ACKNOWLEGDEMENT

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all the individual who contributed to
making a successful research project. I am also grateful to my friend Mr. Madhu Sudhan
Thapa for helping and guiding me to undertake this course and for encouraging me to
complete this project with full determination. Special thanks go to my Tutor Ms. Evi
Lanasier at Southern Cross University for all the guidance and inspiration throughout the
project. It would have been difficult without her expert solution, support, knowledge, and
encouragement.
I would also like to thank the Human Resource Management team of the ‘Sonoma Café’
for the support they provided during my research work. I would also like to thank my co-
staff for their valuable contribution in whichever way possible.

i
 Declaration

I, Pratima Tiwari, a student of Southern Cross University, hereby declare that the work
presented is genuine and is done with great effort and dedication under the supervision of
our respected Tutor. The sources used in this paperwork is submitted with all the required
reference of the respective authors. I also declare that the work is conducted just for an
academic purpose and with the authorized consent of the Manager of Sonoma café,
Paddington.

Pratima Tiwari

ii
 ABSTRACT

This report provides a clear understanding of the issues faced by the Sonoma Café and
explains how the café can make improvement in order to affect the employee turnover
and retention within the organization. It also provides a critical analysis of the necessity
to retain the critical employee for the long-term organizational growth.
In this modern era, the organization is facing several challenges due to the dynamic
nature of the workplace environment. One of the many challenges includes fulfilling the
satisfaction of the employee to cope up with the ever-changing challenges, opportunities
regardless of its size, technological advancement, economic market, social aspects to
stand out in the competition.
This study has helped Sonoma café to analyze the factors behind the employee turnover
and retention. This paper is based on the qualitative methodology because of the small
number of the respondents where the data are collected through the self-administered
questionnaire. The total of 7 respondents was taken for the study. From this report, we
are able to conclude that the Sonoma café is facing a major employee turnover and
retention problem because it has not been able to provide its employee the comfortable
working conditions, poor teamwork within the employee, lack of challenges, minimal
career opportunity, lack of performance appraisal.
This report will help the Sonoma Café, Paddington to make the effective and efficient
retention strategy so that they can focus more on organizational growth rather than
spending their productive time hiring and training the new employee.

iii
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER CONTENTS PAGE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………...... i
DECLARATION………………………………………………...... ii
RECOMMENDATION……………………………………………. iii
CERTIFICATE OF ACCEPTANCE……………………………….iv
ABSTRACT………………………………………………….……. v
LIST OF TABLES………………………………………………... ix
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS……………………………………....x

1 INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………. 1
1.1. Introduction………………………………………............ 1
1.2. Objectives of the Study……………………………….......1
1.3. Statement of the Problem…………………………………1
1.4. Research Questions……………………………………….2
1.5. Working of Hypotheses……...………………………....... 2
1.6. Scope of Works……………………………………….......3
1.7. Significance and limitation of the Study………………… 3
1.8. Definition of Key Terms……………………………….... 4
1.9. Organization of Thesis Report…………………………....4

2 REVIEW OF LITERATURE…………………………………….... 6
2.1. Review of Related Studies….………….……………. ….. 6
2.2. Conceptual Framework of the Study…………….……... 7

3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY……………………….…………. 9
3.1. Introduction………………………………………………. 9
3.2. Methodological Paradigms of Research…………………. 9

iv
 3.3. Research Designs …….……….…………………………. 10
3.4. Sources of Information…………………………………… 10
3.5. Study Population and Sampling Proposition…………….. 10
3.6. Result Analyses Matrix…………………………………... 11
3.7. Unit of Analyses……………………………………..…… 12
3.8. Development of Data Collection Tools…………………... 12
3.9. Conformation of Validity and Reliability…….……...…... 12
3.10. Mechanism for Research Administration………………… 13
3.11. Mechanism for Data Coding and Transcribing……...…… 13
3.12. Mechanism for Result Analysis……………………...….. 14
3.13. Performing Statistical Test and Analysis………….…….. 14
3.14. Socio-Ethical Compliance Made…...…………………..… 14

4. DATA PRESENTATION & ANALYSES……………………….. 16

4.1. Introduction……………………………………………… 16
4.2. Sample characteristics of respondents………….………... 16
4.3. Age wise distribution of respondents………………...…... 17
4.4. Component wise analysis of working environment…….. 18
4.5. Test of hypothesis………………………………………... 19
4.6. Findings from the interview……………………………. 22
4.7. Key Findings…………………………….…….…….…… 22

