A biodata based personnel selection measure was created to improve the retention rate of Catalog Telemarketing Representatives at a major U.S. retail company. Five separate empirical biodata scoring methods were compared to examine their usefulness in predicting retention and reducing adverse impact. The Mean Standardized Criterion Method, the Option Criterion Correlation Method, Horizontal Percentage Method, Vertical Percentage Method, and Weighted Application Blank Method using England's (1971) Assigned Weights were employed. The study showed that when using generalizable biodata items, all methods, except the Weighted Application Blank Method, were similar in their ability to discriminate between low and high retention employees and produced similar low adverse impact effects. The Weighted Application Blank Method did not discriminate between the low and high retention employees.

M.B.A. / This paper investigates the causes and impact of mobility among senior managers and professionals within the South African public sector and is intended to contribute to debate on the theoretical and operational merits of understanding turnover by offering a best practise retention model as an approach to analysing and managing turnover. This investigation takes place within the context of a relatively young democracy that presents unique opportunities and challenges for a public sector guided by the strategic objective of optimum service delivery. This strategic imperative requires the recruitment and retention of skills at senior levels in order to ensure the efficacy of government and is exacerbated by limited resources in relation to what is on offer within the private sector. As such, this investigation into the causes and effects of mobility among senior managers and professionals also aims to establish the extent of mobility on these levels as well as offer strategies that will assist in the retention of these categories. The investigation explores the conceptual framework and theoretical contribution of current debate on retention, as well as offering thoughts on logistical and operational issues.

M.Com. (Business Management) / Talent commitment, efficiency and retention issues are emerging as the most important corporate challenges of the present and immediate future, driven by talent loyalty concerns, corporate reorganization efforts and stiff competition for key talent. For most organizations, “surprise” talent departures can be devastating on the execution of business strategy and the achievement of business goals and objectives. This phenomenon is most prevalent now in light of current economic uncertainty and following corporate downsizings when the risk of losing critical talent increases exponentially. Talent retention is one of the greatest challenges confronting many business organizations today. For most organizations talent recruitment and retention is a major concern as the ability to keep talent is crucial for the organization’s performance and future survival. It is recognized that talent turnover, is a critical challenge to most organizations that cost money, effort and energy. This challenge poses major problems to HR professionals in their efforts to formulate talent retention policies. South Africa has for the past few decades seen an influx of foreign investment, ideas and practices, facilitated by the development of the Internet and associated technologies. As with many organizations worldwide including organizations in South Africa, staff retention problems affect organizational productivity and performance. The global war for talent has increased the challenge to most organizations in attempting to address the issue of talent retention in the context of increasing competition in the global marketplace. It is against this background that this research will look into talent retention problems within the socio‐economic context of South Africa and in particular factors impacting on talent retention at Alexander Forbes as an organization. This study brings into focus the extent to which factors impacting on talent retention such as pay and compensation, career development, leadership, working environment and organizational commitment as discussed in the literature review impacts talent retention within Alexander Forbes.

The rise in the employee turnover rates is increasing the concerns amongst the organizations in retaining the employees in the workplace. The higher turnover rates are threatening the business capability in earning higher profits. Grounded by the leadership and motivational theories, the following study aims explore that how the succession planning strategies could help in retaining the employees in the organization. Swedish organizations are chosen as the area of the study. In order to fulfill the purpose of the research, the data has been gathered from primary and secondary tools. The secondary tools used in the study are past papers related to succession planning and employee retention as well as information collected through SHRM/Globoforce employee recognition survey and OECD statistical data. The primary tools used in the study are semi-structured questionnaire and face to face interviews. The data analysis involved the evaluation of the secondary data, face to face interview and classification of themes on the basis of semi-structured questionnaire. By means of the thematic analysis, four main themes were emerged. The findings showed that in order to retain the employees fruitfully, Swedish organizations should work on planning career development programs, identify and develop the talent pool and offer non-monetary rewards to the employees. This will enable them to be committed with the company and stay with it for a longer time. The implications for the study is that it will bring a positive social change by adapting the effective succession planning practices which will as a result help to increase the morale of employee and enhance the business profits by retaining the talented employees in the organization. The study has some limitations on the basis of which, it is suggested to the future scholars to conduct a quantitative study by taking a longitudinal approach in order to validate the findings on the statistical grounds as well.

