Term
| Four complementary approaches to understanding turnover |
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Definition
Two of these approaches focus on WHO quits and HOW they quit.
1. In the first approach, leaving is traditionally described thru a process initiated by an individual's feelings and beliefs. Job dissatisfaction initiates a variety of job-search behaviors and comparative behaviors on employment opportunities.
2. The second approach is called the "unfolding model of voluntary turnover." In contrast to traditional ideas, the unfolding model (a) describes multiple quitting processes, (b) includes non-cognitive and external-to-the-person factors, and (c) explains how relative job satisfaction can prompt an employee's departure.
Rather than focusing on why people LEAVE, the third approach examines why people STAY.
3. Job embeddedness captures the extent to which the employees is tied to the job, considering both on- and off-the-job factors. The broad influences that determine an employee's choice to remain within a job are represented by job embeddedness.
4. In the fourth approach, understanding focuses on the company's definition of the circumstances surrounding a person's leaving. From the manager's perspective, the questions are whether an employee's quitting is functional V. dysfunctional as well as whether it is avoidable V. unavoidable. |
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Term
| Approach 1: What traditional Theories about Turnover Tell Us |
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Definition
| Monitor job attitudes and withdrawal cognitions |
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Term
| Approach 1: The theorized linkages |
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Definition
Based on evidence, managers have good reason to expect links between job (dis)satisfaction and employee turnover.
1. The lower the level of an employee's job satisfaction, the lower will be the level of his/her organizational commitment.
2. The lower these two job attitudes are, the stronger will be the initial thoughts, feelings, and expected positive outcomes of quitting.
3. According to this traditional approach, these thoughts, feelings, and expected outcomes lead most people to search for another job. Job opportunities found are then evaluated.
4. Actual quitting occurs when a "better" job opportunity is found. |
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Term
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Definition
The statistical findings provide compelling reasons for a manager to expect the following stable and consistent relationships.
1. Overall job satisfaction strongly correlates with affective organizational commitment (.65) and the intentions for another job (-.60) and intentions to leave (-.46).
2. Job satisfaction (-.19), organizational commitment (-.23), thoughts of quitting (.24), and intentions to search (.29) and intentions to leave (.38) correlate moderately well with ACTUAL TURNOVER BEHAVIOR.
3. Until people quit, less satisfied employees are absent slightly more often, somewhat less helpful to co-workers and perform their jobs more poorly. Same with less affectively committed employees. |
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Term
| Approach 1: What to monitor first |
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Definition
Job attitudes.
The evidence indicates consistent and large correlations between job satisfaction and the intermediate variables (i.e. org commitment) before actual employee turnover occurs. In turn, the evidence reveals consistent, moderate-sized, and predictive over time correlations between the intermediate variables and ACTUAL quitting. When considered together, job satisfaction and organizational commitment should be monitored as clear and compelling indicators of future employees' quitting.
-Imperative to examine trends over time. Employees may experience significant decreases in attitudes over time and these changes may lead to an increase in search and quite intentions and actual turnover. A static approach to monitoring job attitudes would miss these nuances. |
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Term
| Approach 1: What to monitor second |
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Definition
Global withdrawal cognitions.
These traditional approaches most often conceptualize factors such as thoughts of quitting, expected utility of job search, cost of quitting, intention to search, evaluation of alternative jobs, comparisons between current and alternative jobs, and intention to leave as separate entities. These intermediate variables are difficult to separate accurately.
-Thus, these numerous factors have been reconceptualized and empirically measured as a global and broader-based variable labeled "withdrawal cognitions".
- When measured directly, global withdrawal cognitions consistently correlate with actual turnover (.3).
-Eventual leavers are likely to increase their withdrawal behaviors and cognitions under this traditional approach while stayers likely do not change. |
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Term
| Approach 2: What the Unfolding Model of Turnover Tells us |
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Definition
| Monitor shocks and paths as well as job attitudes and global withdrawal cognitions |
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Term
| Approach 2: The overall model |
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Definition
Informs us about FOUR basic patterns of thoughts and actions (or psychological "paths" for leaving organizations.
