Voluntary Employee Turnover and Retention in a Small Size Company

Research Philosophy and Literature
Review
(Voluntary employee turnover and
retention in a
Small Size Company)

Contents
Contents...........................................................................................................................................2
ABSTRACT....................................................................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................2
Background (review) of the Company........................................................................................2
Purpose of the study.....................................................................................................................3
Research question........................................................................................................................4
LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................................................5
Analysing the specific or thematic issues that seeks to review both its cause(s) or
manifestations or characteristics and possible methods to reduce its occurrence.......................5
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY..................................................................................................11
Reviewing the philosophical role of a research paradigm in directing the research associated
with the organisational problem................................................................................................11
Discussing the ontological basis for researching the organisational issues and the philosophical
narrative associated with the nature and character of reality.....................................................14
Reviewing the epistemological issues associated with the manner by which knowledge is
obtained and the relationship between the researcher, the subject matter under investigation
and what is associated as knowledge and alternative notions of truth......................................14
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................15
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................17

ABSTRACT
High employee turnover and retention had been a critical factor in almost all the companies
in Mozambique, one of the poorest nations in the world (Radelet, 2015). High levels of poverty,
scarcity of skilled workforce, education level, lackluster attitude and cultural barriers had been a
challenging factor for many companies for recruitment of skilled labor and retention. Human
resource management is a vital factor for the success of any organization and special emphasis is
given to retain employer (Steffensen, Ellen, Wang, & Ferris, 2019). This research aims to show,
how high employee turnover can disrupt workflow continuity, performance level and credibility
of the organization. There could be various factors that could influence high employee turnover
rate. In an emerging economy with more businesses are being established on a daily basis, the
demand for skilled workforce could be limited (Waddell, 1998). Low income levels, work
overload, adverse working conditions, recognition could be few areas for high employer turnover
(Cottini, Kato, & Westergaard-Nielsen, 2011). High employer turnover could also be costly in
terms of training and development as well as high replacement cost as the replacement positions
could demand high wages. In addition, the existing employees could also have threatened high
wages, understand the pattern and vulnerability of the organization in terms of retention of staff.
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INTRODUCTION
The concept of employee turnover is different from employee retention. Employee retention
is a percentage of employees who leave the organisation and new employees are hired in place of
old personnel. High employee turnover is a crucial situation for any organisation which can arise
due to multiple reasons. Low employee satisfaction is one of the most influential reason due to
which employees leave their current workplace (Ahn and McLean, 2008). Other reasons for this
situation are considered to be low job security, discrimination amongst employees, demotivating
superiors and many more. This situation of employee turnover can result into issues such as high
cost of hiring, high cost on training and development etc. Employee turnover can be of many
types such as voluntary, involuntary, desirable and undesirable. The situation of such issues
arises in an organisation due to internal and external affairs of a company. It must be noted that
not at all the situations, employee turnover is harmful for the organisation; it can be even
beneficial for the company too. For example, situations where company needs their employees to
leave their job as they do not fit for the job profile anymore due to their increasing age;
employment turnover can be beneficial. Employee retention is different from employee turnover
as it is the set of techniques by which an organisation can be saved from the problem of high
employee turnover. Employee retention is a process which helps organisation to conduct such
actions which can retain their employees for longer period of time (Asiedu-Appiah, Mehmood
and Bamfo, 2015). This procedure is based on the basic phenomenon of first finding the reason
behind high employee turnover, then make plans and finally conduct activities by which issue
can be solved. There are various techniques by which employee retention can be done in an
organisation. These techniques are: rewards, employee satisfaction, motivation and leadership
etc.
Background (review) of the Company
Recent discovery of LNG in Mozambique, there had been renewed interest in logistics com-
panies to provide resourceful service levels to meet the demands and challengers faced by the
LNG companies (Bay & Hong, 2017). Since one of the greatest challengers confronted by the
companies had been high level of employee turnover and retention to perform a high service lev-
els to these client’s companies. The researcher has identified a small size logistics company of
100 employees approximately, who provide customs clearance, road, air and sea transportation
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primarily targeting LNG companies and retailers. Key factor for the existence of the freight and
logistics provider is to offer a high-quality service levels to its clients. Thus, a skilled workforce
is vital factor to maintain such service levels to the demands of the clients. A high level of com-
petencies and expertise are required to sustain a competitive advantage (Ahn & McLean, 2008).
WHELSON GDC TRANSPORT is a small scale logistics company which relies on elec-
tronic commerce and online public platform. Activities of this organization include freight for-
wards, network marketing promotion etc. This company is an efficient, reliable transport organi-
zation which offers variety of transports including chemicals such as LPG, food items such as
tea, sugar, flour etc. and all other general cargo. Despite of being a small organization, this com-
pany even established in South Africa, Zimbabwe and in other parts of Africa along with
Mozambique. Additional services which are provided by this organization includes warehousing,
custom clearance, bagging, transit bonds, trade finance and any more logistics related services.
This organization works as a small scale organization in the region of Mozambique with approxi-
mately 100 employees. After the discovery of LPG in Mozambique, this company devotes their
operations majorly for companies engaged in processing LPG. From few years, this organization
is facing the issue of Voluntary employee turnover which has resultant to increase cost involved
in their operations as it is considered difficult to hire trained and well skilled workforce in poor
region like Mozambique (Bay and Hong, 2017).
Purpose of the study
The main purpose of the research is to critically analyze the voluntary employee turnover
rate and retention in a small size organization in Mozambique within a period of 10 years. The
research is done in different levels of staff from clerical workers to the managerial staff of the
company. Quality workforce always has an impact on the success stories of most organizations
(Gialuisi & Coetzer, 2013). All factors contribute in some way or another to the growth of these
organizations. High employee turnover could incur high costs. For an example cost of training
and development, loss of business, new recruitment costs to name a few. High turnover rate
could be harmful in the long run, when continuously recruiting new staff could give negative im-
pression in the industry, which would be beneficial to the competitors (Gandy, Harrison, & Gold,
2018).
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