In the professional services industry, it is no secret that people are the greatest assets. The investment in human capital is the core of the business, the dividends of which can never be under-estimated. The continued success of the professional services firm therefore lies in being able to retain that investment within the organisation. The current high rate of turnover within the firm, and in the professional services industry, is indeed a big challenge for management. One that necessitates a review into a variety of ways of keeping the talent within the firm. This research study was commissioned to look into one of the proposed initiatives for retaining employees; that of wealth creation. The aim was to source the views of employees on wealth creation as a way of increasing the rate of retention or otherwise as well as identify the preferred structure of such a scheme. The results of the research showed that employees deem financial remuneration to be highly important and would stay with the firm longer if provided with a wealth initiative. There was preference for a short to medium term scheme rather than a long term one, with some particular suggested schemes coming out as preferred favourites than others. Respondents also went further to highlight other factors that were contributing to loss of talent within the firm. The responses from the survey have been comprehensively analysed and recommendations made on the implementation of the wealth creation scheme. / Graduate School for Business Leadership / (M.B.A.)

The embattled profession of teaching is like a sad song on repeat (Goldstein, 2015). For beyond a decade, research has proliferated a deficit narrative of teaching as a “revolving door” (Ingersoll, 2001, p. 514) or “leaky bucket” (Sutcher, Darling-Hammond, & Carver-Thomas, 2016, p. 2), in which at least 50% of teachers quit within the first 5 years (Ingersoll, Merrill, & Stuckey, 2014). In fact, as teacher attrition increases, the teacher-shortage crisis ravages our hardest-to-serve schools (Sutcher et al., 2016). Today, the number of aspiring teachers has dropped to the lowest it has been in 45 years (Flannery, 2016). The curiosity driving my research was and is whether it is possible to disrupt this deficit narrative of teaching as America’s most embattled profession (Goldstein, 2015). To do so, my goals have been to learn how eight teacher-leaders describe and understand their own flourishing in their careers, if they do at all, and what are the encouragers of and obstacles to their flourishing. In other words, rather than turn up the volume on the narrative of teachers who fail, flee, and quit the profession, I wondered how, if at all, stories exist of teachers who live, teach, and lead well. For this study, I derived the term flourishing from Aristotle’s eudemonia or the art of living well and doing well for self and others (Aristotle, 2011, line 1095b). I then crafted the beginnings of a flourishing framework for what it might mean for teacher-leaders to live the good life. Through a cross-disciplinary and integrative literature review (Torraco, 2016), I learned that flourishing most frequently includes experiencing passion, purpose, and practical wisdom in work and life. In response, I sought to examine how, if at all, eight teachers who are also leaders—both formally and informally in their schools and beyond—experience their own flourishing. To clarify, I defined teacher-leaders as teachers who I believe grew into leaders (Drago-Severson, 2016) and are “galvanized by the desire to improve and thus ensure learning for all students” and “driven to experiment, take risks, collaborate, seek feedback, and question their own and others’ practices” (Fairman & Mackenzie, 2015, p. 64). Therefore, the eight teacher-leaders for this study fit Fairman and Mackenzie’s definition. They participated in two programs that I believe are strong holding environments (Drago-Severson, 2013): North Carolina Teaching Fellows, a preservice university program for aspiring teachers, and National Board for Professional Teacher Standards, an in-service development opportunity for experienced teachers with more than 4 years of experience. To be clear, “holding environments” can be relationships and contexts that create developmentally spaces for adults to grow and feel “honored for who they are” (Drago-Severson, 2012, p. 48; Kegan, 1982, p. 