MODULE :IOP3706
,IOP3706 Exam
Pack
Contains:
• Exam Questions & Solutions
• Exam Study Notes
• Exam Assignment Questions &
Solutions
, Unit 1 – Chap 7: Introduction: Psychology of personnel retention
Exam question (May/June 2013)
As manager you need to understand the psychological principles and factors
pertaining to the retention of employees for the purpose of recommending strategies
for retaining talented people with scarce and critical skills in the organisational
context
Discuss the various factors that influence employees’ turnover intentions, job
and occupational embeddedness. Also explain how employees’ job and work
satisfaction, commitment and work engagement influence their turnover
intentions, job and occupational embeddedness (25)
EMPLOYEE TURNOVER INTENTIONS
• One of the schools of thought dominating research and practice on turnover is
the psychological school of thought
• Focuses on individuals and their decisions to quit or stay
• This relates personnel or labour turnover to factors such as: job satisfaction,
organisational commitment and employee engagement
Forms of turnover
• Categorised into the following:
Involuntary • Occurs when an employee is fired as a result of poor
turnover performance or laid off owing to company downsizing
• Considered inevitable and possibly beneficial
Functional • Includes all resignations which are welcomed by the employer
turnover • Those which stem from an individual’s poor work performance
or failure to fit in comfortably with an organisational or
departmental culture
• Still regarded are lost opportunities and unnecessary cost
Voluntary • When a competent and capable employee leaves to work
turnover elsewhere and is generally costly to the organisation
• It means reduced productivity and increased expenses
associated with recruiting and training a replacement
Measuring employee turnover
• The following measures can be used:
o Exit interviews
o Anonymous questionnaires
o Word of mouth
o Attitude surveys
o Salary surveys
, • People leave jobs for a variety of reasons, many of which are outside the power
of the organisation to influence
Factors that influence employee turnover
Outside factors
• These factors relate to situations in which someone leaves for reasons largely
unrelated to work
• For example: People moving away when a spouse is relocated or when finding
difficulty in satisfying needs of both work and family
• In a way this turnover is unavoidable, but can be overcome through providing
more flexible working hours, childcare facilities or even a job offer in the location
where the spouse is being transferred to
Pull and push factors
• Pull factors can include a change in career, career mobility opportunities,
maternity leave, children and job transfer
• Push factors can include level of pay, lack of career development, unmet needs,
lack of superior support, working conditions and stress
• Push factors show dissatisfaction with work or the organisation and pull factors
show reasons for leaving are to improve living standards or better career
development opportunities
Factors influencing job and occupational embeddedness
• Job and occupational embeddedness refers to the totality of forces that keep
people in their jobs and occupations
• These forces are threefold: fit (extent to which individuals job complements other
areas of their life), links (extent to which individuals ties with other people and
activities at work) and sacrifice (ease with which these links can be broken).
• The greater the fit, the number of links and the degree of sacrifice, the greater the
forces toward job embeddedness will be.
• Some push and pull factors that have the strongest influence on employees’
embeddedness:
,IOP3706 Exam
Pack
Contains:
• Exam Questions & Solutions
• Exam Study Notes
• Exam Assignment Questions &
Solutions
, Unit 1 – Chap 7: Introduction: Psychology of personnel retention
Exam question (May/June 2013)
As manager you need to understand the psychological principles and factors
pertaining to the retention of employees for the purpose of recommending strategies
for retaining talented people with scarce and critical skills in the organisational
context
Discuss the various factors that influence employees’ turnover intentions, job
and occupational embeddedness. Also explain how employees’ job and work
satisfaction, commitment and work engagement influence their turnover
intentions, job and occupational embeddedness (25)
EMPLOYEE TURNOVER INTENTIONS
• One of the schools of thought dominating research and practice on turnover is
the psychological school of thought
• Focuses on individuals and their decisions to quit or stay
• This relates personnel or labour turnover to factors such as: job satisfaction,
organisational commitment and employee engagement
Forms of turnover
• Categorised into the following:
Involuntary • Occurs when an employee is fired as a result of poor
turnover performance or laid off owing to company downsizing
• Considered inevitable and possibly beneficial
Functional • Includes all resignations which are welcomed by the employer
turnover • Those which stem from an individual’s poor work performance
or failure to fit in comfortably with an organisational or
departmental culture
• Still regarded are lost opportunities and unnecessary cost
Voluntary • When a competent and capable employee leaves to work
turnover elsewhere and is generally costly to the organisation
• It means reduced productivity and increased expenses
associated with recruiting and training a replacement
Measuring employee turnover
• The following measures can be used:
o Exit interviews
o Anonymous questionnaires
o Word of mouth
o Attitude surveys
o Salary surveys
, • People leave jobs for a variety of reasons, many of which are outside the power
of the organisation to influence
Factors that influence employee turnover
Outside factors
• These factors relate to situations in which someone leaves for reasons largely
unrelated to work
• For example: People moving away when a spouse is relocated or when finding
difficulty in satisfying needs of both work and family
• In a way this turnover is unavoidable, but can be overcome through providing
more flexible working hours, childcare facilities or even a job offer in the location
where the spouse is being transferred to
Pull and push factors
• Pull factors can include a change in career, career mobility opportunities,
maternity leave, children and job transfer
• Push factors can include level of pay, lack of career development, unmet needs,
lack of superior support, working conditions and stress
• Push factors show dissatisfaction with work or the organisation and pull factors
show reasons for leaving are to improve living standards or better career
development opportunities
Factors influencing job and occupational embeddedness
• Job and occupational embeddedness refers to the totality of forces that keep
people in their jobs and occupations
• These forces are threefold: fit (extent to which individuals job complements other
areas of their life), links (extent to which individuals ties with other people and
activities at work) and sacrifice (ease with which these links can be broken).
• The greater the fit, the number of links and the degree of sacrifice, the greater the
forces toward job embeddedness will be.
• Some push and pull factors that have the strongest influence on employees’
embeddedness:
