Employee Retention During COVID-19 Pandemic

This research project focuses on the challenges of employee retention during COVID-19 pandemic. It includes a case study of Barker and Stonehouse and explores the concept of employee retention, its importance during COVID-19, and key challenges faced by the company. The data analysis and findings section highlights the respondents' understanding of employee retention and the best practices for improving it.

Research project

TABLE OF CONTENT
TOPIC: EMPLOYEE RETENTION DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC......................................3
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Background:.................................................................................................................................3
Aim:.............................................................................................................................................3
Objectives:...................................................................................................................................3
Research question:.......................................................................................................................4
Rationale:.....................................................................................................................................4
LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................................................4
THEME 1: Understanding the concept of employee retention....................................................4
THEME 2: Importance of Employee Retention during COVID 19............................................5
Theme 3: identifying key challenges in employee retention faced by Barker and Stonehouse
during COVID-19:.......................................................................................................................6
DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS............................................................................................6
THEME 1: Maximum of respondents has shown their support to YES......................................7
THEME 2: Maximum number of the respondents are agreed that their organisation follows the
practice of employee retention.....................................................................................................8
THEME 3: Majority of respondents understands the importance and need of employee
retention for maintaining the productivity level of overall organisation.....................................9
THEME 4: The maximum number of the respondents thinks that offering the benefits and
perks is the best way for improving employee retention in organisation..................................10
Theme 5: What are the key challenges you have faced during COVID-19 regarding you
performance in the workplace:...................................................................................................11
Theme 6: What was role of your company in managing employee performance during
COVID-19:................................................................................................................................12
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS..........................................................................13
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

TOPIC: EMPLOYEE RETENTION DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC.
INTRODUCTION
Employees are one of the most important pillar of every business organization that provide
internal support to business operation, without them, business might not able to perform certain
task. COVID-19 have taught business, the importance of employee in the workplace, their
retention have become essential in critical situation. Employee often leave workplace because of
COVID-19, the unemployment rate in the UK highlight businesses were affected because there
was high rate of employee turnover (Gilani and Cunningham, 2017). Almost every business was
impacted during first phase of COVID, concept of work from home was introduced to manage
business operation and to maintain employee retention in the business. Employee retention may
be challenging process but firm with clear vision and effective strategy have power to manage
high employee turnover rate in the workplace, businesses have survived because of their
employee retention strategy.
Background:
Barker and Stonehouse is one of the finest furniture company in the UK, this organization
is dealing in retail sector and have market position in which they cover important opportunity in
highly competitive market (Kossivi, Xu and Kalgora, 2016). Barker and Stonehouse was one of
those company who was impacted during COVID-19 in which they faced huge issue in
managing retention of the employee. However, this company had strategies to manage employee
retention, this company is well known for the employment opportunity hub which allow
candidate to grow their career and become part of Barker and Stonehouse success. This company
have managed employee retention during COVID-19 without any loss of any kind of impact on
the firm position.
Aim:
The aim behind conducting this study is “To investigate challenges of employee retention
during COVID-19 ”. A case study of Barker and Stonehouse.
Objectives:
 To evaluate the concept of employee retention.
 To examine importance of employee retention during COVID-19.
 To identify key challenges in employee retention faced by Barker and Stonehouse during
COVID-19.

 To recommend the best practices managing employee retention in the company.
Research question:
 What is the concept of employee retention?
 Why employee retention is important during COVID-19?
 What are the key challenges faced by the business in employee retention process during
COVID-19?
 What are the best practices managing employee retention process in the firm?
Rationale:
The reason behind conducting this study is to examine importance of employee retention in
the workplace during critical situation like COVID-19, employees are one of the most important
pillar of every business organization that provide support to the business operation. Another
reason to conduction this study is to understand whether the company have ability to manage
critical situation like COVID-19 with the help of employee and have ability to keep the retention
rate high in critical situation (Khalid and Nawab, 2018). One of the major reason for conducting
this study is person interest in which, gaining max. knowledge about the business world and
business management process. Researcher want to explore different area of business, including
employee and their retention process, this study will allow researcher and reader to understand
the importance of employee retention in the business.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Literature review is one of the most important element in the research which allow researcher to
consider viewpoint of different author, this part does play vital role because without considering
words of different author, researcher cannot complete their study on the chosen topic (Snyder,
2019). Literature review simply means viewpoint of author.
THEME 1: Understanding the concept of employee retention
As per the views of (Singh, 2019), Employee retention can be explained as the process of
keeping the talented and skilled employees within the organization. Basically, every company
uses different strategies to mitigate the employee turnover within the organization. Employee
Retention is considered as one of the leading challenges for the organization in the present era as
employees leaves the job because of many reasons such as getting better opportunity in another
company, getting laid off by the company. The strategies of the employee retention mainly focus
on the voluntary turnover within the organization. Employee retention is the considered as the

