EMPLOYEE TURNOVER: Causes and Strategies for Employee Retention

EMPLOYEE TURNOVER: Causes and Strategies for Employee Retention

                                                                By

                    KUYE OLUSEGUN, Dip (Property Law), HND, MSc, FNIVS, RSV

ABSTRACT

Retaining employees’ remains a primary concern for many organisations (estate firms inclusive) as every client will prefer to do business with an organisation with skilled, motivated and experienced employees. In firms where employees are veteran, well trained and highly experienced, it will provide the firms’ numerous clients with quality professional services. But in firms where employees’ turnover is high, the level of patronage and productivity will be very low – this is a common scenario in some estate firms in Nigeria – estate firms were used as reference point in this paper. When an employee leaves, the company must pay for the recruitment and training of newly hired employees and may even have to deal with low productivity for some time before new hands are employed. This paper provides a theoretical overview of the myriad causes of employee turnover, cost of such turnover and strategies for stemming employees’ turnover among the other issues discussed.

Keywords: Employers; employees’ turnover; firms; estate firms

INTRODUCTION

Employee turnover refers to the proportion of employees who leave an organisation over a set period (often on a year-on-year basis), expressed as a percentage of total workforce numbers. At its broadest, the term encompass all leavers, both voluntary and involuntary, including those who resign, retire or made redundant; in which case, it may be described as ‘overall’ or ‘crude’ employee turnover (Xie, 2003). Many organisations are facing high employees’ turnover issues. Some of the employees’ turnover is due to unavoidable downsizing due to a tough economy. This type of turnover is not the common turnover that employers deal with consistently; it is usually a one-time issue and this type of turnover stops once the economy turns around. Though voluntary turnover rates have decreased recently as a result slight improvement in economic conditions, the flip side of this coin is that redundancy-related turnover has become more common. However, skills shortages persist for certain occupational groupings, so it is important to be aware of trends in turnover rates for different groups rather than simply focusing on ‘headline’ figures. The turnover within the context of this paper is the “revolving door” of employees being hired, stays for a little while, and then leaves. This type of turnover can be symptomatic of a deeper, organisational problem.

This paper examines the nature of employees’ turnover, the cost of such turnover, factors contributing to its magnitude in organisations, and employee retention strategies that could help curb high employee turnover in business organisations, especially estate firms. For effectiveness in organisation’s human resource management, this study could be useful in the formulation of employees’ retention policy, because it contains a systematic expositions on the determining factors responsible for high employees’ turnover and the strategic approach for stemming it; thus it will assist employers in analysing and the assemblage of facts about the organisation’s core employees’ movement.

EMPLOYEES TURNOVER: Nature and Classifications

Zhang & Zhang (2006), classified employees’ turnover into internal or external as follows:

• Internal turnover involves employees leaving their current positions and taking new positions within the same Both positive turnover (such as increased morale from the change of task and supervisor) and negative (such as project/relational disruption) effects of internal turnover exist and therefore, it may be equally important to monitor this form of turnover in addition to its external turnover. Internal turnover might be moderated and controlled by typical human resources mechanisms, such as an internal recruitment policy or formal succession planning.
• External turnover can be voluntary or involuntary. Voluntary turnover is initiated at the choice of the employee, while in involuntary turnover (or employer-initiated termination), the employees has no part in their termination (such as long term sickness, death, moving overseas). Typically, the characteristics of employees who engage in involuntary turnover are no different from job However, voluntary turnover can be predicted (and in turn controlled) by constrict of turnover intent (Zhang & & Zhang, op cit). When voluntary employee turnover is high, this may be an indication that employees are not happy with the work or their wages. It can also indicate unsafe or unhealthy working conditions, or that few employees give satisfactory performance which could be due to unrealistic expectations or poor candidate screening on entry, or it may be due to lack of career opportunities or that the work schedule is rigidly routine in nature thus offering no atom of intellectual development and growth. High voluntary employee turnover could also be an indication that the employee simply feels dissatisfied with the job scope or conflict with the management – these and other reason can be regarded as predictors of high turnover.

