Harmony Consultancy Firm: Organizational Intervention to Decrease Employee Turnover

Harmony Consultancy-NameAddress- 839 Business Ave, Waco, TX 76706, USA. Contact- 202604237Brief Description:

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Harmony Consultancy is one of the top Consultancy firms in the region. Our success is shown through the numerous achievements including being the top Consultancy firm in 2016. We treat our clients' concerns with utmost urgency and ensure they get the best.

Mission: To assist companies and organizations grow and attain high levels of productivity through provision of expert pieces of advice and relevant information. Vision: To be the all-time top human resource Consultancy firm throughout the world.

Organizational Intervention to Decrease Employee Turnover

IntroductionEmployee turnover, the rate at which employees quit their job and are replaced by new ones, is a common occurrence in the contemporary busy and sophisticated organizational landscape (Killoren, 2014). Organizations are constantly grappling with this challenge as they incessantly seek to craft effective and efficient interventions that would decrease the rate of employee turnover despite the cause. However, given the different reasons, there is never a one-size-fits-all intervention to solve the problem. In most cases, the rate of turnover overlies factors such as termination, death, retirement, transfers, and resignations. Contextually, the C.E.O of Singtel is concerned about the high employee turnover that has been noted to result from resignations. Despite the grounds for a high rate of employee turnover, it tags along a host of other problems that often spell doom to the prosperity of an organization. In this respect, Singtel is on the verge of a human resource crisis featuring problems such as high opportunity costs, time wastage in the selection and replacement of workers. In all the sectors and organizations, high percentages of employee turnover are linked to worst organizational outcomes which culminate into low productivity and the potential collapse of the organization (Williams & Potts, 2010). It is on such grounds that Singtel ought to find a quick and efficient solution to the problems. A timely intervention against the problems will not only ensure the organization meets its goals in all the spheres, but will also prevent the company from a possible collapse due to the inadequacy of relevant talent. In some cases, when more employees quit work, their colleagues will follow suit, and with time, instead of serving its clients, Singtel may divert to the business of recruiting and training workers who will ultimately leave and therefore wreath from massive losses.

Literature Review: A Theoretical UnderpinningAccording to the Singtel annual companywide survey, employees reported a lack of motivation and lower perceptions of organizational justice. Their intentions to quit largely draw from these two aspects. Therefore, it suffices to assume that the presumptive failure by Singtel to fulfill various needs of these employees is the primary reason they look forward to leaving the company. A profound comprehension of the situation is possible through the analysis of Abraham Maslows theory of needs and John Stacey Adams equity theory. However, it is critical to gain a prerequisite understanding of the concept of employee motivation. Employee motivation is a concept that connotes both an internal and external drive to effectively, with determination and commitment, perform tasks (Moran, 2013). It is a culmination of all the processes and procedures that a person adopts in their quest to perform any work-related activity to utmost perfection. Rewards are the greatest source of motivation, and they classify motivation into two primary categories- extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic rewards come from within, and comprise psychological rewards like a persons unwavering quest to accomplish a task since it makes them feel good about it or themselves while extrinsic rewards come from without, and includes trophies and money among others (Fair III & Silvestri, 1992). On the overall, studies that have been conducted to determine the impact of rewards on motivation have always been inconsistent. Pierce, Cameron, Banko and So (2003) embarked on a study that would examine the impacts of extrinsic rewards on the intrinsic motivation of the employees. They realized that rewarding workers for meeting their performance targets, which was evidently challenging, increased their intrinsic motivation; people who were not rewarded showed low levels of intrinsic motivation. Wiersma (1992) conducted a similarly scoped meta-analysis to summarize the inconsistencies that characterize studies on this subject. The analysis concluded that giving rewards by chance is a recipe for reduced intrinsic motivation. Earn (1982), in his study, also found out that increases in the pay increased intrinsic motivation. In summary, while these studies may differ in terms of the surrounding conditions, they all acknowledge that employee motivation is proportionally related to the rewards alongside other factors.

Abraham Maslows theory of needs sheds more light on how either intrinsic or extrinsic rewards impact on motivation and assists in further expatiation of the premises and findings of these studies as illustrated in the following diagram.

