Employee Retention in British Petroleum

Running head: HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Human Resource Management
Name of the Student
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Abstract
The following research paper is based on employee retention in British Petroleum. The
purpose of the study is to investigate and identify employee retention strategies of British
Petroleum to know how the organization has been dealing with the market odds and apply the
approaches to retain its key employees. In order to perform the investigation a primary data
analysis has been performed and primary data has been collected by performing a survey
among the employees of BP, UK. The survey has been performed on the basis of the
sampling method. Study uses a non-probability sampling method to engage organization
members in the data collection process. Almost 30 members of the organizations have been
surveyed. Findings indicates that employee retention is a top most requirement for running
operation in a dynamic business environment, where external market needs are rapidly
changing. Findings says that employees tend to grow a tendency of switching their jobs a
place where they get better treatment. Thus, retention of employees is a challenging strategy
and initiative for the organization.

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Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction-.........................................................................................................................3
1.2 Research Aim...................................................................................................................3
1.3 Research Questions..........................................................................................................4
2. Literature Review...................................................................................................................5
2.1 Employee Retention.........................................................................................................5
2.2 Factors affecting employee retention...............................................................................7
3.0 Methodology......................................................................................................................10
3.1 Research Philosophy......................................................................................................11
3.2 Research Design.............................................................................................................11
3.3 Data collection method..................................................................................................12
3.4 Sampling method...........................................................................................................13
3.5 Data Analysis method....................................................................................................13
4.0 DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS...............................................................................14
5.0 Discussion..........................................................................................................................29
6.0 Conclusion and Recommendation......................................................................................34
6.1 Conclusion......................................................................................................................34
6.2 Recommendation............................................................................................................35
References................................................................................................................................36

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1.0 Introduction-
This research project is based on employee retention in British Petroleum. It has been
identified that employee retention is a number of policies and practices that let employees
work or stick to the organization for longer period of time. However, such policies are
usually developed by the organization or human resource of the organization itself. However,
there are two fundamental elements associated with employee retention program which are
employee engagement and employee job satisfaction. It can be mentioned that retaining skills
or employee retention is one of the most successful element of business because increasing
rate of employee turnover could lead to a loss of knowledge and skills which could
negatively organization’s bottom line. An organization makes large investment for
recruitment, selection, training, administering employees and eventually make employees a
corporate asset for the business. However, when such trained employees leave the
organization, businesses are at stake. Thus, it is highly important to learn how organizations
today applies retention approaches to retain their key talents. In order to meet this purpose,
study considers the organization British Petroleum. This chapter provides research objectives
and questions based on which the review of existing paper have been performed in the
following section.
1.2 Research Aim
Aim of the study is to investigate and identify how organization today applies retention
strategies and deals with the employee turnover. Following are the key objectives to meet the
stated purpose.
• To evaluate the range of research works that has been researched in the area of
employee retention
• To find out factors that influence retention initiatives in the companies

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• To identify the importance of various aspects that influences retention initiatives in
the company
1.3 Research Questions
1. What are the factors that impact employee retention or staff turnover?
2. What are the importance of the aspects of employee retention in the organization?

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2. Literature Review
2.1 Employee Retention
According to James and Mathew (2012), sustainability and success of an organization
relies on the retention of key employees. To a greater extent, consumer satisfaction,
organizational performance with respect to increase of sales, employee satisfaction, reporting
of staff and effective succession planning is highly dependent on the ability to retain key
employees in an organization. On the other side, Aruna and Anitha (2015) mentioned that
encouraging employees to remain in organization for long –period of tome can be referred as
employee retention. Scholars of the study have mentioned the fact that employee retention is
more of a process in which employees are encouraged to stay in the organization for a long-
time or until the completion of the project.
Bryant and Allen (2013) argued that relatively less turnover studies focused
particularly on how employees decide to remain with an organization and what determines
attachment, retention techniques can be studied along with quitting techniques. On the
contrary, Terera, and Ngirande (2014) added the fact that retention as the obligation to
continue to do business or exchange a specific organization on an ongoing basis. A paper
study carried out by Aguenza, and Som (2018), employees who are most likely to be happy
and satisfied with their jobs are more inclined and dedicated towards their work and they
should always put their effort to enhance their organization end consumers’ satisfaction.
Authors of the study have also me mentioned the fact that customer liking, identification,
commitment, trust, readiness to make suggestions and repurchase intention with cognitive
retention and last two being behavioural intentions. It can be added that organizations today
tend to take a great care in retaining its valuable talents and skilled employees as they
increasingly become more challenging to find. Findings of this study has also added the fact

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that managing and retaining employees is a great factor of developing competitive edge
among the organization. In this context, Kwenin, Muathe and Nzulwa (2013) arguably added
the fact that most significant demands on management in the present day is the practice of
keeping the good or skilled employees as well as dynamic human resource which are
motivated and dedicated. Authors of this study has added the fact that if adequate employee
retention strategies are implemented by organizations, employees are most likely to remain in
the organizations and work for the effective implementation of organizational goals.
Nonetheless, it is worth telling that human resource department of the firm plays a
great role in retaining the key employees. So, it is certain that it makes policies for employee
betterment like employees could be satisfied with the organization and remain with the
organization for long period of time. This findings have made it clear that it is not just
retention of employees but also the retention of valued skills. If the organization wishes to
gain success in business, it has to keep and retain the key talents or the trained employees
who are productive but it is certain keeping productive employees in the organizations is
challenging. This is because market environment has been dynamic, which means customer
needs and demands are changing in a rapid way and consequently, employees’ demands are
also changing; thereby employee job satisfaction has been a significant issue to business.
On the contrary, Shore (2013) added the fact that inability of the organization is to
develop and implement strategies that help to recruit competent workers and retain them to
achieve organizational goals is one of the greatest challenge facing organizations in the field
of performance. On the other side, Das and Baruah (2013) added the fact that employee
retention is more of a systematic review to develop and foster an environment which
encourage employees to remain employed by having policies and practices that resolves the
diverse needs. Furthermore, Aguenza and Som (2018) mentioned the fact that it is more
necessary to secure as well as manage competent human resource as the most valuable

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resource of any business due to the requirement for effective and efficient delivery of goods
and services by businesses.
2.2 Factors affecting employee retention
Retention factors and the review of existing papers is not supposed to be exhaustive of
all possible theories associated with employee retention and turnover. Ahammad et al.
(2016) added the fact that employee retention is more significant than ever because an
employer’s ability to retain workers is no longer an aspect of being an ‘effective’ to work.
Oladapo (2014) argued the fact that employees are not staying in a position for decades
which is a true fact but retaining employees for long is doable.
Skill recognition: It can be stated that providing skills recognition of personal job
accomplishment is the most effective retention strategy for employees at any age. Researches
also imply the fact that fulfilling people need for then acceptance by individual work
achievement prolongs employment of employees. Kossivi, Xu and Kalgora (2016) stated the
fact that trends of an increased number of job applicants trying organizations that encourage
employees. Scholars of the study stated the fact that organizational benefits, personal
recognition could be priceless but the statistics support that the influence of verbal praise
holds the ability to increase organization’ loyalty, motivation and perseverance at no
additional cost. It can be stated that individual skill recognition is widely restricted by age
and it could motivate the positive behaviour, teamwork, confidence and growth in all
employees. It can be stated that both skill recognition as well as learning opportunities
improve the individual performance of the employees. Consequently, retention becomes more
stable.
Training: As put forward by Ghosh et al. (2013), training is a significant retention
factor for employees at any age. It can be added that data facts indicate that statistical training