High turnover of employee is not too good for an organisation that wants to succeed. For example, an organisation that does not have a good welfare package for its employees, such as good salary structure, leave allowance, on-the-job employee training opportunities, etc, and does not review its employee appraisal performances on a periodic basis may likely have high employees turnover as they (employees) might not be happy with the type of working environment they found themselves and this may lead to employee moving to another organisation that provides a very good working environment and also have a good welfare package in place. An organisation that does not upgrade its employee productivity by periodically sending them on training may not derive full potential from such employees and this could affect the overall business performance of such organisation in the long run.

In the literature on employee retention, voluntary turnover attracts more attention, because employee movement such as recruitment (exterior inflow), personnel allocation, position adjustment (internal inflow), job displacement and “dis-employment” (involuntary turnover) are all controlled by the organisation. However, the loss of employees who have relatively high human capital value who choose to leave an organisation can cause serious loss and difficulty, especially when the turnover numbers are on the rise (Zhang & & Zhang, op cit).

Sullivan (2009) further classified employees’ turnover as follows:

1. Zero turnovers: It would be a mistake to assume that any firm that has low or “zero” turnover is a well-managed firm. Low turnover rates could, in fact, be caused by a number of factors including a lack of employment opportunities within the region, financial constraints that prevent employees from moving, a bad firm image that keeps recruiters away, or a high concentration of older workers reluctant to change jobs later in their career. Another common reason for low turnover is the fact that a firm’s employees may be in low demand because they are perceived as being poorly skilled and undesirable. True recruiters are always trying to steal away the best employees, even during tough economic If no one steals (or even tries to steal) your employees, it might mean they are not worth stealing (Sullivan, op cit).

2. Desirable turnover: According to Sullivan (2009), not all employees turnover is bad and that employers ought to celebrate “losing the losers”. In the opinion of Sullivan (op cit), the idea of keeping employee is just plain silly and that the fact is that there are many factors that can transform “ordinary turnover” into either positive or negative turnover. He stated further that whether turnover is good or bad depends primarily on the business impact caused by the departure of the employee and went further to classify this business impact into eight categories as follows:

• • Performance – The employee’s performance
  • Position – The business impact of their
  • Business unit – Whether their business unit is mission-critical.
  • Skills – The criticality of the employee’s skill set to the
  • Replacement – How easy they are to replace with an equivalent internal or external
  • Return on investment (ROI) – Their productivity compared to their costs as an
  • Where they go – Where they do go after they leave the firm (to a competitor?).
  • Reasons for leaving – Were the reasons for leaving realistically preventable?

Specific instances where employees’ turnover could be regarded as ‘desirable’ are when:

• A bottom performer leaves on their own (avoiding the need to terminate them); his/her appointment is terminated; or the employer leaves and goes directly to a competitor.
• An employee with declining or irrelevant skills is replaced by someone with increasing or more relevant skills, or a lower performer is replaced by promoting someone inside that needed more challenge to grow and develop, thus improving the organisation.
• An employee with key skills working in a non-critical job/business unit transfers to a strategic job/business

3. Neutral or OK turnover: Some turnover is neither good nor Some of the situations that can be classified as “neutral turnover” include turnover of (Sullivan, op cit):

• • an employee or contractor that was hired to provide short-term
  • an employee who provided sufficient notice, enabling an exceptional replacement to be sourced, hired, and trained prior to the employee’s exit.
  • an employee leaving a non-hard-to-fill job with a short learning curve.
  • an employee who left the firm because of a major illness or something that could not be predicted or

4. Critical or highly undesirable turnover: As outlined by Sullivan (op cit), some of the situations that can be classified as “critical turnover” include turnover of:

• • a top performer with little or no advance notice and there was no available internal candidate or external applicant pool to replace them.
  • a critical team leader/manager or an employee that possesses the only knowledge or experience in a critical field in the organisation.
  • an individual with extensive contacts and experience, or employee in a critical business unit, or revenue impact job, or a top performer or a key individual that goes to a direct competitor.
  • an individual that was on the succession plan.
  • an individual forced to leave due to a work-related disability or accident.