115; Winnicott, 1990). The Pillar Practices of teaming, mentorship, collegial inquiry, and inviting teachers to assume leadership are four holding environment (i.e., structures) in which adults can feel well held (supported) and adequately challenged—in order to increase internal capacities (Drago-Severson, 2004, p. 88). I chose to invite teachers who participated in two teacher-development programs (i.e., North Carolina Teaching Fellows and National Board Certification) specifically because these programs seem to provide holding environments. Researchers have shown teachers who participated in these two programs are among the best and brightest or irreplaceable teacher-leaders whom schools want to keep, or retain, in our classrooms (Henry, Bastian, & Smith, 2012; Jacob, Vidyarthi, & Carroll, 2012; Petty, Good, & Handler, 2016). In fact, all eight teacher-leaders who participated in this study stayed in the profession at least ten years despite the last decade of sociopolitical flux and rising complexity of public schools (Drago-Severson, 2016). To facilitate this dissertation study, I conducted three in-depth semi-structured interviews and document analysis with each of the eight teacher-leaders who work in Wake County Public School System of North Carolina (32 hours), the 15th largest district in the nation (Hui, 2016). I asked them how they describe and understand flourishing, if they do, throughout their career, with close attention to three distinct points in the trajectory of their career, that is, in the beginning years (1-3 years), during the National Board Certification Process (during or after 4 years of teaching), and within the last academic year, which was also an election year (2016-2017). I also asked how they describe and understand the encouragers of and obstacles to their own flourishing. For data analysis, I coded verbatim transcripts from these in-depth interviews with Dedoose in two analytic cycles (Maxwell, 2013; Miles, Huberman, & Saldaña, 2014; Seidman, 2013). In the first cycle, I completed open/descriptive and theoretical coding, and, in the second, I looked for categories and broader themes to display the data in narrative summaries and profiles for each participant (n = 8). Throughout, I attended to research bias, reactivity, and validity threats through analytic memos, member checks, discrepant data, and inter-coder reliability with my sponsor. Findings from this qualitative in-depth interview study and document analysis contributed to a framework of understanding flourishing for teacher-leaders. Overall, I learned that to flourish, or to teach, lead, and live well, for the eight teacher-leader participants in my study, the good life meant that they needed to prioritize the purpose of relating with students (n = 8), as I claimed in Chapter V; cultivate connections with colleagues who share common passions (n = 8), as I claimed in Chapter VI; and reflect with their practical wisdom on their priority to teach well in the midst of the push and pull of leadership entangled in flourishing (n = 8), as I claimed in Chapter VII. The implications and recommendations for policy, research, and practice from these claims and findings based on these eight teacher-leader participants are as follows: 1. to re-story excellence in teaching by creating teacher pipelines, development programs, and measurement tools (policy and research) that consider holistic frames of teacher excellence to include flourishing (i.e., do the teachers believe they are committed to teaching, leading, and living well?); 2. to re-center relationships in schools, especially for teachers, by intentionally crafting spaces such as holding environments where teachers, principals, and all educational leaders can grow their internal capacities to deepen relationships with students and colleagues; and 3. to re-frame the tides of teacher-leadership and consider the practical wisdom and time it takes for teachers to discern their own priories, their own balance, and their own flow (i.e., push and pull) of leadership based on their own understanding of their ability to teach and live well. In conclusion, I offer a beginning model and framework for teacher-leader flourishing in order for future research to explore how, if at all, teachers in different districts and states or of different demographics and levels might describe and understand their own good life.