goal of keeping the best employees within the organization so that the effectiveness as well as
efficiency of the organization does not affect.
According to (Ma, Mayfield and Mayfield, 2018), employee retention is the various
practice as well as the policies which enables the employees to stay with the same organization
for the longer duration. It has been identified that most of the employees leaves the organization
due to the reason of constant friction and frustration with the senior management or with the
other team members. This strategy when adopted by the organization helps in motivating the
employees for allowing them to work comfortably in the organization and avoid switching to the
new organization. The employee job satisfaction as well as engagement is considered as the key
aspects of employee retention within the organization. The company when focuses on employee
retention, this allows them to retain the talented and skilled employees in organization which will
help them in contributing to the success of the overall organization. It is the ability of the
organization to keep its most talented and skilled employees with them.
THEME 2: Importance of Employee Retention during COVID 19
It has been stated by (Narayanan, Rajithakumar and Menon, 2019), that employee
retention is very important for the overall success of the organization. It enables the company to
lower its productivity level as having skilled and talented employees with the organization will
help the company to perform effectively. The companies having higher level of employee
retention, helps them in keeping more engaged employees who in turn contributes much for
achieving the organisational goals. As the engaged employees performs much interestingly and
are dedicated towards there work so this helps in improving the relationships with customers as
well as internally within the organisation. Employee retention is the best and most effective
method for the growth of the company as having such talented employees will help the
organisation to bring innovative things in organisation. It also allows the company to reduce the
cost of hiring and selecting the new candidates for the organisation as existing employees will
perform much better than them.
The company having effective employees gives hard work and efforts to achieve the
goals through which the company gets successful in the highly competitive market. One of the
major importance of employee retention lies in business expansion process, losing valuable
employee is critical for the firm during expansion. COVID-19 was powerful but firm who were
planning to expand stopped their process not because of COVID-19 impact but because of high

employee turnover which occurred when firm failed to manage their operation with talented
employee in the workplace to manage task effectively.
Theme 3: identifying key challenges in employee retention faced by Barker and Stonehouse
during COVID-19:
According to Singh, (2019), Employee retention is one of the most important process which
allow firm to focus on employee and their performance, without employee firm can not perform
certain operation and may fail to survive the market. employee retention was impossible during
COVID-19 because firms were not stable enough to meet the requirement of employee and
retention was impacted. However, there are many business organizations who effectively
managed employee retention because of their strategic direction and effectiveness. There are
certain challenges faced by the organization during COVID-19 to manage employee retention,
these are: lack of collaboration, it is very clear that collaboration does matter when it comes to
employee and business management. Firm try to collaborate with employee but due to lock down
collaboration was badly impacted, due to this firms have face high rate of employee turnover
because employee started to leave workplace.
Lack of collaboration also occur when firm is not ready to provide useful resource to
employee allowing them to become effective, collaboration is key element which was missing
during the COVID-19. Another challenge was, lack of work life balance in which employee were
asked to work overtime to manage business in critical situation, it is very clear that firm allow
flexible working to employee to manage their retention in the workplace, but during COVID-19
work life balance was impacted in which firm somehow pressured their employee to work extra
to manage this situation. Many businesses have faced issue of high employee turnover because
employee started to leave workplace due to extra and overload making it more difficult to
manage employee retention in the workplace. Another challenge lies in strategic direction in
which firm failed to provide strategies to employee including training and development
programme and certain other strategy which were used to manage employee retention during
COVID-19.
DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS
Data analysis is one of the most important element in the research which allow researcher to
analyse the collected data and provide final result accordingly, this is important because
considering analysis is important as data was collected need to be analysed to get finding

