Employee Turnover in Aviation Industry

This study analyzes the factors that drive employee turnover in the aviation industry and the role of management in employee retention. The study includes thematic analysis of interviews with managers and an online survey of employees. The results suggest that lack of training, communication gap, poor management, and unfavorable working conditions are key drivers of employee turnover. The study recommends steps to address these challenges to positively impact turnover rates.

Running head: EMPLOYEE TURNOVER IN AVIATION INDUSTRY
EMPLOYEE TURNOVER IN AVIATION INDUSTRY
Name of University
Name of Student
Author Note

2EMPLOYEE TURNOVER IN AVIATION INDUSTRY
Data Analysis and Results:
Thematic analysis using transcripts from interviews of three managers of the aviation
industry was done to gain contextual insights about what are the factors that drive an employee
to leave his or her organization in the aviation industry and the role that the management has to
play in this (Smith 2015). Three managers from three reputed organizations were approached
independently for interviews to get their perspective on the matter of employee satisfaction,
performance, retention and their own challenges in managing the work force. The transcripts
were studied keeping in mind the role of HRM in ensuring employee retention and the effect
they can have on employee turnover. The identity of the organizations and the managers are kept
anonymous for the sake of privacy of the participants as per ethical considerations (Zhang and
Wildemuth 2016).
The themes emerging from their interview were the difficulty in supervising so many
workers, lack of training among recruits and competitive market facilitating employee turnover.
It seems that the main difficulty managers expressed that they faced were handling and keeping
track of so many employees while having to maintain certain decorum so as to not deter smooth
functioning of daily service. It was intimated that employees, especially the new recruits are
often unprepared to deal with the demanding and competitive nature of the job and that add
added responsibility on part of the management to supervise and train them. This, in addition to
the already mounting work is noted as a challenge by most of the respondents. The number of
employees under them also makes it more complicated. Thus, they identified lack of training
infrastructure as a major deterrent and it seems that perhaps this may give rise to a certain
communication gap which might explain the dearth of information regarding the kinds of
grievances their employees could have. This is assumed since the managers seemed to be not

3EMPLOYEE TURNOVER IN AVIATION INDUSTRY
much forthcoming in their response about the kind of steps the organizations take to address
grievances of the employees with their answers being short and not as descriptive when asked
about it (Vaismoradi 2016). This makes one ponder whether there exists a lack in connection
between the management level and the operations level. However the lack of response might also
be a result of the managers wanting to not reveal organizational policies and weaknesses. Adding
to that, they listed high competition in the industry as a key factor which affects high turnover
stating that promise of higher monetary compensation or inability to handle pressure as reasons
for which an employee may leave. This gives a sense of there being unwillingness on part of the
managers and thus the management to take responsibility for the turnover although it is
suggested that the stress faced in the workplace does play role of instigator. The managers
highlighted stress and competition giving rise to the employees wanting to seek out better
opportunities elsewhere and competitor companies looking for skilled personnel providing said
opportunities as factors which contribute to turnover. The managers however had highlighted
training the employees and stress in dealing with the large number of employees as challenges
and this betrays a gap in the communication between employee and supervisor that may exist
and aggravate the situation of the employee making him or her want to seek out other
opportunities. Nonetheless, the focus of the study being the general attitude of the managers
towards employees that may affect employee turnover, it seems that although management can’t
be solely held responsible, but a management which places more focus on the development of its
employees and engages in regular communication could have a significant impact as per the
interviewees.
The perspective of the employees was addressed using the data obtained through the
online survey. Data from 30 employees was collected using the questionnaire (attached in

4EMPLOYEE TURNOVER IN AVIATION INDUSTRY
Appendix). The survey questionnaire had defined internal environment, managerial credibility,
monetary benefits, internal environment, external environment and working conditions as
tentative factors which may drive an employee to choose a better job opportunity. The survey
revealed monetary benefits as the most popular with 41.94% votes. Management, organization
profile and internal environment were also identified as relevant aspects.
16.13%
16.13%
41.94%
16.13%
9.68%
Factors rated to have most significance
while selecting better opportunities
Internal environment
Managerial
Monetary benefits
Organization profile
Working condition
Figure 1
The questionnaire also had categorically identified delay in salary, domestic problems,
low career growth, negative behaviour of supervisor, poor management and unfavourable
working condition as factors which may influence an employee to leave his or her current job.
Out of these, low career growth was found to be highest rated at 32.26% of the respondents

