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Employee Retention Through Motivation

 

As an employer it is a must to know about how to retain employees within the organization. There are many strategies to achieve this purpose. However motivational strategies can be used to boost employees daily (Anderfuhren et al., 2010). Motivation is an important factor for individual’s success. Hence organizations must constantly focus on motivating to get the best out of them. It is important to appreciate employee whenever they perform well and then employees will feel that they are a part of the organization. This is important to create loyal employees who deliver their best within organization and it will help in retaining employees within the organization as well (Nagabhaskar, 2014).  Based on the motivational theories it can identify different strategies to use to maintain higher retention within the organization. Following are some of the suggested methods based on motivational theories.

01.  Financial rewards – one of the methods which organization can use to motivate employee is employee reward program and through this it can change employee work routines and behaviors which will create benefit to the organization. This is a frequently used method to retain employees within organization (Roopavathi & Kishore, 2020). Further according to Farris, (2000), financial rewards can cover basic need of income for employees to feel survival, stability, and recognition. Further provision of good rewards, monetary benefits and salaries will decrease employee turnover.

02. Job Characteristics – based on the motivational theories another important factor which lead to motivation is provision of difficult challenges within organization and accomplishment of good results through it. In here job characteristics means extent to which the job includes freedom and independence for the employees to schedule their work and decide procedure to carry out those tasks. Repetitive tasks will lead to employee demotivation and low retention (Roopavathi & Kishore, 2020).

03.  Recognition – organizations should recognize employees for their work, and this will lead to feeling of comfortability among employees and they will be more loyal to the organization (Kasmi, 2011).  Under most of the motivational theories it is identified that recognition is one of the main factors which can create employee motivation. Through this employer can retain employees within organization. It is important to give necessary recognition to the employees in order to create a positive work environment.

04.  Work life balance – This is one of the main topics which has been focused by many employers and employees specially in a society which has many conflicting commitments and responsibilities. Employees are facing issue in balancing work and family matters. Therefore, organizations can provide flexible work environment. This will reduce employee stress level and in return it will increase employee motivation at work since they can balance all the work and family conflict. Therefore, this will help the organization to retain employees within organization.

 

Reference

Farris G. F., 2000. Rewards and retention of technical staff, IEEE International Engineering Management Conference,617-619.

Nagabhaska, M., 2014. Motivational factors of employee retention and engagement in organizations. International Journal of Development Research, 4(2), pp. 221-224.

Roopavathi, S. & Kishore, K., 2020. Motivational Factors of Employee Retention and Engagement in Organisation. Journal of Information and Computational Science, 10(2), pp. 1080-1085.

Anderfuhren- Biget S, Varone F, Giauque D, Ritz A (2010) Motivating employees of the public sector: does public service motivation matter? Paper presented at irspm conference, bern, 2010.

Kasmi Z (2011) Employee Retention: A challenges for HR Practitioners, Int. J. Commerce and Management, 1(2).

 

Comments

  1. Dear Dumindu, I agreed with above post. In addition to above, employee motivation can be effected by employee benefits as well. It is said that benefits are the second most important factor employee consider after salary or wage. It is important that company does have a proper benefit program which helps to hire talented staff and retain staff. (IPM, 2010).

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    1. Hi Dulanjana, Agreed with your comment. It is really interesting to see some companies in Sri Lanka have started paying dollar pegged salaries.

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    2. Furthermore adding to your point Dulanjana, Benefit programs should be there in different forms such as Employees with different education levels and positions perceive different employee benefit impacts and employee benefit programs have greater influence on younger employees′ job performance (Hong J. C., et. al., 1995)

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  2. Very interesting post Dumindu, as you have mentioned, management plays an important role in retaining talented employees who are familiar with the organization's working conditions and thus perform better than employees who come and go. Based on the writing of Thomas, (2009) employee satisfaction and, ultimately, employee retention is influenced by motivation. It is unreasonable to expect the best from employees if they are not motivated. No one wants to leave a company where he is being treated well.

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    1. Hello Chamara, Thank you for your comment and agreed with your comment.Studies show that a good employer should always know how to attract and retain his employees (Qadria A, 2009)

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  3. Hi Dumindu , Agreed with you , People have skills, experience, and knowledge, and hence have economic worth to businesses, according to the concept of human capital and knowledge management.Because they increase productivity, these skills, knowledge, and experience are considered capital (Snell and Dean, 1992).

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    1. Exactly Maheshini, Thank you for your comment. Capital-skill complementary hypothesis, formalized first by Griliches (1969), stems from the fact that skilled labor could be a better complement to capital than unskilled labor

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  4. Hi Duminda I agreed with your post. Extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation are both used by businesses to motivate employees (Mak 2001).

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    1. Agreed Thanuja. Both extrinsic and intrinsic motivation have their pros and cons. Studies show that intrinsic motivation is actually a complex neurophysiological activity wherein an individual goes through an intense psychological process that stems from inherent feelings (Lee et al., 2012). So intrinsic motivation will last long than extrinsic motivation (Chatterjee S., 2018).

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  5. Hi Duminda, I agree with your post. In today's extremely competitive labor market, there is ample evidence that firms of all sizes, technological advancements, market focus, and other variables are having difficulty retaining employees. Given the significant resources invested in employee retention initiatives within firms, it makes sense to identify, examine, and critique the motivation theories that underpin employee retention. Roopavathi, S. & Kishore, K., (2020)

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    1. Agreed Pavani, Reece and Brandt (1990) suggest that motivation can be defined as the reason why people do the things they do, and in a work setting, motivation is what makes people want to work. Since each individual is different managers should consider diverse motivational theories to retain employees (Kovach K. A., 1984)

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  6. Hi Dumindu,This is an excellent explanation about employee retention and motivation and I will add something here.We can use Zinger model for employee retention and using the suitable crafts to achieve high level of employee retention is a very important duty of managers, it will be useful to get counselors and professional management to achieve the effective strategies(Delbahari, Soltani, & Khorasgani, 2019).

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    1. Hi Lakshan, I agree with your comment. The real motivation to act comes from within the individual. Managers exert a significant amount of influence over their employees, but they do not have the power to force a person to act and retain. They can provide various types of incentives in an effort to influence an employee in any number of ways. Such as improving working conditions, rearranging work schedules, changing job descriptions and reconfiguring teams. (Shanks N. H, 2007)

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  7. Hi Dumindu, Retain a Critical Employees are very important ,Fitz-enz (1997) stated that the average company loses approximately $1 million with every 10 managerial
    and professional employees who leave the organization.
    Knowledge management is the process of creating, capturing, and using
    knowledge to enhance organizational performance (Bassi, 1997).

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    1. Thank you for your comment Manjula, and I would like to add that according to Carleton K. (2011) many organizations accept that 'people are our most valued asset’, yet ineffective employee learning investments or supports, poor managerial practice and unsupportive work environments persist. A new paradigm is needed that recognizes knowledge workers as valued human assets, not expendable cost centers (Vora, 2004).

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  8. Hi Dumindu,
    Agree with your blog. Kumar & Mathimaran (2017) affirmed that retaining employees need a systematic effort by employers to create and foster an environment that motivates employees to remain employed, by having policies and practices in place that addresses the diverse needs of employees.

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    1. Hi Thanuja, I agree with your comment. Studies show that training and motivation has positive impact on performance of employees. Organizations that have good training plans for employees can enhance the performance of employees. All the organizations that wants to enhance their employee performance should focus on training as it also motivate employees to achieve higher performance levels. (Khan M. I., 2012)

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