5. SUMMARY, CONCLUSION &IMPLICATION………………… 24

5.1. Introduction………………………………………..…… 24
5.2. Summary of the study……………………………...…… 24
5.3. Discussion……………………………………………..... 25
5.4. Lesson Learnt…….…………………………………….. 26
5.5. Conclusions.…………………………………………….. 26
5.6. Suggestion for Managerial Implication………………... ..27

v
 REFERENCES…………………………………………………… 29
APPENDICES………………………………………………….… 31

vi
 LIST OF TABLES

TABLE NO. TABLE NAME PAGE

3.1 Research analysis matrix……………………………………………11
4.3 Frequency distribution of respondents; level of agreement...…… 18
4.4 Frequency distribution of reasons of influencing performance…. 19
4.6 ANOVA test perceived level of work environment and gender……20
4.7 ANOVA test work environment and Age of consumer….................20
4.8 ANOVA test work environment and employee performance ……...21

vii
 About the Industry

Sonoma Café is the restaurant which serves the bread under the brand “SONOMA”,
coffee and food for its customer. Sonoma sold its wholesale loaf for the first time in
March 2001 where its journey began in Sydney. With years the continuous effort, hard
work, undying passion and unyielding determination of a Dad and his two sons,
Australia’s most respected artisan sourdough bakery was created. Every loaf of the
Sonoma sourdough contains a freshly milled flour, filtered water, sourdough starter, and
sea salt.
Its café is designed to be buzzing local hotspots of good food, great coffee, and happy
people. Sonoma has a total of 8 branches, Seven in New South Wales and 1 in the
Canberra. Most of the ingredients are bought from the small-scale grower and the
independent estates.
Sonoma Paddington is one of its branch which is located at 241a Glenmore Road,
Paddington. It is located at the heart of Paddington which eases the nearby customer.

1
 CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1. Background

Employee retention is the ability of any organization to hold their employee within
themselves Previous studies about employee turnover have suggested that any
organization should have the strength to cope up and focus on the challenges that can be
arrived while maintaining the strong working environment for their employees. Every
Organization must deal with the new form of employment and new perspective to be
successful in their investment. Retention of the skilled employee has been a major
problem in today’s industry. The major concern for the manager is to understand the
reason behind the increasing rate of the employee turnover. Every organization deals with
the expertise of their employee to gain the competitive advantage in this competitive
world. According to Banken (2010), it is really necessary for any organization to be
aware of the facts and competencies that may arise due to the employee turnover and
retention. Abbasi and Hollman (2000) explain that the employee turnover cuts every type
of the organization from low tech to high tech and even from finance to sales. He also
further supports that the rate differs between companies, sectors, industries even may
include gender, race, tenure and most importantly the performance indicator. Abelson &
Baysinger (1984) jstor article online introduces the turnover with the level that produces
a divergence due to the cost associated with the turnover and the cost associated with
retaining the employees.

Employee turnover seems to be a serious problem for all the organization of the world. It
is really important and better investment rather than the cost of recruiting replacement
(Banken, 2010). But there is much organization who do not realize the turnover as a
legitimate organization problem. The organization could do a better investment by
decreasing their turnover and can also gain a competitive advantage in the market.
Employee needs, opportunities, workplace environment, co-workers, relationship with
the management are the main factors which influence the turnover decision. It’s the duty
of the organization to make sure that they hold their employee more important than their
competitor. Because the productive employee is the one which organization does not
want to lose, hard to replace and critical to business strategy.

2
 1.2 Statement of the Problem

In this global environment, it is necessary for any business to maintain its productivity,
employee commitment, retention strategy. Researchers believe that it is important for any
organization to make sure they maintain a perfect environment for their employee
because if the employee remains for a long period of time then they would get better at
what they do, and even helps in maintaining a better customer relationship which helps in
the long-term success of the organization. My main research problem is that the status of
the employee turnover is high, and the employee is not motivated enough to retain in the
café. The work to be done by the employee are not properly differentiated which results
in the chaos while working and even the pre-fixed roaster is not followed accordingly. If
this problem continues, the employee does not feel like working for a long-term and even
the full-time employee does not feel motivated to work and it is difficult for them to work
every time with the new employee. They have to spend their valuable time training them,
being adaptive which is supposed to be used in organization growth. If this continues, the
organization cannot achieve their main objectives and be competitive in the market.
Therefore, This research is conducted to analyze the reason behind the employee turnover
and retention in the Sonoma Café, Paddington.

