Review of Related Literature

Employee turnover refers to an employee leaving his/her job as a result of

voluntary quitting, retirement, disability, or death. Employee turnover has drawn

management researchers’ and practitioners’ attention for decades because turnover

cost affects an organization’s operational capabilities and budget. Employee turnover is

both costly and disruptive to the organizational function (Kacmar et al., 2020; Mueller

and Price, 2021; Staw, 2019); and both private firms and governments spend billions of

dollars every year managing this issue (Leonard, 2021). Turnover costs involve

recruiting, selecting, and training (Mobley, 2022; Staw, 2022). According to the U.S.

Department of Labor turnover costs a company one-third of a new hire’s annual salary

to replace an employee, which is about $500 to $1500 per person for the fast-food

industry and $3000 to $5000 per person for the trucking industry (White, 2020).

Furthermore, turnover disrupts social and communication structures and causes

productivity loss (Mobley, 2020). Turnover also demoralizes the remaining employees

and leads to additional turnover (Staw, 2022. Sagie et al. (2022) found that a high-tech

firm lost 2.8 million US dollars or 16.5% of before-tax annual income because of

employee turnover. These researchers also found that turnover reduced profits,

increased the organization’s total risk, and triggered more turnover among the

organization’s other employees. Therefore, understanding and forecasting turnover at

the firm and departmental levels is essential for reducing it (Kacmar et al., 2019), as

well as for effectively planning, budgeting, and recruiting in the human resource field.
 Many studies have shown that employee turnover significantly affects an

organization’s performance. Staw (2022) summarized previous studies indicating that

turnover reduces organizations’ team or work performance and financial performance

and significantly changes an organization’s direction when a top executive leaves.

Glebbeek and Bax (2022) found that excessive employee turnover harms firm

performance (profits). According to Hancock et al. (2023)’s study, turnover has a strong

negative relationship with organizational performance in the manufacturing and

transportation industries. According to Kacmar et al. (2021)’s study, employee turnover

increases customer waiting time and reduces profits. Turnover also reduces restaurants’

profitability and customer satisfaction because of declining productivity (Detert et al.,

2019). On the other hand, the lower turnover rate increases sales (Batt, 2022). Overall,

the inability to predict employee turnover and to replace that individual reduces

organizational performance and profits and disrupts the organizational structure.

The value of being able to predict turnover is directly related to the time. It takes

an organization to hire and on-board employees as compared to their needs. This time

is not only dependent on the organization, but possibly the type of employees that are

being hired. Production-based governmental organizations that are the basis of this

analysis require a lengthy period to hire and on-board employees, because of clearance

and security issues. Predicting turnover early allows HR to proactively plan for the

possible turnover and to be prepared to launch the search, shortening the time-to-hire

and on-board employees. Therefore, Predicting employee turnover helps reduce the

hiring lead time, thus eliminating some turnover costs. The lead time of employee

turnover and replacement involves five stages: providing a leaving notice, advertising
the job opening, interviewing, doing a background check, and completing on-board

training. An employee usually provides a leaving notice at least two weeks before the

actual leaving date. Then the employee’s manager must prepare for advertisement and

hiring committees, requiring a week to complete. The hiring committees need two to

eight weeks, sometimes even longer, to release the hiring advertisement and select

interview candidates. During the interview period, hiring committees need one to two

weeks to make a final decision. One week to six months is needed to complete the

finalist’s background security check. Finally, the employee’s on-board training takes at

least one week. Thus, an organization usually spends at least two months replacing a

new employee. For some governmental organizations, the hiring lead time is much

longer since their security check takes three to six months. The forecasting system

provides the predicted turnover number a year in advance. Based on a combination of

this number, the production plan, and the budget, the HR department determines a final

demand number. Ignoring employees’ notice periods, HR can either advertise job

openings and start hiring immediately based on the final demand number (thus reducing

the training period) or wait until an employee provides the leaving notice. Therefore,

forecasting turnover at the firm and departmental levels reduces hiring lead time

(Kacmar et al., 2020). The other benefit is to identify unusual patterns in turnover and

possibly investigate root causes.

