Employee Turnover and Its Impact on Performance
Employees are regarded a critical resource for any organization. For this reason, the relevance of effective employee turnover management cannot be overstated. In this text, I concern myself with employee turnover. In so doing, I will amongst other things discuss the effects of a high employee turnover, i.e. how a high employee turnover affects employee performance particularly at the National Archives and Records Administration - NARA. Further, I will also highlight the various causes of employee turnover and the measures the management should embrace to rein in the same.
Employee Turnover: An Overview
Employee turnover according to Armstrong (2010) is essentially the rate at which employees leave the company. According to Saratoga Institute (as cited in Deane and Sanjeev, 2004), "turnover is calculated as the number of employee terminations in a given period -- voluntary, involuntary or both -- divided by the average number of active employees during the same period." Voluntary turnover according to Goldstein and Hersen (2000) is when the employee initiates the separation. On the other hand, involuntary turnover comes about when the separation is initiated by the company (Goldstein and Hersen, 2000).
Effects of a High Turnover on Employee Performance
It is important to note from the onset that in addition to being financially costly, a high employee turnover also does hurt efficiency. To begin with, a significantly high employee turnover rate could effectively lower the morale of employees and hence their performance. Indeed, Gitman and McDaniel (2008) identify turnover and absenteeism as two of the main morale and performance killers that employees need to be on the lookout for. As the authors further point out, the morale of other employees is significantly affected as they watch their workmates leave. This is particularly the case given that over time, employees tend to build a close emotional connection with those they closely relate with at the workplace. Thus in reference to NARA, a high turnover of supervisors could lower the morale and hence performance of employees. This could particularly happen in those instances where employees have close working relations with the leaving...
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