1.3 Objective of the study

The researcher is concerned about the analysis of the factors behind the employee
turnover and retention in the Sonoma Café. Most importantly the researcher is more
focused on analyzing the following topics:

 Factors affecting the employee turnover and retention

 Things that need to be changed by the management to increase the rate of
employee retention
 Observe how the employee will respond to the management efforts to maintain a
healthy working environment

3
  To make suggestions and draw conclusions in problem areas to make the
improvement in the level rate of Employee Turnover

1.4 Research Questions

a. What are the main factors leading to employee turnover?
b. Does the employee look at Sonoma just for the initial career development
and training purposes?
c. How do the employee and the employer relationship be maintained so
that the employee gets motivated to work?
d. Do HR-practices have an impact on the Employee Turnover?

1.5 Scope
The researcher believes that there are many pieces of evidence and researches
that have been carried out in a different organization which will help in
conducting this project successfully. Keeping the view on the objectives of the
study, this research will help the Sonoma café to understand the workplace
environment and the perspective of the employee. This research focuses on
analyzing the factors that can help the employee and management to maintain a
good relationship, create a friendly working environment, enhance career
opportunities which influence an employee to retain the organization.

1.6 The significance of the study

In a Human Resource Management, employee turnover and the retention is the major
concern of any business organization. The best way to describe is to know about “
how long the employee tends to stay” and “ the rate of an employee leaving the work.
The high turnover rate has a great impact on the organization because if the skilled
worker is often leaving the work, then the productivity of the organization fluctuate
time and again and will have the bad impact on its efficiency. Since the employee is
the most important part of the organization and they have to be given priority in the

4
 Sonoma café. So this study will help the Sonoma Café to know about their employee
and can plan ahead to maintain a good working environment for the employee.

1.7 Structure of the report

This academic report has been organized in five distinctive chapters. Each chapter is
dedicated to some aspect of the study. The foundation of this research is to follow a
simple research methodology approaches. This report gives a details information
about the background, the missing link, objectives of the study, statement of the
problem, research questions, working hypothesis, the scope of works, the significance
of the study. These details are followed by the literature review which includes the
overall information about the theoretical principles in related studies. Moving further,
this study also explains about the research methodology used in the study along with
the population of the study, sampling techniques used, development of data collection
tools and socio-ethical compliances. The discussion is provided with the presentation
and analyses of the data followed with summary of the main findings, conclusions,
and recommendations of the study.

5
 CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1. Introduction

This section deals with the in-depth understanding of the previous related literature
review for the better understanding of the concerned area. This section helps in
developing a conceptual framework governing the factors affecting the employee
turnover and the retention in any organization. The main aim of conducting the literature
review is to have the acquainted theoretical and the conceptual knowledge in the field of
the interest. The core belief of the human resource today is dealing with the idea of how
to gain the competitive advantage by retaining and developing the human resource.
Employee turnover occurs when the employee leaves the workplace resulting in an
increase in the cost to hire the new one and even to train them. Samuel & Chipunza
(2009) believes that the main purpose of retention is to prevent competent loss which has
the direct effect on the productivity and the service that is delivered within the
organization.

Emiroglu, Akova & Tanriverdi (2015) stated that the employee turnover and retention
depends basically on three factors which are work-related factors( job satisfaction,
performance, wage), individual factors (gender, age, education) and external factors
( unemployment rate, trade union, labor market).

Whenever the high performing employee leaves the job, they migrate to the other
competing organization which creates even more critical situation Abassi and Hollman
(2000). Employee Turnover also results in the decline of the service provided to the
customer which will adversely affect the satisfaction of the internal and the external
customer along with the profitability of the organization. Baah & Yamaoka (2011)
explains that the nature of work, recognition, career opportunities, responsibilities are the
main factors which influence the employee turnover decision. Chiboiwa, Samuel, &
Chipunza (2010) also further supports that it is very difficult for any organization to make
an effective strategy for employee retention. While Abassi & Hollman (2000) further
adds that when the bad performer stays in the organization they tend to decrease the
innovation, services and even the productivity.