(Heeringa, West and Berglund, 2017). There are certain themes in data analysis and finding
element, these are:
THEME 1: Maximum of respondents has shown their support to YES
Do you understand the concept of employee retention?
 Yes
 No
Do you understand the concept of employee
retention?
Respondents
Yes 5
No 1
TOTAL 6
Interpretation-
From the above pie chart it can be analysed that maximum number of respondents has the
knowledge of employee retention. It shows that 90% of the respondents knows the concepts of
employee retention. However, there is only respondent who does not know the concept of
Yes 5 83%
No 1 17%
Yes
No

employee retention. Thus, it can be said majority of the respondents is ware about the concept of
employee retention.
THEME 2: Maximum number of the respondents are agreed that their organisation follows the
practice of employee retention.
Does employee retention practice is followed in your organisation?
 Yes
 No
Does employee retention practice is followed
in your organisation?
Respondents
Yes 4
No 2
TOTAL 6
Interpretation-
By seeing the above diagram , it is clearly understood that the employee retention practice is
followed within the organisation. As 4 respondents has stated that their company is following the
employee retention which means the organisation is motivating the employees to stay
Yes 4 67%
No 2 33%
Yes
No

competitive. Thus, only 2 respondents has stated that their organisation does not follow the
practice of employee retention in their company.
THEME 3: Majority of respondents understands the importance and need of employee retention
for maintaining the productivity level of overall organisation.
Does employee retention is important for organisation to maintain productivity level?
 Yes
 No
Does employee retention is important for
organisation to maintain productivity level?
Respondents
Yes 5
No 1
TOTAL 6
Interpretation-
The above pie chart shows that 83% of the respondents thinks that employee retention is very
important for the organisations to increase and maintain the productivity level of the company.
83%
17%
Yes
No

However, 17% of the respondents has stated in against that employee retention is not much
important for the organisation to increase and maintain the productivity level as according to
them, the productivity level can be maintained through many other strategies. Thus, large
number of the respondents are aware and understand the need and importance of employee
retention within the organisation.
THEME 4: The maximum number of the respondents thinks that offering the benefits and perks
is the best way for improving employee retention in organisation.
Which is the best practice for improving employee retention within the organisation?
 Providing training and developing the employees
 Creation of supportive working environment
 Offering benefits and perks to employees
 None of the above
Which is the best practice for improving
employee retention within the organisation?
Respondents
Providing training and developing the
employees
1
Creation of supportive working environment 1
Offering benefits and perks to employees 4
None of the above 0
TOTAL 6

Interpretation-
From the above representation, it is clearly understood that majority of the respondents thinks
that offering the benefits and the perks to the employees is the most effective way to improve
employee retention. It is very clear that improving employee retention is one of the most
challenging task in which company need to focus on certain strategies which allow them to focus
on employee retention process. Almost 67% of employee believe that company should provide
benefit and perks to employee allowing them to increase their performance in the workplace.
Financial benefit is one of the most important element which need to be considered. Remaining
employee stated that company should provide training and development to the employee to
increase retention whereas remaining employee stated that creation of supportive working
environment.
Theme 5: What are the key challenges you have faced during COVID-19 regarding you
performance in the workplace:
What are the challenges faced by you during Respondent
17%
17%
67%
Providing training and
developing the employees
Creation of supportive working
environment
Offering benefits and perks to
employees
None of the above

COVID-19 regarding performance?
Lack of collaboration 1
Lack of leadership 1
Lack of strategic direction 1
All the above 3
Interpretation: From the above pie chart it is very clear that COVID-19 was one of the most
powerful impact on the performance of employee, they have faced certain challenges in the
workplace regarding their performance. Lack of leadership and lack of collaboration was major
challenges faced by the employee because they were working from home and collaboration was
difficult to maintained (Wickham, 2016). Almost 50% of employee stated that they have faced
issue and challenges regarding overall business and management, they have faced challenges in
almost every area. Whereas 17% employee believe that they have faced challenge of lack of
leadership to manage their work, remaining 17% employee faced challenge in which t hey stated
lack of collaboration was major issue.
Theme 6: What was role of your company in managing employee performance during COVID-
19:
Does your company provide training
initiative to increase your skills during
Respondent
17%
17%
17%
50%
Lack of collaboration
Lack of leadership
Lack of strategic
direction
All the above