In a study aimed at generating baseline data about workers in the Philippine call

center and business process outsourcing (BPO) industry, particularly, their employment

terms and conditions and attitudes to trade unions as well as the context and

possibilities of trade union organizing in that industry, Sale and Bool (2020) noted that
labor standards on hours of work were generally being met. But night work during the

prohibited interval for women employees, who constituted the majority in the survey,

remained widespread. While the workers were young, night shifts adversely affected the

health of a substantial number of them. Three out of four workers in the sample

encountered moderate to heavy work pressure, and one out of two was neither happy

nor unhappy at the workplace. Majority of the respondents were in customer service. A

big majority received P15,000 or less by way of average monthly take home pay.

Majority had general knowledge about trade unions, despite their young age and

notwithstanding that almost all were nonmembers. Nearly two out of three workers

considered salary/wage negotiation as the most important role of trade unions. About 51

per cent were interested to join an affordable, principled and efficient workplace union.

Sale and Bool concluded that it is possible to organize workplace trade unions in the

call center and BPO industry. Organizing efforts should be industry-based rather than

"irm-based, due to the attrition rate and the prevalence of de"inite or "fixed-period

employment.

Forecasting employee turnover is a crucial part of a lean management system

(Allway and Corbett, 2022). Also called the Toyota production system, lean

management involves operating the most efficient and effective organization possible

with the least cost and zero wastes (Jackson, 2019). The waste is non-value-added

activities. High employee turnover is one kind of waste (Kilpatrick, 2023). According to

Allway and Corbett (2022), employee turnover is a significant factor in lean

management.
 An employee-turnover forecasting system reduces wastes that high turnover

causes. By identifying factors influencing employee turnover, the forecasting system

assists HR in determining retention strategies to reduce turnover rates. According to

Yeung and Berman (2019) and Kochan and Useem (2020), ”high-commitment” human

resource policies contribute to a lean management system’s success.

Furthermore, an employee-turnover forecasting system reduces the setup time of

the organization’s lean-management system. According to Lin and Hui (2020),

employee turnover takes a lean organization much more time and far more resources.

Productivity is usually reduced because an employee leaves and the replacement is

unfamiliar with the work. The new employee needs a training period to be as productive

as the previous employee. To prevent productivity reduction, HR could hire a new

replacement based on the demand number computed from employee-turnover

forecasting. Then a new employee could receive job training before the old employee

leaves the position. As a result, productivity level could remain the same before and

after employee turnover.

Other insights have been gained from more recent research. For instance,

according to Tews et al. (2022), personal events, professional events, internal work

events and constituent attachment are highly related to turnover. Collini et al. (2021)

found that the interaction between interpersonal respect, mission fulfillment, and

engagement are statistically significant predictors for turnover in health care. However,

these researchers found that a diverse climate is not related to turnover. Finally, only

Sexton et al. (2019) considered outside economic variables, unemployment index, and

consumer price index in the employee-turnover forecasting model. However, their final
model did not include these variables. Ferrara and van Dijk (2021) in the International

Journal of Forecasting revealed a new interest in forecasting business cycles with some

complex methodologies. However, forecasting business-cycle turning points is quite

difficult, and Hamilton (2021) suggested that ”the best econometricians can do is

probably to forecast recessions; that is, to recognize a turning point as soon as it

occurs, or soon thereafter.” An outside variable might facilitate this situation.

Meanwhile, other studies have tried to build turnover prediction models through

such techniques as regression, neural network (NN), and data mining. For example, Ng

et al. (2020) used a proportional hazards regression (PHR) to develop a

turnover-prediction model. In Sexton et al. (2022)’s study, NN combined with a modified

genetic algorithm was used to build a turnover-prediction model. Alao and Adeyemo

(2013) applied a decision tree to the employees’ demographic information and

personnel records to identify attributes contributing to employee turnover.

In a later study, Bool (2021) explored the potential of unionism in the Philippine

call center industry by looking at call center employees’ predisposition to unionization

taking into consideration their working conditions and socio-demographic factors.