5. Bad turnover: As indicated by Sullivan (2009), the firm’s overall turnover may be “bad” when:

• There is a very low termination rate as a result of managers not identifying and firing low performers often or fast enough.
• A firm has a high internal “churn” rate, when people “love the firm” but transfer internally excessively because of a bad manager, poor staff development programs or if it is the only way to get additional rewards.
• The firm does not accurately identify the real reasons “why” critical individuals left (generally utilizing a post-exit interview), so that future turnover cannot be
• The overall cost of filling vacant positions is so high that the vacancies negatively impacted overhead costs.

CAUSES OF EMPLOYEES TURNOVER IN REAL ESTATE FIRMS

Employees resign for many reasons. Poor employer/employee relationship could make an employee leave the organisation or firm. Employees may leave because they feel endangered or undervalued; office politics could also play a role in an employee’s decision to find work elsewhere. In high turnover industries, a great deal of employee turnover consists of people resigning or being dismissed in the first few months of employment. In estate firms, there are many factors that are attributable to employee turnover. These factors often include:

• Employee misconduct: The following are some of the common cases of misconduct acts of employees in estate firms:
  • Falsifying personal records or official
  • Failing to disclose any conviction for a criminal offence before being
  • Absence from duty without permission and without reasonable or justifiable
  • Insubordination or wilful disobedience to
  • Financial embezzlement of client’ of company’s money.
  • Fighting, sleeping, smoking and getting drunk while on duty.
  • Dereliction of duty and avoidable acts of
  • Any other acts that the firm may consider to constitute
• Retrenchment: This is a permanent discharge of an employee from work due to reasons which may be economic or otherwise, but not necessarily the fault of the If an estate firm is not making enough money from professional activities, such firm be forced to retrench some of its staff in other to avoid huge salary areas.
• Retirement: This type of employee turnover may be as a result of old age and the resultant decline in For example, in the public sector, after 35 years of service, or at the age of 60 years, an employee must resign. Also, an employee can resign on the basis of poor health after 10 years of public service. In estate firms and other companies in the private sector, retirement is an acceptable mode of separation but the terms are usually different from that of the public sector.
• Resignation: It may be done voluntarily by the employee on the ground of ill-health physical disability, change in marital status or better job opening or as a result of conflict and dissatisfaction with the condition of the service. As stated by the Estate Surveyors and Valuers Registration Board of Nigeria (no date), any Estate Surveyor and Valuer who wants to resign to establish his/her own firm, must properly resign and acceptance of resignation obtained before leaving so that all company’s issues could be properly
• Employers not willing to pay huge terminal benefits: The field interview conducted in the course of writing this paper revealed that some employers (estate firms) often terminate the appointment of their long term employees under flimsy or controversial circumstances in a bid to avoid paying huge terminal benefits to such employee on retirement. The thinking of such firm is that, the lower the number of years spent by an employee, the lower will be the entitlement that will be paid, if any at Furthermore, some firms terminate the appointment of their employees

because they want to reduce the salary overhead. The firms that engage in this practice are of the notion that many unemployed graduates abound who are looking for job and no matter how little any firm may offers to pay as monthly salary, they would accept it.

• Inability of employer to pay staff salary: Some estate firms are in the habit of employing large number of people believing that if they have more employees, it will enhance their integrity and goodwill and more jobs will come in through unethical sourcing They thus employ people (both skilled and unskilled) as many as possible, at the end of the day, they may not have the capability of paying the salaries of these unfortunate employees. This practice usually compounds the incidence of high employees’ turnover. Furthermore, field study revealed that some estate firms often give their employees unassailable income generation target and failure on the part of such employees’ to meet the set income target within a stipulated period of time is easily eased out of these firms.
• Discriminatory and retaliatory termination: In some cases, the firing of an employee may be discriminatory in nature. Although an employer may claim the dismissal was for “just cause”, these discriminatory acts may be due to the employee’s physical or mental disability, or perhaps their age, race, religion, gender, HIV status or sexual orientation. Other unjust firings may result from a workplace manager or supervisor wanting to retaliate against an employee. This may be because the employee reported a wrongdoing (often, but not always sexual harassment or other misconduct) on the part of the supervisor or manager. Such terminations are often considered illegal and many successful lawsuits have resulted from discriminatory or retaliatory employment Furthermore, discriminatory or retaliatory termination by a supervisor could also take the form of administrative process; in this case, the rules and regulations of the organisation are used as guise to justify such terminations. For example, if a place of employment has a rule that prohibits personal phone calls, receiving or making personal calls, committing that act can be used as basis for termination even though it may be a common practice within that particular organisation.
• Unfair treatment and poor salary package could make an employee seek greener pasture.