6
According to Ramlall (2004) employee needs, workplace environment, treatment in the
workplace, personal development factors heavily affect the employee and the employer
relationship. So, these factors have to be considered by any organization to decrease the
employee turnover. Lack of interesting work, job security, managerial implications, lack
of adequate training and opportunities are also the main reason for the employee turnover
(Samuel & Chipunza, 2009). Banken (2010) believes that the HR practices are the one
which influences the employee turnover and retention along with their attitudes and
behavior. He has further explained through the AMO (Ability, Motivation, and
Opportunity to participate) model to encourage employee and see the individual effect on
employee outcomes. Allen (2008) have focused on the three main reasons for the
importance of employee turnover which includes: turnover is expensive, turnover impacts
the business performance and the difficulty in finding the qualified employee. He further
recommends the organization to find out if turnover is actually the problem facing by the
organization, to develop the appropriate responses to identify the turnover problems and
focus on establishing the retention goals. After that, he suggests to implement the
retention strategy and finally evaluating the retention plan.

2.2 Factors affecting Employee Turnover and Retention

Based on various theoretical reviews, the researcher has developed various factors
affecting the employee turnover and retention which includes: Job Autonomy and
Satisfaction, Recruitment and Selection, Performance Appraisal, Organizational Culture,
and Career Development and Planning.

2.2.1 Job Autonomy and Satisfaction

Employee wants to have a freedom regarding their independence, the right to schedule
work, balance work and life ( Hackman & Oldham, 1976). The employee does not just
work for money but they want to be creative in themselves and even in the work and
accept the new challenges to gain the feeling of belonging. According to McClelland's
need theory, many people work to have a compelling drive to succeed for personal
achievement and satisfaction rather than the working for a reward. An employee having

7
the freedom and independence tends to have an influence on the organizational
commitment.

2.2.2 Recruitment And Selection

Placing the right people in the right position at the right time and providing proper
training for them to perform effectively and efficiently is one of the most important
works of any organization (Abassi & Hollman, 2002). Recruitment is the process of
where the organization job is open and the employees fill in the position to perform their
job successfully. The organization has to create a unique and perfect strategy because
recruitment is the most essential part of employee turnover and retention. The employer
must give the candidate the clear understanding about the work, its benefit, career
opportunities, rewards and the consequences that may arise while in work.

2.2.3 Performance Appraisal

Employee wants to be treated in an equal manner regardless of their age, sex, geographic
location and ethnicity. Ramlall (2004) explains that effort and performance of the
employee are defined by the individual objectives and goal which vary from individual to
individual. The employee will feel a sense of belonging to the organization if their hard
work is appraised by the management. Performance appraisal system should be
developed in every organization because it would help the employer to provide a valuable
feedback and also provide the feedback on the improvement required.

2.2.4 Workplace Environment

It is really important for any business organization to maintain a friendly and a feeling of
belonging and security workplace environment. According to Abassi & Hollman (2002),
the employee decides to stay or leave the job depends on the working conditions,
characteristics of the employer and the toxicity of the work environment. Ramlall (2004)
p.58 also agrees that the working environment has to be productive, respectful, provides a
feeling of inclusiveness, and offers a friendly setting. Many employees tend to leave the
work because they cannot cope up with the workplace culture because employer seems to

8
treat the employee as a factor of production and sees them as a cost, benefit, salaries and
overhead rather than treating them as an asset.

2.2.5 Career Development

Career opportunity is one of the main factor affecting the employee retention and
turnover. Without the concrete career development opportunity, no employee wants to
work in any organization. The organization must be able to provide creative
opportunities for the employee to have a good retention ratio. It is important that the
organization has to also provide training and skills development opportunities helping
them to enhance employability.

9
 CHAPTER 3
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1. Introduction edit needed

The researcher has a deal with various methods and approaches to collect data for a
successful report. This section tends to explain about the various tools and techniques
used in data collection. The first section of this chapter will deal with the methodology of
research, which simply is the mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods and also
explains about the design used. The research design is a plan that specifies the methods
and procedures that are to be used for collecting and analyzing the needed information
and it also deals with exploratory, descriptive as well as the conclusive approach of the
research along with the reason behind and description of particular designs.

The second section is all about the target population and the nature of the research
approach following with the information about the sample and sampling technique. After
developing the data collection tools, fieldwork is conducted with the proper definition of
the mechanism of fieldwork with the specified location, time constraints which will
provide the researcher with a huge amount of data that are not readily useable and do not
convey any meaningful information, thus, on the subsequent section data reduction are
conducted . Finally, the ending section of the chapter of this section comprises of the
socio-ethical compliance made by the researcher during the time of data collection and
while interacting with the respondents.

