Employee Retention in the Logistic Industry

 

Employee retention is a continuous effort that an organization adopt to keep productive and desirable employees to achieve strategic objectives of the organization (Frank, Finnegan & Taylor, 2004). Mita, Aarti and Ravneeta (2014) refers employee retention as a technique to maintaining effective work force while meeting the operational objectives. Retention strategies are encouraging best employees to work longer period within the organization (Kossivi, Xu and Kalgora, 2016). Employee retention and satisfaction are important factors for the success of organization (Osteraker, 1999 cited in Das and Baruah, 2013). Das and Baruah (2013) explained retention factors under three main dimensions of mental, social and physical. Mental factors refer to the work characteristics which employee preferred to work. Social dimensions consist of the relationship that employee having with internal and external parties. Physical dimensions are working condition and compensation.

 

Employee retention plays a vital role that retained knowledge and skills within the organization over the rivalries (Kyndt, et al., 2009). Retaining talented employees considered as prime sources of competitive advantage (Michaels, et al., 2001). Losing a competent employee add cost to the company for replace the vacant position, reduce the productivity level and downturn the morale of co-workers (Narayanan, Rajithakumar and Menon, 2019).

 

I am working in a leading logistics company in Sri Lanka. Maintain a competent and experienced workforce is a distinctive advantage for the company to sustained in highly competitive market. Competent and trained employees improve the productivity and engage to grow the business. Effective recruitment and selection process will acquire the talent for the organization. Employee retention strategies need to be continuously validated to keep the effective people within the organization. Continuous monitoring of the mental, social and physical conditions of Best performers is very important. If the best salespeople leave the organization customer portfolio will shift to competitors. Service quality is a key factor in logistic industry therefore retaining productive operational staff add unique value for the organization.

 

The below figure 01 explains the relationship between employee retention, job satisfaction and employee turnover. If the retention factors mentioned below exist job satisfaction of the employees in the organization are high and rate of employees leaving or shifting from the organization to other will reduce. Job satisfaction is not purely depending on the compensation and rewards but the non-monetary factors like work-life balance, working environment, training and development, leadership and job security are influenced on employee job satisfaction. Retention factors need to address the desires of employees that enhance the loyalty, job satisfaction and commitment (Authority, 2009 cited in Sinha and Sinha, 2012).

Figure 01 The Employee Retention & Job Satisfaction Model

(Source - Das and Baruah, 2013)

 

With the current competition above factors are very important for company to continue the business. Employees are desired to have fair remuneration. If company remuneration package is not aligned with the industry, employees tend to move to other company. Logistic company which I am working have made a strategic decision to evaluate individual’s salary levels with industry benchmark and all abnormalities were corrected. Promotion scheme is driven through a transparent performance appraisal which identified the effective and exceptional performance within the company. In the performance appraisal improvement areas of individuals are identified and training programs are developed to address the identified training needs. During the COVID period HR is continuously focusing on work-life balance of all employees with the implication of work from home concept.   

 

List of References

 

Frank, F. D., Finnegan, R. P. & Taylor, C. R., (2004). The race for talent: Retaining and engaging workers in the 21st century. Human Resource Planning, 27(3), 2-25.

Mita, M., Aarti K. and Ravneeta, D., (2014). Study on Employee Retention and Commitment. International Journal of Advance Research in Computer Science and Management Studies, 2, 154-164.

Kossivi, B., Xu, M. and Kalgora, B., (2016). Study on determining factors of employee retention. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 4(05), p.261.

Das, B.L. and Baruah, M., (2013). Employee retention: A review of literature. Journal of business and management, 14(2), pp.8-16.

Kyndt, E., Dochy, F., Michielsen, M. and Moeyaert, B., (2009). Employee retention: Organisational and personal perspectives. Vocations and Learning, 2(3), pp.195-215.

Michaels, E., Handfield-Jones, H. & Axelrod, B., (2001). The war for talent. Brighton, MA: Harvard Business Press.

Narayanan, A., Rajithakumar, S. and Menon, M., (2019). Talent management and employee retention: An integrative research framework. Human Resource Development Review, 18(2), pp.228-247.