Apart from the factors outlined above, SIGMA Assessment Systems (2012) listed other factors that often contribute to employee turnover; these are:

• Economy: In exit interviews, one of the common reasons given for leaving is the availability of higher paying Obviously, in a better economy, the availability of alternative jobs play a role in employee turnover, but this tends to be overstated in exit interviews.
• Performance of the organisation: An organisation perceived to be in economic difficulty will also raise the specter of impending layoffs. Workers in this type of organisation may believe that it is rational to seek employment
• Organisational culture: The reward system, the strength of leadership and the ability of the organisation to elicit a sense of commitment on the part of the employees, and the development of a sense of shared goals, among other factors, will influence such indices of job satisfaction as turnover intentions and turnover rate.
• Characteristics of the job: Some jobs are intrinsically more attractive than A job’s attractiveness will be affected by many characteristics, including its repetitiveness, challenge, danger, perceived importance, and capacity to elicit a sense of accomplishment.

• Unrealistic expectations: Another factor is the unrealistic expectations and general lack of knowledge that many job applicants has about the job at the time that they receive an offer of When these unrealistic expectations are not realized, the employee becomes disillusioned and decides to quit.
• Poor recruitment and selection decisions on the part of the employer, along with poorly designed or non-existent induction programmes could result to high employees’ Expectations are also often raised too high during the recruitment process, leading new employees to compete for and subsequently accept jobs for which they are, in reality, unsuited.
• Attributable personal reasons: There are factors specific to the individual that can influence employees’ turnover rates. These include personal and trait-based Personal factors include changes in family situation, a desire to learn a new skill or trade, or an unsolicited job offer. Trait- based or personality features or characteristics that predict job performance and counterproductive behaviours such as loafing, absenteeism, theft, substance abuse on the job, and sabotage of employer’s production equipments. These traits can be measured and used in employee screening to identify individuals showing lower probability of turnover.

It is important to note that the factors listed above can be classified as being within or beyond the control of the employing organization or firm. In order to actively participate in reducing costs associated with employees’ turnover, organizations/firms need to identify those factors over which they do have some control and initiate necessary changes to reduce turnover attributable to these “controllable” factors.

COST OF EMPLOYEES’ TURNOVER

Most business organisations take a deep interest in their employees’ turnover rate because it is a costly part of doing business. When a company must replace a worker, the company incurs direct and indirect expenses. These expenses include the cost of advertising, headhunting fees, human resources costs, loss of productivity, new hire training, and customer retention – all of which can add up to anywhere from 30 to 200 percent of a single employee’s annual wages or salary, depending on the industry and the job role being filled (Kakes, 2010). A turnover rate is the percentage of employees that a company must replace within a given time period. This rate is a concern to most companies because employee turnover can be a costly expense, especially for lower-paying jobs, which typically have the highest turnover rates. While lower paying job roles experience an overall higher average of employee turnover, they tend to cost companies less per employee replacement when compared with that of higher paying job roles. However, they incur the cost more often. For these reasons, most companies focus on employee retention strategies regardless of pay levels (SIGMA Assessment Systems, 2012 & Kakes, 2010).