Employing probability proportional to size (PPS) sampling technique, the size of the

sample was established using the Sloven formula at -+ 10% margin of error and 95%

confidence interval or one hundred (100) respondents from randomly chosen Metro

Manila call centers – Sykes Asia, Inc., Convergys Corporation and eTelecare

International. Data were gathered through self administration of survey questionnaires

that captured respondents’ sociodemographic characteristics and conditions of

employment. The data were analyzed using statistical tools on descriptive and causal
(logistic regression) research. The study disclosed that the predisposition to join a union

is a function of the following factors or independent variables: (1) average monthly

income, (2) function or purpose of communication at work, (3) availability of company

rules and regulations, (4) age and (5) knowledge about trade union. Based on the study,

call center employees are predisposed to join a trade union if (1) they have lower

monthly income, (2) the purpose of their communication mechanism at work is to merely

inform, (3) availability of company rules and regulations is lesser, (4) they are younger

and (5) they have greater knowledge about trade union.

Workplace turnover is one of the most researched aspects of organizational

behavior and is a topic of interest for both employer and employee (Garcés and

Ferreira, 2019). The importance of analyzing turnovers is to understand and predict

actual quits, which can be used for critical management decision makings, such as

employment and employee investment. Turnover intentions are referred to as an

individual’s estimate of his probability to seek opportunities in other organizations

(Arshadi and Shahbazi, 2019). Turnover intentions are inversely proportional to an

individual's intended duration to stay in the organization. Fishbeinand and Ajzen (2019)

proposed an attitude behavior theory, which indicates that if an individual has a mind-set

of performing such behavior, the result is likely to be the individual performing that

behavior eventually. Through Fishbeinand and Ajzen’s attitude behavior theory, we can

use turnover intentions to serve as alternatives in measuring actual turnovers. Actual

global turnover rate is at 13.2% (Radford, 2018). The average turnover rate in Asia is at

12.4% with South Korea having the lowest turnover rate at 8.4%. Alarmingly, the

Philippines’ turnover rate at 14.2% is higher than both Asia and the Global average
(Radford, 2018). Organizations located in the Philippines are more likely to spend more

on their rehiring process due to a higher turnover rate. The difference between turnover

rates between each country lies in cultural factors that include workplace characteristics

and job characteristics (Mcknight, Philips and Hardgrave 2019).

Job characteristics are defined as a worker perception about the nature and

content of the task. It plays a significant role in keeping workers inspired and motivated.

When workers feel that the job characteristics do not meet their expectations, it

dramatically affects turnover intentions (Olubiyi et. al., 2019). Workplace characteristics,

however, are defined as worker perception of rewards and recognition fairness, job

security and supervisor satisfaction. It refers to how the employee feels about the

workplace (Mcknight et. al., 2019). Both job and workplace characteristics were proven

under studies to contribute towards turnover intentions highly. Moreover, these factors

also have a direct correlation with the mind-sets found in the workplace. According to

Hom et. al. (2019), we can generally breakdown the mind-sets found in the workplace

into four states: (1) Enthusiastic stayers because they want to, (2) Reluctant stayers

because they have to, (3) Ardent leavers because they want to, and (4) Reluctant

leavers because they have to.

Hom et. al. (2018) further defined that these employee states of mind may be

related to their corresponding work performance. Reluctant stayers avoid giving up

corporate benefits and job securities. They need to perform just enough not to get fired.

Thus, reluctant stayers tend to be the average and low performers in the workplace

(Hom et. al. 2019). Other relationships between the state of mind of workers and their

performance are yet to be understood. Understanding the principles of workplace

turnover intentions will help the organization maintain its people (Garcés and Ferreira,

2019). Keeping people for the long term is a critical aspect of manufacturing industries.

Manufacturing industries are subject matter expert dependent. Specifically, these types

of enterprises rely on employees who profoundly understand the process within the

organization. Each manufacturing industry will most likely have a different set-up from

one another. Transfer of employees from one manufacturing industry to another will still

take weeks or months, depending on the difficulty of the process while understanding

the new set-up.

Other than cost savings, counteractions to turnover intentions will impact the

overall job satisfaction of employees. An increase in total job satisfaction directly affects

the productivity of the organization as well. Gruneberg (2019) defined that satisfied

workers produced better services for the organization. Thus, job satisfaction can be

directly increased through the factors that study will identify.