3.2 Research Methodology

The qualitative approach emphasizes the understanding by closely analysis the people
thoughts, words, and records. This approach involves an in-depth understanding of the
human behavior and the reason that governs the human behaviors. Researcher need is a
small focused sample rather than the large random sample, so the qualitative approach is
best suited in this project. Such a study will be observed in the form of a structured form
with the help of a fully closed-ended set of questionnaires (Appendix A). As the present
researcher will require the qualitative approach to conduct the study so, the present
researcher would use qualitative paradigm. Qualitative paradigm provides a systematic

10
way of analyzing any events, data collection, analyzing information and reporting the
results. A five-point Likert scale was also used in the questionnaire listed as 1-strongly
disagree, 2- Disagree, 3-Neutral, 4- Agree, 5- Strongly Agree. The findings were found
using the frequency distribution and ANOVA tests to find out the factors affecting
employee turnover and retention.

3.2.1 Design Used

The researcher has used a qualitative approach because it allows understanding the
feeling, values, and perception that influence the behavior. An employee of the Sonoma
café is the main source of the data for the analysis of the factors affecting the employee
turnover and retention. The researcher used the questionnaires method to explore the
range of variables associated with the employee.

3.2.2 Participants
Participants for research were selected from a Sonoma Café, Paddington because of the
main problem exists here. Seven Participants were asked by the researcher to participate
in the research who are currently working the café. All the employee has various job title
have involved in the study.

3.2.3 Methods of data collection and tools used

This study has collected information from various sources like a personal interview, by
observation and in some cases through the telephone interview too. The data collection
process is planned previously and includes several methods to ensure that the data is
thorough and substantial. and For carrying out the present research more precisely, the
present researcher used both primary and secondary source of information. The main key
source of information was the printed questionnaires with the options stated. Whereas
secondary sources of data were collected from sources such as books, magazines,
newspaper, Journal, articles, websites and search engines etc.

11
3.2.4 Data Analysis
Analysis deals with working with data, organizing the data, breaking the information,
giving a meaningful information to the data collected. It is more about the systematic
searching and arranging the data to increase the understanding and enable the researcher
to present the information that has been discovered to others ( Gore, 2008 ). The data
collected are analyzed on the following basis:
Frequencies: to measure the frequent reason for the employee turnover

Averages: to measure the magnitude of the differences between the firm that influences
the retention of the employee

3.7 Social- Ethical Compliance

In order to make the present study sounder from socio-ethical perspectives while treating
with the participants of research, the present researcher did not pressurize any of the
respondents for participation, nor have an excessive request for responding the forms
fully and the purpose was well communicated and approval for participation was asked
before doing data collection. In order to make the present research more scientific, the
present researcher coded the data collected from the questionnaire by themselves and
personal anonymity of any of the respondents were not disclosed. The present research
report was neither disclosed to nor submitted for any other reason to any institutions,
apart from Southern Cross University, Sydney, Australia.

12
 CHAPTER 4
DATA PRESENTATION AND FINDINGS

4.1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter includes the findings on the respondents and the factors that are involved in
the employee turnover and retention. After analyzing the data from the questionnaire the
researcher has tried to find out the in-depth views of the employee so that the
management can improve the workplace conditions and the environment.

4.2 Demographic Profile of the respondent

Seven respondents were given a questionnaire to choose out the correct option they
thought was correct. They were asked to indicate their gender, age, marital status,
duration of time working in Sonoma and their title of the job.

A) Gender
This section represents the gender wise distribution of the employee in the Sonoma Café.

Figure 4.2.1: Histogram chart of the respondent based on the Gender.

13
Out of 7 respondents, 57% were male and 43 % were a female working in the Sonoma
café. According to the staffs, the ratio of male and female in the café is somewhat similar.
But it is also said that the café mostly prefer female employee rather than the male
employee.

B) Age Group
This section provides the information about the age group distribution within the
organization.

Age group

30-40
Age 20-30 Age Group
Group 30-40 Age Group
20-30
Age
Group

Figure 4.2.2: Age-wise Distribution of the respondents

The majority of respondents were within the age group 20-30 yrs occupying 71% out of
total respondents and the rest of the respondents were in the 30-40 age group. It is clearly
seen that the young people are more attracted towards the job because they are always
seeking more and new opportunities. The young employee is also more productive and
energetic than the other employee. So it is really necessary for the Sonoma café to make a
strong retention strategy for the betterment and productivity of the café.

14
 C) Marital Status
This section provides the information about the marital status of the employee.

Marital Status

Married

Series1

Single

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5

Figure 4.2.3: Marital Status of the Respondent of the Sonoma Café.