The high cost of losing key employees has long been recognised. However, it is important for organisations to understand that general turnover rates in the workforce can also have a serious impact on an organisation’s profitability, and even survival. As Kakes (2010) put it, employee turnover is a silent but effective profit killer. There are a number of costs incurred as a result of employee turnover. These costs are derived from a number of different sources, some of which are listed below (SIGMA Assessment Systems, 2012 & Kakes, 2010):

• Severance wages and cost of benefits of the departing employee
• Administrative expenses including hiring costs (i.e. recruitment of replacement), advertising, screening and interviewing, and services associated with selection, such as security checks, processing of references, and, possibly, psychological
• Costs of induction and training, including supervisory and co-worker time spent in formal training, as well as the time that the worker-in-training must spend off the job.
• Loss of productivity associated with the interim period before a replacement can be placed on the For example, there could be loss of productivity:
  • of co-workers (time spent gossiping or taking on additional work load which may upset them)
  • of position if it remains vacant (may increase overtime, temporary services, time spent filling in, supervisor/manager time spent on scheduling issues)
  • during training (new employees require support and direction, existing employees may be distracted, supervisor/manager spends time with new employees, etc).
  • due to the time required for new employees to get up to speed on the job.
  • associated with the time that co-workers must spend away from their work to help a new employee

Further to the cost implications of employee turnover outlined above, there are a variety of hidden costs which the employer might not have considered. Some of the hidden costs include (Moran, 2011):

• When an employee leaves, the work that is not done has a price attached to it. For example, lost briefs or delays of project execution.
• Ripple effect. Turnover has an impact on the peer group, as well as the management chain, making everyone less effective, co-workers need to pick up the slack thus distracting them from achieving their own performance goals while managers need to devote time to finding a new
• Customer loss. When a knowledgeable employee leaves, taking experience and customer service ability with him or her; that can have an impact on customer satisfaction as customer/client commitments are often not met, and the company loses important
• Lost Turnover can become costly to management in two ways – management can lose credibility when it creates an environment with excessive turnover, and existing employees can become demoralized and decide to move on.

In practice, having an employee leave a company, either because of his or her choice or after being fired or otherwise let go, might require various administrative tasks to be performed and severance pay or other payments made to such employee. Replacing the employee might require such things as advertising the open position using employment consultants (i.e. head hunters) or other service to find potential job candidates; bringing in candidates for interviews and eventually training the new employee. Turnover cost calculators include a long list of other related items, all of which cost the firm time and money. Furthermore, time and money are spent conducting exit interviews and filling out paperwork. Added strain and prolonged work hours are often put on remaining co-employees’ to complete their own tasks as well as help fill the gap left by a lost employee. Work time is also lost to employees’ need to talk to each other about the situation under which the employee left. The organisation risks losing clients when a good employee leaves, costing the organisation money in the form of projected income. Then there is the cash layout involved in seeking and training the new employee hired to replace the one that left.

From the cost implication of employees’ turnover as outlined above, it becomes apparent that many of the costs of employees’ turnover are indirect, but the possible efforts that could be made to minimize employees’ turnover, is direct and cost quite a lot of money. Consequently, there is urgent need for business organisations to now begin to work on creating environments that retain employees. Employee retention is the key to minimizing turnover costs. It is estimated that the cost of replacing a mid-level employee is as much as 150% of that person’s annual compensation package.

PRACTICAL APPROACH TO CURBING HIGH EMPLOYEES TURNOVER

Employees are important in any business organisation, without them, the business being carried out by the organisation would be unsuccessful. As a matter of fact, the issue is not only about managing retention but also about managing people. If a firm manages its employee very well, employees’ retention will take care of itself. Estate firms should therefore focus on managing the work environment to make better use of the available human assets. People would want to work for an organisation which shows constant appreciation for the work done; where there are ample opportunities to grow; where there is a friendly and cooperative environment; and a feeling that the firm is second home to the employee. To these ends, estate firms and other business organisations that are keen in curbing high employee turnover should adopt the following proactive employees’ retention strategies:

