Employee retention often times involves much more than money and status. There are many factors to consider when looking at employee retention. The ones that made an impression on me include loyalty, motivation, and valuing employees to name a few. The importances of these factors are supported by research and real life examples. These bear out to have an overwhelming effect on employee satisfaction and therefore retention. In the following paragraphs I will attempt to persuade you of this with evidence from several sources. .
In the text book "Human Resource Management" by Robert L. Mathis pg. 81 the author talks about psychological contracts, "Studies suggest that employees do believe in these unwritten agreements or psychological contracts, and hopes their employers will keep their sides of the agreement. When employers do not, employees feel a minimal necessity to contribute to the organizational productivity because they no longer trust the company". I see loyalty as a big deal and in order to retain your best employees this has got to be a two way street. Employees do not likes to feel that their loyalty is expected, but that the company can take advantage of them, use them, up and deny them basic needs such as vacation and sick days. One particular business that comes to mind in which, the boss was heard to say, "well I think we can get three years out of him" The meaning wasn't lost on me.
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I knew exactly what the unwritten policy was. It was to ask for the employee's loyalty, time and willingness to work hard, and in return all that the employee gained was a paycheck. Vacation time was given grudgingly and if an employee took sick days the boss may not speak to that employee for several days after they returned to punish them. This I admit is where the waters get muddy, if the contract is unwritten how are the party's to know what the expectations of each other are.
Once again in the text book "Human Resource Management" by Robert L.