Focuses on the REASONS why people leave and oftentimes these reasons are unrelated to attitudes such as job satisfaction and organizational commitment., |
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Term
| Approach 2: Unfolding Model Path 4 |
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Definition
| In one particular pattern, which is labeled "Path 4," leaving is seen as quite similar to the traditional ideas of turnover described previously. Job dissatisfaction prompts thoughts of leaving that lead, in turn, to job search, evaluation of alternatives, and eventual departure from the job. From an applied perspective, both traditional and path 4 approaches inform the manager to monitor employees' NEGATIVE or DECLINING job attitudes. |
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Term
| Approach 2: Unfolding Model Path 1 |
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Definition
1. In path 1, a shock triggers a person to use a PRE-EXISTING action plan (aka a SCRIPT). Minimal mental deliberations occur. A person leaves without considering his/her current job alternatives and job satisfaction is essentially IRRELEVANT.
*Shock - Script - No job search - no evaluation of alternatives.* |
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Term
| Approach 2: Unfolding Model Shocks (paths 1, 2, 3) |
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Definition
In contrast to dissatisfaction-induced quitting, the leaving process begins with a SHOCK- an external-to-the-person event that causes him to think about leaving. Shocks serve to shake people out of their daily, habitual, ongoing patterns and routines. Altho all shocks are mediated by an individual's perceptual process, their jarring nature renders them easily identifiable, describable and understandable by the employee and manager. Shocks are a conceptual tool that keeps monitoring and observations firmly grounded on work behaviors and employee's immediate situation.
-People report that shocks can be:
1. Positive or Negative
2. Expected or Unexpected
3. Organization-related or Personal
Therefore shocks AUGMENT job attitudes and global withdrawal cognitions as key antecedent signals to subsequent employee turnover and are easily identifiable by employees. |
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Term
| Approach 2: Monitor for specific paths |
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Definition
| Determining which specific path employees may take can be complicated: but such monitoring offers greater understanding of turnover. |
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Term
| Approach 2: Unfolding Model Path 2 |
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Definition
2. In path 2, a shock prompts a person to reconsider his/her basic attachment to the organization because of VIOLATIONS to one's basic values, personal or professional goals, and/or plans for goal attainment ("images"). After completing these mental deliberations, a person leaves the organization WITHOUT a job search. Job satisfaction is irrelevant.
*Shock - No script - Violations - No job search - No evaluation of alternatives.* |
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Term
| Approach 2: Unfolding Model Path 3 |
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Definition
3. In path 3, a shock provokes a person to consider whether an attacment could form with another organization because of violations to one's basic values, personal or professional goals, and/or plans for goal attainment. The mental deliberations due to the shock and violations lead an individual to search for another job and to evaluate specific alternatives and one's current job. Leaves for a MORE satisfying job. Job dissatisfaction MAY or MAY NOT be present.
*Shock - No Script - Violations - Job Search - Evaluation* |
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Term
| Approach 2: The evidence - Accurate Classifications |
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Definition
| A fundamental test of the unfolding model is whether its four paths can accurately describe employees' actual leaving. |
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Term
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Definition
| A second testable attribute of the unfolding model involves the speed with which the four paths unfold. More specifically, paths vary by their levels of mental deliberation. Paths differ by whether their basic features are readily available for mental deliberation. |
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Term
| Approach 2: Shock Characteristics |
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Definition
In sample of 44 nurses found that:
1. path 1 was significantly associated with expected and personal shocks.
2. path 2 was significantly associated with organizational and negative shocks
3. path 3 was significantly associated with organizational shocks.
Morrell et al. findings:
1. shocks that are expected are more likely to be positive, personal and lead to unavoidable leaving
2. shocks that are negative are more likely to be work related, associated with dissatisfaction, affect others, and lead to avoidable leaving.
3. shocks that are more work related are less potent, associated with dissatisfaction and search for alternatives and lead to avoidable leaving.