McKnight et. al. (2020) published a study describing the factors affecting

turnovers focusing on workplace characteristics and job characteristics. However,

Mcknight et al. did not further explore the relationship between employee performance

and job satisfaction with turnovers. Examining these factors would yield a more detailed

model that predicts turnovers. Also, Mcknight’s study is set-up in an IT industry and may

not be applicable in other sectors. The relationship of job satisfaction with turnover

intention was explored by Arshadi (2020). Arshadi also used descriptive statistics and

generated a model that defines the correlation between job satisfaction and other

factors such as emotional exhaustion. However, Arshadi’s study is only applicable to

Iran Industrial organizations. Results may vary because of different cultures such as

what Calamba Philippines have.

According to Babatunde Osabiya (as cited in “Factors that influence employee

retention,” 2019), motivation is defined as a psychological driving force that encourages

or influences individuals to behave in certain ways boosting performance and directs

towards accomplishing a specific goal in order to fulfill a specific need or expectation.

On the other hand, Patrice Roussel (as cited in Serhan, Achy, & Nicolas, 2018)

describes motivation as a result of a complex process that involves personal

characteristics, core job dimensions, labor market conditions and work environment.

She highlighted that positive core job dimensions are essential for an organization for

they represent a drive that fosters employees’ motivation, leading to increased

productivity that is beneficial for organizational development and progress.

Fundamentally, the process of motivation is composed of three stages, namely a)

a felt need or drive, b) a stimulus in which needs have to be aroused, and c) when

needs are satisfied, the satisfaction or accomplishment of goals (Serhan, Achy, &

Nicolas, 2018). In addition to this, Dr. Mong-Chien Hsu and Dr. Kao-Mao Chen (as cited

in Serhan, Achy, & Nicolas, 2018) claim that there are several sources of motivation for

employees which evidently has varying degrees of importance from one organization to

another, from one leader to another, and from one employee to another. These sources

are goal setting and communication, gratitude, recognition at work, maintaining team

spirit, and compensation. Further studies related to motivation emphasized the

importance of distinguishing intrinsic motivation from extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic

motivation characterizes the drive to outstandingly execute an action or behavior as one

gets pleasure from the activity itself whereas extrinsic motivation refers to motivation

coming from the external rewards of doing a job (Serhan, Achy, & Nicolas, 2018). These

materials are relevant to the study in such a way that they comprehensively define the

nature, source and process of motivation, providing a better understanding on what is

deemed truly motivating for employees in the workplace.

Employee retention focuses on keeping or encouraging employees to work in an

organization for a maximum period of time (Kossivi, Kalgora, & Xu, 2018). According to

Mita (as cited in Kossivi, Kalgora, and Xu, 2018), it is defined as “a technique adopted

by businesses to maintain an effective workforce and at the same time meet operational

requirements.” It requires implementing planned and organized actions that motivate

and tempt employees to remain in the organization for the maximum period of time,

usually resulting in the company catering to their employees’ diverse needs.

Additionally, it is a continuous effort of taking all necessary actions by the organization

to retain the knowledgeable, skilled and competent employees selected (Shakeel & But,

2019).

Ultimately, strategic employee retention is a crucial facet in keeping and

maintaining a company’s competitive advantage; considering that an organization’s

human resources is its greatest asset, it is only fair to regard committed human

resources as an organization’s competitive advantage. The driving force that will ensure

the retention of employees is grounded on understanding the role of motivation and

perception, and how to use them (Dy, 2019). This will be utilized by the researchers in

clarifying the concept of employee retention, one of the variables being examined in the

study.
 The research entitled Factors Influencing Employee Retention: An Integrated

Perspective which aims to identify an integrated set of variables or factors that, if

managed properly, will result in employee retention managed to construct a conceptual

model that could potentially help organizations utilize all the factors that influence the

said phenomenon instead of just one or two of them. In this study, a large number of

factors important to retain employees were determined, exactly twenty factors; some of

which are common in many sectors while few were very specific to a particular sector or

organization. However, for the purpose of the model, researchers Nausheen Shakeel

and Sahar But selected the more significant factors already mentioned that are effective

in different studies and can be utilized by all institutions regardless of the sector or

industry they are in.