• Conduct exit interview: The first step when developing an employee retention strategy is to establish why employees are leaving; and the impact that employee turnover has on the organisation, including the associated costs. To this end, where an employee resigns, exit interview could be conducted to find out reason(s) for leaving. The snag with this approach is that obtaining accurate information on reasons for leaving can be difficult. It is important to appreciate that the reasons people give for their resignations are frequently untrue or only partially true. Individuals are likely to be reluctant to voice criticism of their managers, colleagues or the organisation generally, preferring to give some less contentious reason for their departure. The ascribable factor for this attitude is the general concern from an employee’s perspective is to do their best to stay on good terms with their former employer and get a reasonably positive reference to move forward otherwise, how does an employee know that what they say will not be held against them? Therefore, where ‘exit interview’ is intended to be used to enquire about the reasons for leaving, the interviewer should not be a manager who has responsibility for the individual or who will be involved in future reference writing. Confidentiality should be assured and the purpose of the interview explicitly explained. To this end, a neutral or external consultant could be assigned to conduct exit interviews as this will help employers capture more accurate data about why people are leaving, as individuals are more willing to be truthful when there is reassurance of anonymity. Alternative approaches to collecting exit data involve the use of confidential attitude surveys including questions on employees’ intentions to leave and confidential questionnaires sent to former employees around six months after their departure. Once the reasons are identified, they should not be ignored. The data obtained can be used to develop the cost of employees’ retention strategy that focuses on the particular issues and causes of turnover specific to the organisation.
• Organisational structure and management style: One of the most pressing issues facing business organisations (estate firms inclusive) today is how to ensure that employees are fully engaged and aligned with the organisation’s corporate business goals. As employee engagement becomes an increasing critical issue that can either erode market success and financial performance, or drive an organisation to move quickly to achieve its business objectives. In the case of long term employees, turnover can be reduced by paying attention to wider issues such as organisational structure or management In this regard, Department for Work and Pensions (2010) stated that some of the best ways of reducing turnover is to take steps to engage employees in the organisation and the job they are doing by way of:
• showing them clear leadership and letting them know how they can contribute
• engaging them in their work and giving them the power to make some decisions themselves rather than trying to control and restrict them
• showing them respect and appreciation
• giving them ways to voice their views and concerns.

With regard to this organisational structure and management style, the Department for Work and Pensions (2010) outlined some of the factors which may contribute to high turnover. These include:

• Monthly salary: check to see if your pay rates have not fallen below that of your The employer may need to do an equal pay audit to check rates are fair. Every employee would desire a competitive salary package, and most employees expect annual salary raises. Employees could therefore become disgruntled when they feel that their salary and other benefits hitherto enjoyed are being slowly reduced in the form of higher personal income tax, stoppage of sick allowance, leave allowance and outright denial of employees’ annual leave among others.

*        Equal opportunities/diversity/ discrimination:

• Are policies on equal opportunities, diversity and discrimination rigorously observed?
• Do they cover disability, sex, race, age, sexual orientation, religion or belief and other diversity issues?

*        Communicating and consulting:

• Do the workers feel they are ‘kept in the picture’ about developments within the organisation, new orders/customers, product developments, new equipment, management changes?
• Do you consult with workers before decisions are made?
• Do you comply with the provisions of Labour Act?

*        Management skills:

• Are managers and supervisors fully trained?
• Are they competent to deal with people management issues, as well as the technical requirements of their job?

*        Discipline and grievances:

• Are there proper disciplinary and grievance procedures which are known to everyone?
• Are managers given training in their use and do senior managers support them in applying procedures?

*        Performance management:

• Do employees have personal objectives which link in with those of the organisation overall objectives?
• Do they understand where they ‘fit’ into the organisation and the importance of their contribution?
• Are workers given the opportunity to discuss with their manager any appraisal of their work and progress which may be made?

*        Personal development plans (PDP):

• Do all employees have a PDP which has been agreed with their line manager?
• Are they kept waiting or moved from job to job, perhaps losing money, because of poor planning?
• Ideas for improvements: If workers have suggestions about the way the organisation is run, is there a well-known and speedy way of having their views heard? Are they reliably and quickly informed of management’s response?
• Working conditions: Are any improvements to working conditions necessary? Are working areas and facilities, such as toilets and rest rooms of a good standard?
• Hours of work: Is there a need to reorganise patterns of working time? Does the organisation offer flexible working hours, part-time/temporary working, or job sharing?
• Stress: Have you carried out a stress audit?