4. shocks tend to cluster into work and non-work domains. |
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Term
| Approach 3: What a focus on Staying Rather than Leaving can Tell Us |
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Definition
| Monitor the reasons for staying in addition to the reasons for leaving. |
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Term
| Approach 3: Job Embeddedness |
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Definition
New approach focuses on why employees are STAYING and what might prevent them from leaving. Three ways an employee might be embedded within an organization:
-Links: refers to employees' formal and informal connections to other individuals or institutions
-Fit: refers to the extent to which employees' jobs and communities are compatible with their personal values, goals and plans
-Sacrifice: refers to loss of a value or values, captures the perceived losses that individuals may suffer when leaving their job.
More embedded they are, the less likely they will quit. Considers not only on-the-job, but also off-the-job.
-Turnover might be "contagious": co-workers' job embeddedness may influence an individual's decision to leave. The less embedded one's immediate co-workers are, the more likely it is they engage in job search behaviors. |
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Term
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Definition
Fundamental test of concept of job embeddedness is whether it can predict actual turnover.
-Overall job embeddedness (on- and off-the-job) was negatively correlated with intention to leave and predicted subsequent voluntary turnover
-In addition, they showed that those employees who stayed on the job had the highest levels of job embeddedness followed by employees who left due to a shock followed by employees who left with no precipitating shock. Not only does job embeddedness supplement the traditional approach to turnover research, it also complements the unfolding model by showing how it buffers the effects of shocks on turnover. |
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Term
| Creating job embeddedness |
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Definition
- Complete personality assessments to further assess fit with the organization.
- Consciously consider how to increase the links among people in the organization
- Tailored approach to employee development is relatively unique and would represent a sacrifice employee would have to make if he or she were to leave company.
- good benefits (in company and community) attract unique employees who fit with the local culture and want to be linked in such a community.
-Creating sacrifices related to the community where employees live and work. |
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Term
| Approach 4: What the Circumstances Surrounding Turnover Tell Us |
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Definition
| Monitoring for signs of voluntary quitting may not be enough |
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Term
| Approach 4: Is turnover functional and avoidable? |
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Definition
Employee turnover can be beneficial to a company if marginal performers voluntarily leave. Whereas "truly bad" performers might be fired, having too many marginal performers can minimize a firm's productivity.
-The value accrued by encouraging "bad apples" to resign can often offset that individual's overall replacement costs.
-In those situations where labor costs are substantial and salaries are expected to increase consistently overtime, turnover can result in substantial savings and enhance organizational profitability. |
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Term
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Definition
Levels of job satisfaction and organizational commitment were significantly lower for avoidable than unavoidable leavers and stayers. That is, people who left for unavoidable reasons had satisfaction and commitment levels comparable to those who stayed. People who left for avoidable reasons had worse attitudes that those who stayed or those who left for unavoidable reasons.
In addition, levels of thinking of quitting and intentions to search and to leave were significantly higher for avoidable leavers than unavoidable leavers and stayers. |
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Term
| Should turnover be encouraged or discouraged? |
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Definition
It remains the manager's decision as to:
1. Whether dysfunctional turnover should be discouraged
2. Whether functional turnover should be encouraged
3. Whether such turnover is also avoidable or unavoidable. |
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Term
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Definition
| When all evidence is considered together, the results suggest value in monitoring for job attitudes, global withdrawal cognitions, shocks, paths, and job embeddedness as well as examining the functionality and avoidability of functional turnover. A company needs to determine which individual's leaving should be seen as a functional quit and which would be dysfunctional. |
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Term
| Job performance and issue of functionality |
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Definition
To judge whether a particular employee's quitting would be functional, managers must have a solid definition of job performance. But is job performance too narrowly defined? Underlying the various and traditional performance variables is the standard job. Performance is often tied very closely to the job's formally required tasks.
They have found that:
-What gets measured directs employee attention
-Setting standards or goals directs employee efforts and behaviors
-Providing feedback allows for corrective actions toward the standard.
By focusing on one's OWN job, distracts from beneficial ORGANIZATIONAL actions.
-Traditional focus on well-defined and prescribe individual job behaviors called task performance, in-role performance or job performance.