Essentially, the conceptualized model distinguished two general aspects wherein

the different factors influencing employee retention fall under, specifically Non-financial

and Financial. Under the Financial aspect, there are the factors of pay or compensation,

promotion, as well as the speed of promotion. The Non-financial aspect is then divided

into two branches: Work-related and Non-work related. Work-related factors are further

categorized as extrinsic (i.e. working conditions, lack of technology or equipment, job

content, training, flexible work arrangements, and career development) or intrinsic (i.e.

job satisfaction, job involvement, job embeddedness, job commitment, burn-out, and

work-life balance). On the other hand, Non-work related factors are the last and most

significant part of the model since these factors are considered essential for all industry

and all sectors of employees; these are organizational values and beliefs, security,
status, social environment, relationship with immediate boss, respect, authority, location,

justice, prestige, recognition and organization support.

Moreover, the study deduced from interviews with six professionals the top five

factors that retain employees in the public and private sectors. In the former sector,

respondents identified job security, career development, financial needs, respect and

prestige while in the latter, the factors mentioned are employee involvement in decision

making, respect, financial factors, autonomy, and career development. All these

identified factors that affect retention of workers have been found to be positively related

to employee retention (Shakeel & But, 2019). The study succeeded in formulating an

integrated perspective, exhibited in an unambiguous model, to explain the researchers’

findings about the subject. Additionally, the chosen respondents for the research are

appropriate considering their ten years or more experience in their respective fields

which ensures the collection of in-depth insight on the issue. Nonetheless, the small

sample of respondents involved in the semi-structured interview seem to be inadequate

to assert that these determined factors are representative of all employees in the public

and private sectors.

On the other hand, the dissertation of Mttoi (2019) explored the influence of

motivation on employee retention in public organization, specifically the Tanzania Ports

Authority (TPA), a public corporation acting under the guidance of the Ministry of

Infrastructure Development, that has the responsibility "to manage and operate" the

ocean ports and lake ports of the country of Tanzania. The findings of the study

demonstrate that motivation factors are key instruments of retaining employees in public

entities. In summary, the analysis of the data from structured questionnaires and
interviews reveals that 97.4% of the respondents agreed that job security influences

employee retention, 93.4% agree with increased salaries, 80.7 % with accountabilities

while 72.4% agreed with working environments. The study’s strength is manifested in its

sampling procedure which employed random sampling techniques to collect information

from employees in the middle and ordinary level and judgmental sampling procedure to

gather concrete concerns from personnel with mandates in the organization. In addition

to this, the respondents represented the different status of working experiences in the

corporation. However, the research was too limited in a way that its findings may not be

used as references of influence of motivational factors in promoting employee retention

in other public organizations.

In the study entitled Factors affecting Employee Retention in Public

Organizations in Kenya: A case of the Supreme Court of Kenya, the Supreme Court of

Kenya was examined to establish the factors influencing employee retention in the

public organizations in Kenya. The research came to the conclusion that employee

retention in the public sector is influenced by employee training and development,

compensation plans, job content and employee skill recognition. It was also inferred that

training and development was in greater use in public organizations. The study further

deduced that job content, to some extent, does not match with the amount of rewards

employees receive especially in the public organizations. However, the study concluded

that the available benefits were attractive and congruent with those offered in the

market (Anangwe, 2019).

In the Philippines, the research on the concept of employee retention is

exemplified by a few studies. One of these is the paper entitled Looking beyond HRM
practices in enhancing employee retention in BPOs: focus on employee–organization

value fit which argues that the effectiveness of Human Resource Management practices

in tackling employee retention can be enhanced by improving the compatibility between

employee and organizational values. The results illustrate that the suitability between

employee and organization values positively and partially mediates the effects of

Human Resource Management practices on employee retention. However, the

employee–organization values clash in United States-owned Business Process

Outsourcing companies was found to have a negative effect on employee retention

(Presbitero, Roxas, & Chadee, 2019).

Another study that explores the employee retention phenomenon is the research

on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and employee retention in the Philippines.

The paper’s aim was to investigate the relationship between CSR and employee

retention in the country which showed the results of a positive correlation on CSRs

economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic features on employee’s career opportunities,

appreciation and stimulation, and desire to stay in the organization (Angoluan, &

Caballero, 2019).

