In the times of economic evolutions more pressure is put on businesses. Companies are therefore at risk of loosing talent and experienced individuals. Organisations need to find answers on how to retain talent in order to maintain the competitive edge.
Loosing employees equals the loss of investment. New employees need to be hired and trained and leaving employees take their knowledge and skills to competitors.
Research shows that generally, businesses who want to retain their employees and paying attention to their development, encourage people to stay.
One of the supporting strategies for businesses is appropriate learning and development. It is proven that workplace climate and employee development influence retention. We will investigate this in more detail in this article.
Retention
We recognise, that retation is based on organisational factors: the work ethic, opportunities and empowerment pay important role. Learning and development is a strong indicator to employees and influence their motivation and commitment. Therefore, individual development is important to the employee and the organisation as a whole. This is the reason why businesses must provide supportive and learning working climate.
Before we make any conclusions on why the learning and development contributes positively to employee retention, let me explain what influence retention first. Research shows that age, talent, level of seniority and the approach to learning at work will be the main factors.
Age
Research also suggests, that age has an impact on employee retention. Older employees are more likely to to stay working in the present organisations than the younger employees.There is a significant negative influence of age on the intention to leave. This means that the older the employees, the less they are likely to leave the organisation.
Talent
We know that talent in the organisation can be a strategic tool. It maximises business opportunities and business success. Therefore, if employees keep learning and are flexible they might be a great asset for organisations.
Employees can be divided into High Potentials and Non-High Potentials. Hight Potential employees are those who are considered by senior management to fulfil executive roles. Their characteristics are: creativity, autonomy, leadership skills and continuous learning.They are considered intelligent, flexible, resistant to stress, proactive and have negotiating skills.
Organisations continuously trying to find solutions to retain the High Potentials. Keeping these desirable workers allows organisations to achieve their objectives and success.
These attributes also influence retention. Study shows that if employees perceive themselves as highly communicative, immune to stress and likely to take leadership roles the likelihood of their retention would be relatively high. When an employee consider themselves as a potential leader there is a likelihood on leaving the company if this is not achieved.
Level of seniority
Another factor that influence employee retention is their level of seniority. Research shows that employees with higher level of seniority are more likely to stay. On the other hand, employees with less than five years of seniority are more likely to leave.
Approach to learning
There are two approaches to workplace learning: more traditional - gap approach, and appreciative approach. The appreciative approach is a personal approach and focus on strengths, rather than weaknesses that need to be addressed.
The gap approach would generally be used when hiring new employees in order to fill in the skill and knowledge deficiencies. The personal approach focuses on strengthening current employee talent to make the business even more successful.
Business, however, often focus on the gap approach to meet business expectations, but studies show that appreciative approach positively influence employee retention.
Since, it has also be found, that following policies and procedures also contributes positively to talent retention, both approaches should be used. We can conclude here that both development of employees as well as the working climate (following procedures) positively impact employee retention.
Conclusions
It can be concluded, that the appreciative learning as well as working climate influence employee retention. This means, that employees appreciate a certain level of freedom, but at the same time rely on existence of business policies and procedures. Therefore establishing both in the organisation is desirable. The absence of both of the factors will therefore increase the intention to leave. Therefore, it is important to pay attention to learning and development of the employees. Focusing not only on deficiencies and gaps, but also strengths is imperative. By applying appreciate learning employers give their people to strengthen their skills and gain work satisfaction, thus stay in the organisation.
Additionally, if we appreciate the learning and allow employees to share their knowledge with others can also lead to appreciation of colleagues. Such approaches therefore will benefit the organisation.
Creativity, learning attitudes and leaderships skills are those which should be strengthen and acquire as well.
Bibliography:
Govaerts, N., Kyndt, E., Dochy, F. and Baert, H., 2011. Journal of Workplace Learning [e-journal] 23 (1) pp.35–55.
Comments