Employee Turnover in Aviation Industry

Running head: EMPLOYEE TURNOVER IN AVIATION INDUSTRY
EMPLOYEE TURNOVER IN AVIATION INDUSTRY
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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