Leader Organizational Tenure and Employee Performance

In addition to being influenced by the knowledge gained as they learn more about

the organization, employees’ performance is also likely to be influenced by the

knowledge that their leader gains as he or she learns more about the organization (Goll

& Rasheed, 2019; Gupta & Govindarajan, 2020). With increasing organizational tenure,

leaders, too, acquire organization-specific human capital (Becker, 2020). More

specifically, they increasingly learn to (a) act in accordance with the organization’s
culture, norms, and goals as well as to build up essential social networks (Nonaka,

2020); (b) acquire organization-specific knowledge, skills, and abilities (Tesluk &

Jacobs, 2021); and (c) perform the roles and responsibilities that they have as members

of their organization (Ashforth & Saks, 2022). In sum, to the extent that leaders make

use of the capital associated with increasing organizational tenure to facilitate their own

performance that centers on looking after their subordinates (see also Hirst, Mann,

Bain, Pirola-Merlo, & Richver, 2019), their own increased performance should also be

reflected in greater performance of their subordinates

It is worth noting that a leader’s organizational tenure differs conceptually from

general tenure in a leadership role. In particular, whereas the latter involves the

acquisition of general, leadership-related capital (e.g., knowing how to deal with people

in professional contexts, how to chair meetings in general), the former involves the

acquisition of human capital that is tied specifically to the organization and leadership

within it (e.g., knowing how to communicate with and inspire organizational members,

whom to contact when needing support). Thus, with accumulating organizational tenure,

leaders not only internalize the organization’s norms and goals and develop shared

perspectives and supportive relationships with other organizational members but also

learn to lead and guide other organizational members. Indeed, because the process of

leadership is unique in each organization in the sense that it depends on the specific

identity of the organization, comprising particular tasks and challenges, field of work,

and followers (Ellemers, De Gilder, & Haslam, 2020; Haslam, Reicher, & Platow, 2021;

Steffens et al., 2019; van Knippenberg, 2021), increasing organization-specific human

capital should help leaders perform better in their task by facilitating the performance of

their subordinates.

However, akin to the relationship between employee tenure and performance,

leaders’ organizational tenure is likely to show a curvilinear relationship with employee

performance (Ng & Feldman, 2020; Sturman, 2021, 2023). The relationship can be

expected to be curvilinear because leaders are likely to acquire organization-specific

human capital at a decreasing rate as their membership in the organization continues.

Thus, the relationship between leaders’ organizational tenure and employee

performance is anticipated to change over time and follow the shape of a learning curve

(Sturman, 2023).

Employee attrition occurs when the size of your workforce diminishes over time

due to unavoidable factors such as employee resignation for personal or professional

reasons.

Employees are leaving the workforce faster than they are hired, and it is often

outside the employer’s control. For example, let’s say that you have opened a new

office designated as the Sales Hub for your company. Every salesperson must work out

of this office – but a few employees cannot relocate and choose to leave the company.

This is a typical reason for employee attrition.

But there are other reasons for attrition as well, including the lack of professional

growth, a hostile work environment, or declining confidence in the company’s market

value. Weak leadership is another factor that often drives attrition among employees.
 Attrition due to retirement

If two or three people have retired from your company this year, this is

statistically too small an employee group to count under attrition. However, if a sizable

chunk of your workforce retires at the same time, this can cause attrition.

Attrition due to retirement shouldn’t be swept under the rug – your senior

professionals may choose to retire early or become independent consultants due to

factors other than age.

Voluntary attrition

This is the most common type of attrition, where employees decide to simply quit

their jobs. There can be many reasons for voluntary attrition (more on that later) and

most of them are in your control.

You should proactively try to curb voluntary attrition among high-value talent, as

this can bring down your productivity over time. For example, if a company sees its

marketing experts moving out of different business units, it’s a clear cause for concern.

Involuntary attrition

In this scenario, it is the company and not the employee that initiates the exit. For

example, the employee may have shown instances of misconduct in the workplace – a

common reason for involuntary attrition. Structural reasons could also cause attrition.

Mergers and acquisitions are often followed by a wave of involuntary attrition.