Estate firms should know that most pupil Estate Surveyors and other young employees may want to leave their present jobs just because they feel directionless and thus became frustrated simply because there is no clear plan for personal and professional growth. The implication of this is that such disoriented employees will want to go in search of a position that offer secured job opportunities and consistent with better pay and benefits, usually in bigger firms. To be a contender for a talented loyal workforce, employers must be competitive and stay competitive. Such employers must pay their employees a reasonable wage and other bonuses on a regular basis. This monetary motivation could be tied to the respective employees’ accomplished work schedule, productivity level and the employees’ overall contribution to the firm’s successes during the job appraisal period.

Furthermore, there should be a programme of employees’ engagement whereby regular meetings will be held with the employees to discuss both the firm’s business goals as well as the personal life goals of the respective employees. Career path should be created for each employee based on his/her personal goals on one hand and the overall vision and mission of the firm on the other. With this career path in place, employees will have something to strive for and look forward to, and everyone in the firm will be on the same page as to where the firm is headed. Reaching personal goals and moving along the outlined career path will lead to a sense of accomplishment and pride for every employee of such firm.

• Recruitment and selection process: Estate firms and other business organisations should realise that being competitive and getting employees off to a good start will help them retain their staff, especially, the quality ones. The answer to the problem of employees’ turnover begins with the hiring process. To put it simply, organisations need to make better hiring decisions. This means that organisations need a system for collecting and screening thoroughly employment applications in other to immediately weed out those who do not fit the organisation’s minimum qualifications.

Furthermore, adopting an effective applicant screening procedures is an efficient and cost effective method of identifying employees who possess the necessary traits and behaviour to succeed on the job and are, therefore, less likely to leave. It therefore becomes imperative that Employee Screening Questionnaire (ESQ) that will help measure both productive and counterproductive job behaviour and, and thus provides employers with a tool for reducing involuntary turnover resulting from poor selection decisions. In addition to reducing involuntary turnover, the ESQ should be designed such that it will have the ability to reduce voluntary turnover by identifying those applicants who are likely to be satisfied and committed to their jobs (SIGMA Assessment Systems, 2012). Once there is a group of ‘qualified’ candidates, the next step is to generate more information than what is normally on an employment application or obtained in the course of the interview. This information comes through the use of new employee assessments forms. These assessments will provide the organisation with valuable information about how each job seeker compares to the top performers currently on the job.

• Induction: It can be very beneficial to make sure that employees get off to a good Orientation and proper training are two ways to achieve this goal. A newly employed staff should be introduced to his/her own department, members of staff in the same firm should be told brief history about the company, services rendered, names of Department Heads and functions of various department, other important things that needs to be passed across are the working policy and procedural rules/guidelines of the firm and the firms policy regarding discipline, training, promotion, holiday, date and payment of salaries.

Estate firms and other companies should stress the importance of open-door policies to all supervisors and managers so that new employees will feel that they have the support and human resources that they need to help them get their jobs done. Following up with new employees after they have been employed for a short time to get feedback can provide companies with information that they need to help them pave a smoother path in the future (Wisegeek.com, n.d.). Furthermore, Wisegeek.com (op cit) stated that, creating an environment with advancement potential can help employers aiming at effectively managing turnover.

• On the job training and staff development: This involves the process of equipping every employee with necessary skill needed in performing his/her duties in an It is supposed to be a continuous process, and not only for newly employed staff, as old staff too must be reminded of what is expected of them in the firm and also updated with new developments in the industry. Staffs can be trained with the use of the medium such as lectures and seminars (organized within and outside the firm), case studies, field visitations, professional association memberships, video coaching, prescribed reading and private study. There is need to develop training schemes that gradually introduces the new employees to one part of the job at a time. Some of the specific methods of training and development that could be deployed are (Department for Work and Pensions, 2010) :
  • Internship: A form of on-the-job training that usually combines job training with classroom
  • Apprentice training: It provides for an on-the-job experience by an employee under the guidance of a skilled and certified worker.
  • Job rotation: This is a process in which the employees over a considerable period of time work on series of jobs and departments in a firm, thereby learning a broad variety of

A sense that the company or firm where one is working is not paying premium attention to staff training and development as expected could lose its valuable staff. Employers must therefore be on the lookout for these conflicts, and implement employee retention best practices if they want to retain quality employees.