Out of Seven respondents, Four respondents were single and the remaining three
respondents were Married. Since the majority of the employee is unmarried so they tend
to leave the job quickly because most of them may not have the responsibility to look
after the family and they change the job in search of more opportunities and that
enhances their career.

4.3 Factors Influencing the employee turnover and retention in the Sonoma Café
The respondents were asked to rate the extent to which the following factors were found
in their café and the findings are presented below:

Total Strongly Strongly

Indicators Disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Agree
7
Work Pressure 0% 0% 14% 29% 57
7
Teamwork 14% 0% 14% 57% 14

15
 7
Career Opportunity 0% 0% 14% 43% 43
7
Lack Of Challenges 0% 0% 0% 86% 14
Work-Life 7
Imbalance 0% 0% 0% 43% 57
Performance 7
Appraisal 0% 0% 14% 43% 43
7
Recognition 0% 0% 29% 43% 29
7
Training Program 0% 0% 57% 43% 0

Table 4.3.1: Represents the attitude and the opinion about the different factors that have
the influence on the employee turnover and retention.

The researcher has focused on the factors like Work pressure, Teamwork, career
opportunity, lack of challenges, work-life imbalance, performance appraisal, recognition
and the training program that have the major impact on the employee turnover and
retention. The above figure depicts that more than half of the employee agrees with the
fact that the employee tends to leave the café because of the excessive work pressure. The
relationship between the employees and their way of supporting each other during the
work also seems to be minimal while there is also some staff who thinks that the
teamwork in Sonoma café is working well. Majority of the employee agrees that the
Sonoma café does not provide the career opportunity for them and they tend to remain in
the same job title despite their hard work and the work is so monotonous that they are
tired of doing the same repetitive job again and again without any new variations.

In order to establish a relationship between performance management to employee

turnover an retention, the respondents were asked to rate to which extent they feel that
they the management have appraised their hard work and does it really affect the
employee retention in the café. This study indicated that almost 80% of the employee
wants their work to be praised by the management and make sure their hard work is
recognized by the senior staffs.

16
For a better understanding of the influence of training and development in the employee,
the respondents were asked to rate about their degree of agreement and disagreement on
the training and development opportunities provided by the Sonoma café by providing
training in the course of employment and has it empowered them in job performance. But
57% of the employee believed that in some cases the training program has empowered
them in their job performance and in some cases they are not of use at all.

4.4 Test of hypothesis

H01: There may not be a statistically significant relationship between the gender of
the employees and the factors affecting the employee turnover and retention.
[Independent variable: gender of the employees
Dependent variable: the factors affecting the employee turnover and retention,
qualitative measure; Test of hypothesis: ANOVA]

Table:4.4.1 ANOVA table of employee turnover and gender

Sum of Df Mean F Sig.
Squares Square
Between 12 1 12 32 0.004
Groups
Within 1.5 4 0.375
Groups
Total 13.5 5

Table 4.4.1 represents the ANOVA table of the employee turnover and gender. From the
table, the p-value is less than 0.05 with the 95 confidence level, hence the null hypothesis
is rejected, which indicates that there is the gender difference in employee turnover of the
Sonoma company. The study demonstrated that the male employees have a higher
turnover than the female employees based on the data provided. It is because that the café

17
has always given the priority of the male employee as they are strong and handle the
work pressure in any circumstances.

H02: there is no significant relationship between the age of the respondent and the factors
affecting employee turnover and retention.
[Independent variable: age of the respondent
Dependent variable: the factors affecting the employee turnover and retention,
qualitative measure; Test of hypothesis: ANOVA]

Table:4.4.2 ANOVA table of employee turnover and retention and age wise distribution
Sum of Df Mean F Sig.
Squares Square
Between 12 1 12 8.7272 0.04179
Groups 468
Within 5.5 4 1.375
Groups
Total 17.5 5

As seen in Table 4.4.2, it was found that there is a significant difference between age and
turnover and retention intention of the employee (p<0.05) and the factor of age was found
to be determinant on turnover and retention. In the Sonoma café, there is 71% of the
employee of the age group 20-30 years. The young employee always tends to seek for the
new career opportunity and growth so they have the maximum turnover effect in the café.
In the study of Ramlall 2003, he also found that the young people have the higher
turnover than the older people.