Internal attrition

Here, employees are quitting their jobs in one department to join another

department. In some cases, internal attrition is desirable, as it routes talent towards

more profitable areas. It also ensures better employee-job fitment.

 But if a specific department has witnessed a high rate of attrition one year, it

merits an investigation. Is there something missing in the job? Is the manager

inadequately skilled? These are questions that HR needs to ask and find answers to.

Demographic-specific attrition

This is a significant concern for progressive companies trying to build an

equal-opportunities workplace. Demographic-specific attrition means that employees

from a single group – women, ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, veterans, or

older professionals – are leaving the company in droves.

You need to immediately deploy employee surveys to identify the root cause of

demographics-based attrition before it affects your workplace culture. A positive culture

can be the antidote to the quitting epidemic.

Getzlaf et.al. (2019) compared undergraduate students who had dropped out

from Washington State University (WSU) one year prior to the study with a control

sample of students who continued at WSU with the help of Tinto's model of institutional

attrition. Johnson and Gill (2019) described motivation in work organizations as “the

processes by which people are enabled to and induced to choose to behave in

particular ways”. Jones et. al. (2020) explained that employee involvement produces

improved enterprise performance through diverse channels including enhanced

discretionary effort by employees. Backhaus and Tikoo (2021) explained that employer

brand is used both to attract potential employees and to ensure that current employees

are committed to the organization. Tapper (2023) BPO is a varied and speedily growing

offshore market with an estimated annual growth rate of 60 percent. Brown and Stone

(2022) reported that BPO accounted for 34 percent of the global outsourcing contract
value in 2020 and estimated that BPO services would grow from $1.3 billion in 2022 to

$4.3 billion in 2007. Morocko and Uncles (2018) stated that retention of current

employees as well as the attraction and recruitment of new employees are core

processes related to the HR department. Maxwell and Knox (2019) discussed that the

attributes employees consider important for their employers vary between different

companies. However, there are categories of attributes that affect the attractiveness of

the firm.

Gilliver (2019) explained that an employer brand identifies an organization in the

marketplace and makes it unique. It gives everyone in the organization a handle on

what we are, and everyone interested in joining the organization has a clear picture of

what to expect. It infuses the firm’s recruitment process and the interaction among

people in the organization. Srivastav (2020) coded how the organizational climate

operates in the BPO industry. Six motives of organizational climate were measured in

BPO companies. Expert Influence and Extension were respectively the dominant and

backup climates. Priyadarshi (2021) observed that despite the employer brand gaining

considerable popularity in HR practitioner literature, empirical research is still relatively

inadequate. Sengupta and Gupta (2022) said that the Business process outsourcing

(BPO) industry in India is progressing with an unparalleled velocity. Despite the

momentous growth and brilliant future, the BPO industry has experienced high attrition

rates since inception.

Organizations invest heavily in the HR segment of the business to recruit

talented employees. When these employees start to leave the company for any reason,

including retirement, better job offers at the competitor, cultural differences, and wanting
a change, it can result in heavy financial losses for the organization. One of the major

problems is employee attrition. The attrition can be attributed to several factors based

on differences in demographics, sometimes employees quit because of the age of the

manager and that effect does not change whether the manager is virtual or collocated,

and employees retiring because of health issues and age consideration. And yet there

are perceptions that some solutions for problematic attrition may be linked to

organizational manipulation of variables (Clouden, 2018). Research findings have

indicated that there is increased employee attrition as globalization is demanding

organizations to adapt to change at a faster pace without giving additional time to

strategize the course of action (Ghosh, 2020). The employee attrition among IT

professionals has created an expensive problem for the leaders of the 21st century to

comprehend, and it is estimated that each employee who is leaving the company is

costing the organization between $200,000 and

$250,000 that equates to approximately $7,000 daily in lost revenue (Scott &

Smart, 2020). Once this number is calculated with the number of employees who are

leaving the companies, employee attrition can have a negative effect on the analysts‟

predictions for organizational earnings (Scott & Smart, 2020).

