the rates related to it; this can be done periodically such as yearly measurements as it helps in reducing the turnover levels through identifying the performance levels of employees and investigating the reasons for their satisfaction and dissatisfaction and recognizing the different factors relevant to this in order to provide organizational support for employees who need training or promotion and the to make the needed feedback for developing the employees' levels of performance and encouraging them to be more engaged in decision making within the organization. This was presented through discussing a study by Joo, Hahn and Peterson, (2014) as they tried to set a base for retaining employees through evaluating their needs by themselves and by the organization and comparing them with the organizational needs. This can be confirmed by Javed et al, (2014) as they confirmed the need to apply evaluation based on core self theories and they added that a metal analysis can also be effective in this regard and they confirmed that core self evaluation is negatively related to the different turnover intentions of employees.

The first part of the research discussed a study by Perez, (2008) for it presented a job coupling model that is used for reducing employees' turnover by studying the withdraw tendency of employees from their jobs and stated that the job coupling model is investigating how to retain employees through realizing the components of that model and explained them by referring to the off the job coupling and on-the job coupling, this model was referred to in the first part because it is important for understanding the trends of the organizational policies and then to build upon them new policies and strategies for retaining employees and reducing their turnover rates. This can be regarded by the views of Long et al, (2012) who referred in their study to different models including the job coupling model and other models of employee turnover and they confirmed that the use of these models is very essential as they enable the leadership of the organization to be aware of the factors relevant to employees turnover and how to face them and this was also confirmed by Besich, (2005) who discussed different models of employees turnover focusing on factors such as age, job satisfaction, gender and other factors that affect employees' turnover in the business organization and that the traditional models of employees turnover should be faced by other modern models such as March and Simon's model and Mobley's model as these models were mentioned in the first part of the research as they confirmed on using these models for dealing with voluntary turnover and finding solutions to turnover using them as these models depend on understanding the employees' abilities to take decisions of leaving the work and such theories specifies the factors causing the leaving decision such as perceived ease of movement and perceived desirability of movement which are presented by the March and Simon's model as both of them refer to assessing the job satisfaction of employees and discus the methods and activities the organization's leadership can follow to make employees in a better morale and ensure they are job satisfied as this will decrease their tendencies to leave work and these models can consider internal turnover and its reasons before deciding what to do with external turnover which were discussed by Pietersen and Oni, (2014) who discussed employees' turnover referring to two types of employees turnover which are the internal turnover that means employees leave their current departments and jobs in the organization and leave to other jobs in other departments in the same organization and this refers to a clear job dissatisfaction that resulting from problems within the department or the job themselves and not the organization and the external turnover which means employees leave their jobs and the organization where they are working to look for other jobs in different organizations.      

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is important to state that employees' turnover is a serious organizational problem that can affect the organizational success, productivity and profitability and can cause loss in many areas of production and other operations of the organization. Employees turnover has many reasons and causes and it can be dealt with through identifying those reasons and analyzing the organizational conditions such as the work environment and the different factors affecting the job satisfaction of employees in order to find solutions to employees turnover and be able to retain them. The current paper is critically investigating the literature review of the first part of the research and how it investigates the different reasons for employees turnover in the A'Safwa Dairy Company as the literature is explained referring to the different theories stated in the first part such as the human relation theory in addition to referring to the models that can share in solving the problem of employees turnover such as March and Simon's model and other different models that can assess and evaluate the organizational conditions related to internal and external turnover of employees and can by this solve the problem and apply different techniques and activities based on those theories and models to help the business organization end the problem of employees turnover or at least reduce it. This can be applied by A'Safwa Dairy company in order to solve the problem of employees turnover and retain their professional employees who may be native Omani or foreign employees as Omanization can help in solving the problem to some extent but other employees should also be retained in addition to the professionals who are foreigners.

Recommendations

It is recommended that A'Safwa Dairy company regards some specific theories and models and then to try to apply them on the employees by applying some relevant activities and implementations to help reducing the ratios of employees turnover in the organization as these activities mentioned in that paper and the first part of the research as these models can be effective in raising employees' morale and job satisfaction which helps in making them work better and develop themselves to reach higher positions in the organization.