5EMPLOYEE TURNOVER IN AVIATION INDUSTRY
listing it as the leading reason followed by unfavourable working conditions, poor management
and negative behaviour of supervisor.
3.23% 3.23%
32.26%
16.13%
19.35%
25.81%
Factors influencing decision to leave a job
Delay in salary
Domestic problem
Low career growth
Negative behavior of the
supervisor
Poor management
Unfavorable working
condition
Figure 2
Low career growth opportunities could be related to the lack of intent on part of
management to provide better opportunities for growth within the organization and
communication gap with supervisors as indicated by the managers in their interview could also
have had a role to play (Anderson et al. 2016). Acknowledgement from supervisors, promotional
opportunities, amount of work that one has to put in to get recognition, level of support in form
of counselling that the HR provides and overall firm culture which all could amount to low
career growth are therefore taken into account as factors affecting turnover. Job Satisfaction is
considered as an indicator of employee retention and turnover (Wang et al. 2014).

6EMPLOYEE TURNOVER IN AVIATION INDUSTRY
The relationship between job satisfaction, an early indicator of turnover with these
factors is therefore analysed using the regression model tool. The categorical variables were
converted to ratio scale based on their ordinal natures and regression analysis was done (Peck,
Olsen and Devore 2015). The number of times an employee has been rewarded and recognized
for his performance, the amount of work that he or she has to put in to receive acknowledgement
from his or her supervisor and the firm culture were found to be statistically significant as
explanatory variables of the job satisfaction level that was reported by the employees, that is it
had significant effect in explaining variation in the response that is job satisfaction (Salkind
2016) . It was seen that more the amount of work that the employee had to put in to gain some
sort of recognition lesser was job satisfaction and the other two explanatory variables were on
the other hand positively related to the job satisfaction score. The final model based on these
variables was also found to be statistically significant at 5% level of significance and the
adjusted R squared reported a value of 0.55, which is quite a good fit for the model (Draper and
Smith 2014).
Thus aside from monetary compensation, career growth opportunities, internal work
culture and thus management was identified as key drivers of employee retention. It is clear from
the contextual analysis of the interviews that there exists a discrepancy in communication and
challenges in training and supervision from the manager’s end. Adding to that, the way job
satisfaction is impacted by lack of recognition and rewards and heavy work effort without
acknowledgement, which could be explained by the challenges faced by the management, it is
concluded that steps to meet and resolve these challenges faced by the management is expected
to affect turnover rates positively.

7EMPLOYEE TURNOVER IN AVIATION INDUSTRY
References
Anderson, D.R., Sweeney, D.J., Williams, T.A., Camm, J.D. and Cochran, J.J., 2018. An
Introduction to Management Science: Quantitative Approach. Cengage learning.
Draper, N.R. and Smith, H., 2014. Applied regression analysis(Vol. 326). John Wiley & Sons.
Peck, R., Olsen, C. and Devore, J.L., 2015. Introduction to statistics and data analysis. Cengage
Learning.
Salkind, N.J., 2016. Statistics for people who (think they) hate statistics. Sage Publications.
Smith, J.A. ed., 2015. Qualitative psychology: A practical guide to research methods. Sage.
Vaismoradi, M., Jones, J., Turunen, H. and Snelgrove, S., 2016. Theme development in
qualitative content analysis and thematic analysis. Journal of Nursing Education and
Practice, 6(5), p.100.
Wang, Q., Weng, Q., McElroy, J.C., Ashkanasy, N.M. and Lievens, F., 2014. Organizational
career growth and subsequent voice behavior: The role of affective commitment and
gender. Journal of vocational behavior, 84(3), pp.431-441.
Zhang, Y. and Wildemuth, B.M., 2016. Qualitative analysis of content. Applications of social
research methods to questions in information and library science, 318.