The employee attrition issue will get even bigger when Generation X (Gen X) IT

professionals start to leave the organizations within the next several years. Gen X is the

generation born between 1961 to 1981 (Marshall, 2020).This will result in increased

costs due to rehiring, retraining, loss of skill set, organizational experience, and

knowledge. The primary concern of organizations should be retaining employees who

possess the valuable skill set and at

at the same time keep the cost low for rehiring new employees. Marshall (2019) argued

that the factors related to peer-pressure from the already settled Baby Boomer

generation and their perception that Gen X employees are slow to follow the

organizational processes and procedures will encourage employee attrition if their

managers do not provide opportunity to work and grow. Baby boomers are the

generation born between 1946 and 1964 and officially enter the beginning of old age in

2011 by turning 65 (Hartman-Stein & Potkanowicz, 2023). Another factor already

established is that the older management often sees Gen X individuals as people who

do not display loyalty to any organization, work independently, and look at work as

necessary for survival. These perceptions, pressures, and misunderstandings act as

motivators for Gen X employees to move from job to job and solidify the perception of

them as job-hopping, less committed, and less dependable employees. Bufe and

Murphy (2022) conducted a study at Plante & Moran (P&M), a regional firm located in

Southfield, Michigan on how to retain high performing employees. P&M developed and

implemented a strategy called "recruiting." This is an ongoing program based on

employee appreciation and recognition to maximize employee retention. The employee

attrition rate remained between 8% and 15% annually for the past decade. P&M

developed management and created workshops that explained the value of recruiting

and traditional recruiting on college campuses. The recruiters are engaged in detailed

discussions of becoming a partner someday and not only an employee to fill the

position. Implementing a recruiting program must have leadership support from the

beginning to become successful. Reliance solely on managers to support this initiative

will likely fail. The key to successful re-recruiting is proactive and consistent

communication with valued employees. This characteristic must be embedded in the

organizational culture and must be enforced from the top executives. Engaging with

employees via e-mails, praising them for a job well done, or simply telling them to have

a wonderful weekend are some of the actions that can be taken by the managers. This

activity is based on the assumption that the more informed an employee is about the

organizations' goal, the more they will feel part of the team and subsequently will want

to stay with the organization.

Thurmany (2023) suggested a formula related to job satisfaction within the

engineering field. He determined that the primary satisfaction of individuals in this field

is not based on monetary values but revolves around communications about the

business establishment‟s success. The problem becomes even larger with globalization

as organizations are operating in virtual environments and managing global virtual

teams (GVT), which is more challenging when communications are based on e-mail,

teleconference, and remote. Organizations should develop strategies to adapt faster

and keep up with global dynamics to achieve a competitive advantage. Most

organizations do not want to be associated with high employee attrition as that may

reflect organic issues causing high employee attrition. The importance of understanding

the attrition behavior is critical to developing the argument that the organization-level

variables are

linked to employee attrition, which is done by analyzing the following four

variables: (a) firm characteristics, (b) firm setting, (c) workforce characteristics, and (d)

benefit practices. Each of these variables can be broken down into smaller variables
such as firm size, industry, economic sector, and geographic location (Bennett, Blum,

Long, & Roman, 2021). Local unemployment rate is another indicator that may have

some effect on an individual's decision to quit his or her existing job, hence adding to

the attrition rate for the organization. The actual decision to leave the company may be

attributed to an individual's evaluation of the organization, organizational values, and

goals. A study was conducted in Europe called The NEXT Study; or nurse‟s early exit

study. The findings from the study identified the causes that led to employees leaving

the company: (a) verbal aggression (13%), (b) staff shortages (67%), and subordinate

pressure (13%) (Hasselhorn, Tackenberg, & Muller, 2019). When the leaders of the 21st

century understand the legitimate reasons and tackle them from every angle to make

the work environment healthier, they can develop a positive work atmosphere and

attitude for employees to stay with that organization and develop seniority to attain

higher levels of responsibilities in their career development. Empowering employees will

take time, strategy, and commitment to be successful and direct and indirect

approaches should be used. Direct empowerment is when organizations deploy

additional responsibilities to the employees and indirect empowerment occurs when the

employees are involved in the decision making discussions when they are collocated or

virtual. When employees are brought into the discussions related to organizational

direction and mission and their opinions and recommendations are discussed, it can

create a positive attitude and generate more original ideas that may be incorporated into

organizational strategy (Solomon, 2020)

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