Employee engagement levels are critical to organizations that desire to retain a workforce that innovates, produces positive results, and stays committed to the organization. The purpose of this single case study was to explore employee engagement strategies used by business leaders to retain talent. The conceptual framework that guided this study was Deci's self-determination theory. Data collection occurred through semistructured interviews with four participants within the insurance industry having three or more years of management experience and having a positive reputation for engaging employees. The participating company is located in central Indiana. Participants answered 10 open-ended questions related to employee engagement and retention of talent. Data were transcribed and coded to identify themes. The modified van Kaam method was used for analysis of the data. Open and honest communication between managers and employees, managers looking beyond words to recognize disengagement and respectful and a caring leadership team at all levels of the company were amongst the prominent themes identified during data analysis. The study findings may contribute to business practices positively by increasing the understanding of the importance of employee engagement strategies in a work setting as well as how engagement levels affect retention. The study findings may contribute to social change by providing leaders ideas on how to provide greater job satisfaction to employees, which could translate into improved professional and personal lives by providing employees a greater feeling of fulfillment and confidence with their job.

The high rate of employee turnover in the staffing industry is costly and impedes sustainability of employment agencies. The focus of this qualitative single case study explored strategies that 10 human resource managers (HRMs) and 5 HR directors used to retain recruiting staff at one regional recruiting agency in the southeastern region of the United States. The target population and research site were selected because of prior success in employee retention strategies. The conceptual framework grounding this study was sustainability theory. Methodological triangulation was achieved with semistructured interviews and focus group data. Data were thematically analyzed using Atlas.ti7, and all interpretations from the data were member checked to ensure the trustworthiness of findings. Emergent themes from the analysis revealed that these HRMs and HR directors increased employee job training, improved transparency in strategic planning and business practices, and enhanced communication of their employees' roles and responsibilites. The application of the findings may contribute to social change by providing HRMs and directors with insights that could improve employee retention and organizational sustainability. Stakeholders may benefit from an increased understanding of employee retention strategies and potentially reduce employee turnover for the local community.

Thesis (MBA) -- University of Limpopo, 2011 / The change or transformation of higher education institutions in South Africa (SA) was mandated by the government, as a response to address past disparities that prevailed as a result of the apartheid government. These disparities, included inter alia, improving access to higher education institutions, improving staff and student equity and improving the quality of higher education throughput. The merger of higher education institutions in SA, like any other institution in another country that had undergone a similar form of change, mostly share the similar experiences, especially if the mergers are mandated by the government. The fundamental issue and the inspiration of the study is the impact of the merger, whether directly or indirectly, on employees’ job satisfaction, organisational commitment and intention to leave. The target population of the study was the university of Limpopo employees, clustered into three categories, viz. the academic, administrative and support services personnel. The study used a random sampling method. A questionnaire, with a combination of closed and open ended questions, was used to collect data. The results indicated that the respondents were not satisfied with their jobs had low organisational commitment and some intentions to leave the employ of the university. However, they indicated that the merger had very little effect on these results.

The management of Human Resources is concerning on the issue of employee retention following a merge and acquisition. This study focused on the effects of employee retention and how the Human Resources Department adjusts their salary following a merge and acquisition. Individual case study is used as the methodology of this study and the research subject is Winteck Corporation, which merges and acquires with HannStar LTD. (Yang-Mei 1st and 2nd Factory). Subsequently, the study will use both organizations¡¦ staff financial data such as their annual income, salary structure and benefits, enterprise system, and the corporate culture to do the analysis and comparison. In addition, the discussions had been made about how the salary system adjustment of Winteck Corporation affected the employee retention and the methods found are as following, using the team performance as the standard assessment for the adjustment of original factory employees¡¦ salary, and authorized supervisors to adjust the salary according to employees¡¦ performance. Overall, there is a standard method for the company to select, train and utilize the talented employees as well as to retain employees after a merge and acquisition. Select the employees based on their capability; train the employees after a merge and acquisition as well as clam down their unstable emotion; utilize their professional skills and experiences into the new organization after a merge and acquisition; retaining the employees by paying the original salary while their job structure, position, benefits, and so on are based on the Winteck Corporation. The advantages following a merge and acquisition: 2. upgrade the quality of employees; 3. higher rate for employee retention; 1. increase the production of new products.Discussions: 1. how to develop a standard structure of the salary system following a merge and acquisition; 2. the proposal of salary system for employee retention in the original factory following a merge and acquisition.