H03: There is no significant relationship between the marital status and the employee
turnover and retention.
[Independent variable: marital status of the respondent
Dependent variable: the factors affecting the employee turnover and retention,
qualitative measure; Test of hypothesis: ANOVA]

18
Table:4.4.3 ANOVA table of employee turnover and retention and marital status
Sum of Df Mean F Sig.
Squares Square

Between 12 1 12 32 0.000481
Groups 268
Within Groups 1.5 4 0.375
Total 13.5 5

A significant difference between marital status and Employee turnover and retention is
less than 0.05 i.e. 0.00048 which indicates that we reject the null hypothesis. Thus it was
concluded that single people have a greater impact on the employee turnover and
retention in the café. This may be because the married employee has the greater
responsibilities towards their family. Carbery, Garavan, O’Brien, McDonnell (2003)
study also supports the fact that the unmarried employee has the higher turnover intention
than that of the married one.

H04: There is no significant relationship between the factors like work pressure, career
development, performance appraisal, teamwork, lack of challenge on the employee
turnover and retention in the Sonoma café.
[Independent variable: factors like work pressure, career development, performance
appraisal, teamwork, lack of challenge
Dependent variable: the employee turnover and retention, qualitative measure; Test of
hypothesis: ANOVA]
Sum of Df Mean F Sig.
Squares Square

Between 40.33 1 40.33 37.74886 0.000348

Groups 52
Within Groups 23.5 22 1.06818182

19
 Total 63.83333 23
Table:4.4.4 ANOVA table of employee turnover and retention and different factors as
mentioned above

This table indicates that the work pressure, teamwork, lack of challenges, performance
appraisal, training program have the direct relationship with the employee turnover and
retention. More than average of the respondents has said that they are more likely to leave
the café because of its working environment, due to lack of the career and organizational
growth, lack of proper training and supervision from the management.

20
 Recommendation
The researcher has developed some of the factors that the café must make into
considerations while developing the retention policy. Through the study conducted
above, the researcher has developed some suggestion for the management of the Sonoma
café.
 Recruitment and Selection is one of the most crucial functions of Human Resource
Planning. Sonoma café have to provide a realistic preview of the job to be conducted
by the employee. The café seems to give an applicant a balanced view of the positive
and negative features which would create confusion for the employee to work.
Organization culture varies from one organization to another and it does reflect the
image of the organization, relationship among the employees, their attitude and the
ways of performing the task.

 Employee wants independence, freedom for decision making, schedule the work and
the procedures to carry out the work. They want to make sure the work is done under
the rules and policy of the organization. They do not want their employer to make a
comment on each and every task because the employee does not just work for the
money but also to create purpose and satisfaction in their job. Therefore, I would
recommend Sonoma café to provide a degree of freedom, independence to enjoy their
work, make their participation in planning and organizing in the café which would
increase the productivity of the employee and ultimately of the organization.

 Performance appraisal enhances the two-way communication between the employees,

supervisor and even the manager. Every employee wants to be recognized and praised
by its manager. The employee feels motivated and performs their work more
efficiently. Being the employee of the Sonoma café, I Personally feel that the
performance appraisal is very rare in the café and most of the employee says that the
management does not care about it. So, Sonoma café have to make sure that they
know what their staffs are doing and should not forget to appreciate their hard work.

 An employee works in any organization not only by thinking about his present job but
also thinks about how he can grow his skills, ability and make improvement and
move even further in his career. The employee does not only get involved in the
opportunities within the organization but also seeks opportunities to develop his
employability that best suits the labor market.

21
 CHAPTER 5
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

5.1 SUMMARY
The growing needs of the organization to retain its important employee in this
competitive marketplace are the real challenges for most of the organization. The
organization must be able to find out the key drivers of the turnover and the ways how
employee are making a decision to remain or to leave the organization. The findings of
this study suggest that there are certain factors that influence the employee to remain or
to leave the workplace. It is concluded that the work pressure, lack of career opportunity,
lack of performance appraisal, and inappropriate work-life balance factors have the major
influence on the employee resulting in the high turnover ratio. Nonetheless, the value of
other factors also should not be underestimated while making a retention policy in the
organization.

This study has been conducted for the academic purpose to fulfill the requirement of the
Southern Cross University. The researcher has used the qualitative method of data
collection and analysis since the sample to be taken for the study was very few.