-The broader focus that includes non-job-specific effort, behavior and performance but still benefits the larger firm is labeled extra-role performance, contextual performance or organizational citizenship behavior. |
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Term
| The details of the unfolding model and avoidability |
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Definition
Unfolding model particularly helpful in assessing avoidability because Path 4 captures much of the traditional approach and shocks capture much of the avoidability issue.
1. Because speed of path 1 quitting can be unpredictable and speed of path 2 quitting can be quick, managers may have minimal opportunity to respond to shock that may initiate such leaving.
-May need to have a mechanism allowing for proactive and quick actions to encourage or discourage an employee. One technique is to gather examples of actual shocks from leavers and events that prompted stayers to think about quitting. Then ask current employees whether these would prompt thoughts of quitting and what scripts they might have in place and follow if they occurred.
2. Quitting in paths 3 and 4 is more predictable and slower. Because people search for alternatives and evaluate the located options, may have opportunity to respond. Can craft individualized actions that encourage/discourage quitting. |
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Term
| Creating job embeddedness |
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Definition
Besides merely reacting to employees' withdrawal behaviors and cognitions, managers can also take a more proactive stance and reduce turnover by attempting to embed employees within their jobs.
-For all the newcomers, it is important to effectively integrate them into the social fabric of the organization.
-Once socialized, managers may continue to influence their employees' ties, fit and sacrifices by designing work around teams, establishing mentoring programs, organizing social events, and identifying clear promotional paths thru training and developmental activities. |
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Term
| How to monitor job attitudes, global withdrawal cognitions, shocks, paths, and job embeddedness |
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Definition
Surveys
Management by wandering around (MBWA) |
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Term
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Definition
Organizational surveys - can be assessed with standard, professionally developed, and well-researched measures.
-Some measure global job satisfaction, org commitment, withdrawal cognitions, and job embeddedness whereas others measure FACETS of satisfaction, commitment, withdrawal cognitions and embeddedness.
-Altho less desirable, an acceptable tradeoff between shorter questionnaire length and lower strength in predicting voluntary turnover. |
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Term
| Management by wandering around (MBWA) |
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Definition
Managers should prioritize and allocate a certain portion of their day to watching, talking, and generally interacting their employees. If done consistently and sincerely, understanding, empathy and trust should develop. As direct result, managers should readily learn:
1. what individuals interpret as shocks
2. whether scripts exist
3. the specific content of images and if image violations occur
4. how embedded the employee is
5. whether job search cognition and behaviors are engaged. |
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Term
| Exceptions: Importance of workforce stability |
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Definition
Selective retention is less important in situations where workforce stability is LESS critical and vice versa.
1. Are replacement employees readily available? If so, selective retention is less important. One indicator is job market and unemployment level.
2. Can the requisite job-specific knowledge, skills and abilities be readily taught? If training is relatively quick and inexpensive, selective retention is less of an issue. Two indicators are job's organizational level and whether advanced education is required.
3. It is becoming increasingly clear that many employees are valued for their human and intellectual capital. More specifically, some employees may have specialized knowledge that is critical to organizational effectiveness.
4. As an organization's success becomes more dependent on relationships, network connections and interactions with others within and outside of the organization, an employee's social capital, independent of his/her skills, knowledge or abilities becomes a more critical asset. If employees with high social capital quit, they might leave behind a communication gap that cannot easily be filled. |
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Term
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Definition
Turnover is likely unimportant in temporary organizations whose sole purpose is to create a given project or produce a certain service, and then, by design, disband.
-Similarly, bureaucracies, which are relatively buffered from market forces may have limited concern with retention and stability because of sufficient slack resources, adequate time to forecast accurately human resource requirements, or de facto monopoly position.
-Finally those organizations where creativity and innovation are critical to survival might actually consider encouraging departures of less creative or innovative employees. |
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Term
| "The more things change, the more things stay the same" |
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Definition
Companies seek to prevent the seeds of leaving before they get planted.
-Job Rotation
-Career Development programs |
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