COVID-19?
Yes 4
No 2
Total 6
Interpretation: From the above pie chart, it is very clear that training initiative does matter when
it comes to employee management and their performance management process. Every business
organization have taken certain training initiative which allowed them to manage performance of
employees. Almost 50% of employee believe that company have provided training to the
employee and have taken training initiative to manage such issue in the workplace. However,
remaining employee believe that company have not provided training initiative to employee
allowing them to manage their performance. They believe that firm should carefully focus on
employee development process in which they need to focus on boosting performance of the
employee with effective training initiative.
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Employee retention has been found very important and significant driving factor during
the COIVD 19 pandemic. It is very necessary for the organisations to follow this practice as this
will enable them to maintain as well as increases the productivity level of the overall
organisation. Employee retention is basically the process which is followed by the company to
33%
17%
50% Yes
No
Total

retain the skilled and the talented employees of the organisation to stay ahead in the highly
competitive market (Dechawatanapaisal, 2018). Employee retention is considered as one of the
most important aspect for the success of the company as when such talented and skilled
employees are engaged in work helps in providing more efforts for achieving the organisational
goals and this ultimately lead to successful company. It has been identified from the above
research that employee retention is best way to motivate the employees as this will enable them
to work more effectively as well as this will also enable them to achieve the organisational goals.
This is the goal of the employee which helps them in keeping the most talented and skilled
employees within the organisation. The above research has enabled to know importance and
need of the employee retention in the organisation as well as how it helps the company to
achieve success.
There are various ways through which the organisation can improve the employee
retention within the organisation. The best and the most effective way to improve the employee
retention is offering the benefits and the perks to the employees as this is considered as the
significant aspect for motivating the employees. Offering the such benefits will create the feeling
of value and well being among the employees of the organisation. Providing the training and
development to the employees will also helps the employees to learn new things and effectively
use them practically for the organisation by performing well (Fahim, 2018). Another way is to
provide the supportive and positive working environment in the organisation as this will enable
them to feel supported and employees will stay motivated by this and this is the key for retaining
the skilled and talented employees within the organisation.
Incorporating such ways in the organisation will enable the business to grow and increase
the overall productivity of the organisation. This report has discussed the aims and objectives as
well as the rationale for this topic. It was found in the above report that company following the
employee retention were able to maintain their productivity level during the pandemic as well
because they were able to work effectively and gave their best to achieve the goals of
organisation. This report has illustrated the critical discussion on the specific topic of this
research which enables the organisation to know the importance and need of employee retention
within the business. Further, the survey was conducted in which the respondents were asked
specific questions to do better research on the topic. Thus, it can be concluded that employee
retention matters much for the companies as this will enable them to achieve success.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Dechawatanapaisal, D., 2018. Employee retention: the effects of internal branding and brand
attitudes in sales organizations. Personnel Review.
Fahim, M.G.A., 2018. Strategic human resource management and public employee retention.
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Gilani, H. and Cunningham, L., 2017. Employer branding and its influence on employee
retention: A literature review. The marketing review, 17(2), pp.239-256.
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and hall/CRC.
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compensation. SAGE Open, 8(4), p.2158244018810067.
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retention. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 4(05), p.261.
Ma, Q.K., Mayfield, M. and Mayfield, J., 2018. Keep them on-board! How organizations can
develop employee embeddedness to increase employee retention. Development and
Learning in Organizations: An International Journal.
Narayanan, A., Rajithakumar, S. and Menon, M., 2019. Talent management and employee
retention: An integrative research framework. Human Resource Development Review,
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Singh, D., 2019. A literature review on employee retention with focus on recent trends.
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431.
Singh, D., 2019. A literature review on employee retention with focus on recent
trends. International Journal of Scientific Research in Science and Technology, 6(1),
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Snyder, H., 2019. Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and
guidelines. Journal of business research, 104, pp.333-339.
Wickham, H., 2016. Data analysis. In ggplot2 (pp. 189-201). Springer, Cham.
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