• Employer/employees integration: This has to do with the process of ensuring that the relationship between employees and company’s management is well harmonized and cordial. This could be attained through adequate communication and effective grievance settlement. Integration in an estate firm is important and has the following advantages:
  • It allows closeness and cooperation
  • High productivity and less stain and pressure among employees
  • Employees will have sense of belonging
  • Better health and longevity of life, since all employees are working in a less tense environment and will see work not as a punishment but an essential part of their respective
  • High returns to the organisation since every employee is able and willing to make contributions in the firms activities
  • Cost is reduced in area of

Thus estate firms should invest in employees by providing team-building events such as annual company picnics and regular and accessible training opportunities not only makes for a better work environment with higher quality and quantity output, but also makes employees feel that the organisation is investing in them. Employees who feel invested in by their employers become likewise invested in the well-being and future of the organisation; and invested employees are less likely to leave.

• Employees’ morale: Most firms find that employee turnover is reduced when they address issues that affect the morale of employees. By offering employees benefits such as reasonable work schedule and the flexibility that allows them to balance their work and family life, performance- based incentives and traditional benefits such as paid holidays or sick days, firms are able to reduce their employee turnover The extent to which a firm will go in order to retain employees depends not only on the costs of replacing its employees, but also on the firm’s overall performance. If a firm is not getting the performance it is paying for from its employees, the replacement costs might be considered a small price to pay over the long term.
• Employees’ work conditions: In highly competitive markets, another essential part of managing turnover is to ensure that employees’ work conditions are comparable to that of their peers. This includes salary, non monetary benefits, and employment Although salary is often a primary concern, employees may be motivated to leave a firm if they are treated better elsewhere. For example, the prestige of an office versus a cubicle can lure employees away. If an employee notes that people in his position who work for other firms have the ability to meet clients outside of the office but he/she is restricted in this regard, he/she may feel less inclined to stay with such employer.

Some employees leave their employers because their jobs become unfulfilling and there is a limited avenue for growth. The longer that an employee is with an employer and the more measurable progress that he/she makes during that time, the longer he/she is likely to stay employed there. It will therefore be of benefit to estate firms and other business concerns to prioritize internal promotion practices and to implement educational assistance programs.

CONCLUSION

Employees’ turnover is a critical issue which needs to be handled properly. Employers need to look at the environment they provide for employees to work. Also costs of turnover can be reduced if there is proper succession planning in the form of good knowledge base. New employees, even though may not be as productive, can use the knowledge base to get up to speed quickly. The simple reality is that retention fuels a very real competitive advantage and estate firms must proactively address the causes of turnover in other to improve their competitiveness. Effective business organisation can significantly lower turnover through better communication, making certain managers have a clear sense of the company direction and by making sure that employees have the tools they need to properly handle their assigned jobs

As part of the employees’ engagement strategy, employees’ input/suggestions should be regularly sought on all organisation’s business processes and procedures. What is working well and what is not? What could be changed to make the firm’s operations and processes better, faster and stronger? How can the business processes cum operations be made more reliable and result oriented for existing and potential clients of the firm? Chances are that these employees may see things which the management may not see and can therefore offer valuable advice or make suggestions that will help improve the firm’s business prospects. The bottom line is, once the employees are not able to see the growth potential in their current position and they do not feel as if they are a valuable part of the firm’s future, it is certain that they will leave.

Finally, high employees’ turnover costs business organisations valuable time, effort and money in recruiting and training efforts. It therefore becomes highly expedient for business organisations/estate firms to take a more proactive and stringent process that will lead to the employment of dedicated, enthusiastic and more contented employees.

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