5.2 Conclusion

While working in an organization, an employee expects to work in a good environment

with lots of scopes to grow. Since most of the people working here are students or are
early in their careers. So naturally, they want to explore more areas and fields to work. In
that particular situation,  the management of an organization plays an important work on
making the staffs feel good and also building a personal relationship and providing a
mentorship. I believe that the company should look to build a personal relationship with
their staffs and make the working environment as good as possible. That would be a very
good thing for both staff and the management team. From the company’s point of view
they will gradually grow a efficient and professional team who are really used to the
company’s culture whereas the people who have just joined as a staff will also get a good

22
exposure and working environment which they feel is a perfect place to nurture their
skills and have a long working relationship.

When the staff is long enough in an organization, they can easily deliver value and
maintain the standard of that organization. That way, people won’t feel much difference
whichever branch they are in. However, in the present context, they leave an organization
too early. People need time to adapt to new working environments and hence it is
difficult to maintain the same ambiance throughout all the branches. This way, a regular
customer of a branch is most likely to get disappointed when he expects the same thing
on other. And since the shifts of the staffs are changing every day that problem may arise
on a single brand as well.

Due to these various reasons, Sonoma Cafe has a poor employee retention. The
employees there are hired from outside not with the general rule/preparation and training
with the main branch. Those type of employees is most likely to make mistakes since
they are not used to the company culture and the previous place where they work may
have different working ethics and environment. Since they are working differently and
more influenced by their previous organization there might be some misunderstanding
between the managers and employees which is also a cause of the poor employee
retention.

Another problem arises while trying to hire more students. Though they are cheap to hire,
they are new in the careers and constantly looking for opportunities and flexible on a
career change. If an organization fails to fulfill their expectations, they will soon leave the
organization.

Lack of proper training and guidance also create a lot of problems in an organization. To
set a proper standard of an organization, their staffs should be properly aware of the
brand images and it’s environment. Every organization has their own signature so there

23
might be a problem when a person directly starts working without proper training and
guidance.

In Sonoma, everyone is in rush. There are no proper roles assigned and everyone is
working on everything. This might be a good attempt to save some money but
deteriorates the working environment of the place. The employees are often confused,
rushed and exhausted since they have to cover each and every department. The situation
becomes worse on the busy hours where everyone is running, and no one has an idea how
to ease the condition. This way the stress level while working is really high and which
helps workers think about the next career option.

Management is focused on the completion of work, not for the staff’s skill development.
Since they have to report to the upper authority, they are generally focusing on the work
and numbers a lot. Their main concern is profit and they try to suppress the workers to
maximize the profit. Some activities like not giving enough working hours or changing
the working schedules according to the crowd/ occupancy is also a big turn off. When
that continues to happen, an employee does not see a constant income and starts to look
for the alternatives. So, it is one of the key issues for agency’s poor employee retention.

Other minute details which psychologically violates the employee’s affection with an
organization are small working space, bad supervisor, a wrong member on the team, etc.
These are the reason which does not affect directly but adds up when an employee thinks
of changing jobs. These are usually things which are out of hand of the management
team. This may include inappropriate location, health issues, personal problems, and
stuff.

24
25
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 Appendix A
Section A: Personal Information
Please select appropriate number and place it in the corresponding boxes as far as
applicable to answer the following questions.

Q 1. Please specify your gender.

Male ………………………………………….............
1
Female……………………………………………...2

Q 2. Your age (in years completed) ________ years.

Q 3. Please select your Marital status.

Single…………………………………….................. 1
Married…….…………………………………………. 2

Q 4. How long have you been working with the Sonoma café?
Less than 6 months ………………………………………….. 1
6months- 1 year………….…………………………………….. 2
1 year-2 year…………………………………………………….. 3
More than 2 year……..…………………………………........ 4

Q 5. What is your title of the job?

30
Section B: Factors affecting employee turnover and retention
Please select appropriate number and place it in the corresponding boxes as far as
applicable to answer the following questions.

Strongly Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly

Agree ‘4’ ‘3’ ‘2’ Disagree
‘5’ ‘1’
Do you think work pressure is
the main reason for leaving the
café?
Is poor team work leading to
employee turnover?
Do you agree that career
opportunity is an important
reason for the employee
turnover?
Do you agree that the lack of
challenges in a job makes you to
think about changing the job?
Is work life imbalance and
working hours affecting the
turnover decision?
Does performance appraisal
process have effect on employee
retention?
Employee recognition helps the
employee to retain in the café.
The training program provided
by Sonoma have empowered
employee in overall job
performance.

5-Scale Point: 5= Strongly Agree, 4= Agree, 3= Neutral, 2= Disagree, 1= Strongly

Disagree

31