Maslow (1943) hypothesizes that meeting one level of the needs will motivate a person to meet the needs at the next level. The sophistication of the human brain means that several processes are running simultaneously; thus, there is a possibility of more than one level of motivation to occur at the same time. Psychological needs, being the most fundamental, ought to be met first, and they include needs such as water, air, and food, which drive metabolism and the functioning of the body. Safety needs follow the psychological needs, and they include individual and financial security, and health and wellbeing. The third level of needs comprises love and belonging, which incorporates intimacy, family, and friendship. In the context of a workplace, people need to feel a sense of belonging among their peers and workmates for them to perform optimally. The need for esteem comes next and describes the human need for respect in a manner that enhances their self-esteem and improves their reputations and social status. People engage in work activities to gain recognition, which gives them a sense of value in the particular social circle (Maslow, 1943). The need for self-actualization is the last one and sits at the peak of the pyramid. It denotes the full potential of a person and their quest to reach that potential notwithstanding the conditions and challenges in the course of the attempts. The ability of an organization to facilitate the realization of these needs among its staff is one way to reduce employee turnover and create a healthy workforce. However, given the gap in the needs of each employee and the muscle of the organization to meet these needs, it is often challenging to create an environment that enables all the employees to meet their most fundamental needs. It is on such grounds that certain studies record low intrinsic motivation from financial rewards (Earn, 1982).

Singtels high employee turnover seems to stem from their lack of understanding of the basic tenets of employee motivation with respect to Maslows need theory. In context, with this theory, it is apparent that an employee will begin their career when they are almost entirely concerned about the psychological needs of adequate wages and safety needs like financial security and safe working environment. Workers who determine that their work does not meet their lowest-level needs may make a decision to leave and find more fulfilling careers in this sense. However, in case the fundamental needs have been met, the employee will seek to fulfill the next level of needs which entails belongingness. They must feel appreciated and a sense of belonging to the organization given the manner in which their fellow employees and the top management treats them. An effective interpersonal relationship takes center stage here with the management providing an enabling environment that facilitates such fulfilling interactions. The trend continues to the top-level needs of self-actualization. After fulfilling all the subsuming needs, an employee embarks on a mission to develop themselves as a person through their work. At this point, the organization can only keep the workers if they provide an environment that promotes the self-actualization needs of the employees. This sums up the motivational reasons behind Singtels high employee turnover in the recent past.

On the other hand, the employees also cited lower perceptions of organizational justice as a primary reason for their low enthusiasm to work in the company. Hypothetically, this could have been a product of failure by the company to fairly distribute resources to all the employees. Essentially, an organization has to work in a manner that the reinforces the employees belief of fairness, which in turn enables them to maintain the fairness and justice in their relationship with the co-workers (Guerrero, Peter & Walid, 2014). The theory calls for a balance between the inputs of an employee and the outputs. The inputs include, but are not limited to, hard work, enthusiasm, skills, and determination while the outputs may include salary, recognition, and other benefits. Guerrero et al. (2014) note that this fair balance promotes a productive and strong relationship between the employees and the co-workers and the entire workforce which results into motivation and contentment with the work. The tenets of this theory reinforce the microcosms of the third level of needs in Maslows theory of needs- belonging needs. The theory of equity further justifies the findings of some studies that higher wages, on their own, do not constitute a high level of motivation and cannot prevent employee turnover (Gill & Stone, 2010). Despite the much effort that an organization may put in attaining this equity and justice, there is no absolute measure for the determination of the equity- it lies with the employees and depends on other personal factors. An employee must, in their individual contexts, determine that the effort-reward balance matches their situation and is relevant from their standpoints. On another note, justice in the sense of Singtel may also mean that the company does not treat all the employees equally even if they apply similar efforts in their task performances. This translates into a lack of recognition, which means that the output (recognition) is not commensurate with the input according to the workers that wish to leave the company.

Intervention Proposal: Recommendations

In light of the problems identified above, the following section proposes potential solutions that could see Singtel reduce employee turnover to the bare minimum, or even do away with the problem completely. The need for effective solutions to the problems precedes the knowledge that employees are an important organizational component without which the organization will cease to function. Overall, and in the case of Singtel, the first move should be providing an enabling environment that is not only conducive to organizational productivity, but also for the...