8EMPLOYEE TURNOVER IN AVIATION INDUSTRY
Appendix
Initial Regression model:
Regression Statistics
Multiple R 0.819504757
R Square 0.671588047
Adjusted R Square 0.589485059
Standard Error 1.084401526
Observations 31
ANOVA
df SS MS F Significance F
Regression 6 57.71324382 9.618874 8.179825 6.96365E-05
Residual 24 28.22224005 1.175927
Total 30 85.93548387
Variable Coefficients Standard Error t Stat P-value
Intercept 4.312793527 1.161961486 3.711649 0.001088
How many times have your
achievement been recognized and
rewarded? 0.443156497 0.1378218 3.215431 0.0037
How many times have you received a
promotion in this organization? 0.156017745 0.206157721 0.756788 0.456542
Acknowledgement 0.461293957 0.341161969 1.352126 0.18894
workload level for recognition -0.62616063 0.257465719 -2.43202 0.022846
HR counselling 0.244998561 0.208862412 1.173014 0.252301
firm culture 0.641865429 0.25715643 2.496012 0.019829
Final Regression Model:
Regression Statistics
Multiple R 0.776617
R Square 0.603133
Adjusted R Square 0.559037
Standard Error 1.123898

9EMPLOYEE TURNOVER IN AVIATION INDUSTRY
Observations 31
ANOVA
df SS MS F
Significance
F
Regression 3 51.83055 17.27685 13.67764 1.29E-05
Residual 27 34.10493 1.263146
Total 30 85.93548
Variable Coefficients Standard Error t Stat P-value
Intercept 5.660896 1.003862 5.63912 5.5E-06
How many times have your achievement
been recognized and rewarded? 0.572475 0.117453 4.874095 4.27E-05
workload level for recognition -0.72762 0.253531 -2.86994 0.007884
firm culture 0.743176 0.256643 2.895758 0.007407
Questionnaire:
Employee turnover rate has been on the increase due to poor management, lack of job
satisfaction and lack of proper recruitment. I am a student doing my research with the aim of
finding the perfect solution and recommendation to this problem. I will appreciate all the efforts
in taking part in this research. Your information will remain confidential.
Research Question:
What are the issues resulting into high employee turnover in the aviation industry?
1. Gender
o Male
o Female
2. Under which age group do you fall?
o 19-31
o 32-47

10EMPLOYEE TURNOVER IN AVIATION INDUSTRY
o 48-56
o Over 57
3. Kindly mention your department below
4. You been working in the aviation industry for what duration?
o 1-3yr
o 3-6yr
o Over six years
5. How can you rate your job satisfaction on a scale of 1-10?
6. How many times have your achievement been recognized and rewarded?
7. How many times have you received a promotion in this organization?
8. Which element is of great significance for a better employment opportunity?
o Monetary benefits
o Organization profile
o Managerial
o Working condition
o Internal environment

11EMPLOYEE TURNOVER IN AVIATION INDUSTRY
o Others
9. What factors can influence your decision on leaving a particular job?
o Negative behavior of the supervisor
o Unfavorable working condition
o Domestic problem
o Low career growth
o Delay in salary
o Poor management
10. Does your Supervisor acknowledge your work?
o Usually not
o Never
o Sometimes he does
o He always does so
11. About your rewards and the remuneration. Your workload is
o Extremely more
o More
o Very less
o Less
o Equal
12. Are you trained for the job at hand?
o Disagree
o Neutral
o Strongly agree
o Agree
o Strongly disagree
13. Are you provided with counseling on your career by the human resource department?
o Disagree
o Agree

12EMPLOYEE TURNOVER IN AVIATION INDUSTRY
Interview Questions:
1. What are the key challenges you face while managing the workforce?
2. Why do you think employee turnover rate is so high?
3. Are the needs of the employees’ being properly addressed in your
organization?