Work Based Module on IMPACT OF LOW STAFF RETENTION Essay

Work Based Module on IMPACT OF LOW STAFF RETENTION - Essay Example In a world getting increasingly competitive courtesy of the new complexities that arise day by day, organizations all over the world are increasingly looking into ways to retain their staff as much as possible within the organizations. Staff retention has therefore gained much prominence as a subject of study in current times. Many scholars are getting interested in the topic and this has seen so many volumes of staff retention materials being cheered out. It therefore begs a deeper analysis into this important subject while laying greater emphasis on the causes and the impact of staff retention on the performance of organizations. In spite of the fact that staff retention has been a hot area of study by contemporary organizational researchers, it cannot be argued that it is an entirely new field. Writings from several early organization thinkers have demonstrated that staff retention is a topic that attracted much attention even in those early times. For instance Herzberg’s t wo factor theory and his theory on motivation greatly illustrate the behavior of employees in the organization as regards their working conditions and motivation. The need to retain the employees within the organization rises out of many reasons. Hiring employees is a procedural process that is always very costly and involving. It therefore becomes quite a burden to the organization if the employee turnover is very high. Most organizations pay external consulting firms to recruit for them the best employees. Such costs, coupled with the costs of training the workers and other support services in the recruitment process are just too high. It therefore becomes a futile effort if the retention rate is low in the organization. Another consequence that arises out of a low staff retention rate is the loss of valuable knowledge from the organization. It must be remembered that knowledge on organizational management is a valuable asset that is only accrued through experience. As such, organ izations really experience deficiencies in such knowledge if the employee turnover rate is very high. Studies have indicated that 40 per cent of organizations in the UK are normally affected by a low staff retention rate. It therefore shows that this is an issue that requires so much attention and address. High employee turn over rate is also disastrous to the organization in the sense that it interrupts the various relationships that have been created between the customers and the employees. In companies all over the world, relationships will normally develop between the different stakeholders of organizations. It is on such mutual relationships that organizations stand. New faces coming in daily in the organizations normally disrupt the flow of operations as customers find themselves with different people to deal with. It is therefore crucial that employee turn over is reduced as much as possible. When employees leave the organizations for other opportunities, much workload is nor mally left for the remaining workers. When the work becomes too much, the workers are often demoralized to the extent that some of them may opt to leave the organization. It therefore shows that when workers leave the organizations, it creates a ripple effect that eventually impacts disastrously on the organization. It has also been demonstrated that potential employees use employee satisfaction as a parameter in determining whether to work for organizations or not. Therefore, an organization with a low employee retention rate is likely to attract few job seekers. Considering that human capital is very integral to the success of any organization, it becomes very hard for any company to stay competitively in the market without a pool of