Research Proposal. Title of the proposed study: Employee retention and reasons that result in the employee turnover: Descriptive study carried out on Ufone PTML Pakistan

University Degree Business and Administrative studies

Research Proposal

1. Title of the proposed study:

“Employee retention and reasons that result in the employee turnover: Descriptive study carried out on Ufone PTML Pakistan”

2. Introduction:

In a human resources context, turnover or labor turnover is the rate at which an employer gains and loses employees. Simple ways to describe it are "how long employees tend to stay" or "the rate of traffic through the revolving door." Turnover is measured for individual companies and for their industry as a whole. If an employer is said to have a high turnover relative to its competitors, it means that employees of that company have a shorter average tenure than those of other companies in the same industry. High turnover can be harmful to a company's productivity if skilled workers are often leaving and the worker population contains a high percentage of novice workers.

In the U.S., for the period of December 2000 to November 2008, the average total non-farm seasonally adjusted monthly turnover rate was 3.3%

Employee turnover is a global phenomenon. In the present world of economic growth, changing socioeconomic factors, dynamic labor markets and hyperactive macro environmental factors, almost all the organizations face the problem of employee turnover. In this very competitive business environment no business can enjoy and sustain the success until it deals with this turnover problem efficiently and successfully. In the near past, the competition among the businesses has been immense which has increased the importance of human resource management functions. Now companies are very cautious about the human resource policies and there is a great emphasis on using the human capital efficiently not only to increase the productivity but also to get the competitive advantage. Employees are considered as the basic operating unit of an organization, organizations invest heavily to attract, recruit and then train the employees. And after all these efforts, losing these employees is a great loss to the organizations.

Therefore, there is a great need to first, identify the factors that cause the employees to leave the organizations and secondly, devise the strategies to retain them. The employment culture is changing now days. It is now relatively common to change jobs every few years, rather than grow with one company throughout the employment life as was one commonplace. In addition, employees are increasingly demanding a balance between work and family life. Turnover costs for many organizations are very high and can significantly affect the financial performance of an organization. Employee retention in the current competitive era is a challenging task. Especially in the call center industry, employee retention policy plays a vital role in retaining the best. Various policies are being tested by different organizations to retain their best employees. A good retention policy is the one which is according to the needs and wants of the organization. Motivation, reward and recognition are the key elements required to achieve a good retention rate in the organization.

This comprehensive research of the factors which cause the employee turnover and their respective retention strategies will help to relate the theories with industry practices and the effectiveness of implementing these theories. Through this research, it will be tried to surface the factors (if found) that cause the employee turnover even if the traditional and well accepted policies are practiced. Of this research, it is expected that this global phenomenon of employee turnover will be analyzed in local context in Pakistan and the solutions/ suggestions will be devised which will bear the most chances of being successful in local ...

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3. Literature Review:

“Effective employee retention is a systematic effort by employers to create and foster an environment that encourages current employees to remain employed by having policies and practices in place that address their diverse needs. Also of concern are the costs of employee turnover (including hiring costs, training costs, productivity loss). Replacement costs usually are 2.5 times the salary of the individual. The costs associated with turnover may include lost customers, business and damaged morale. In addition there are the hard costs of time spent in screening, verifying credentials, references, interviewing, hiring, and training the new employee just to get back to where you started.” (Workforce Planning for Wisconsin State Government, 2005)

Employee turnover has become a very critical problem in Pakistan’s telecom industry as is the case with many others in various countries. Employees are believed to exploit the labor market conditions and shortage of skillful workers in this industry. A larger number of job opportunities, ease of job switching, attractive salaries and huge demand of skilled workers are some of the highlighted reasons of this problem. In spit of the significance of this problem, there is a dearth of research work in this area. This study identifies various variables recognized by many researchers to have an effect on employee’s turnover intention. These variables are studied in local context and study is conducted to identify which variables are the most significant causes of employee turnover in Ufone. Employee turnover is a major problem in most of the Asian countries. Pakistan is also one the countries facing this problem. The major sectors which are affected by this problem in Pakistan are textile, cement, IT, and telecom industry. Telecom sector has become the fastest growing sector in Pakistan. Both local and foreign companies have been the limelight of this fast growth. The expansion of this sector has provided numerous job opportunities. There is a huge competition among different players of this sector. This immense competition has resulted in an overall improved quality of services and different facilities for the customers. There is another side of this competition among these cellular service providers and that is the competition of snatching most productive employees. The employers in telecom sector, therefore, have to face the consequences of this competition in form of losing the valued employees. As a result, employee turnover is brought to the surface. Surprisingly, there are very few research studies examining this important issue in Pakistan’s context. Most of the HR managers are aware of this problem but because of the lack of theoretical knowledge, scholarly work, and directed research about this problem, they don’t have any established strategies to combat with this problem. This study incorporates two very important issues, firstly, most of the research work on turnover is done in western organizational context and because of the difference in the social, economic and cultural environments the findings of these studies may not be applicable in Pakistan. Secondly, if there are some research studies on local level, they are conducted using only a few number of variables and as a result, they cannot be considered as a comprehensive solution to turnover problem in local context.

4. Theory and Hypotheses

The framework of study includes a model based on various factors that are assumed to have a strong effect on employee’s turnover intention. Model is presented in Fig.1. It includes three sets of independent factors: demographic, controllable, and uncontrollable. Turnover intention is the dependent factor in this model. Turnover intention has been used very often in past researches. Fishbein and ajzen’s (1975) theory of attitude postulates that the best predictor of individual behavior will be measure of his intention to perform that behavior. Shore and martin (1989) noted that turnover intention is an appropriate dependent variable because it is linked with actual turnover. Price and mueller (1981) even recommended the use of turnover intention over actual turnover because the latter is more difficult to predict as there are external factors that affect turnover behavior. Moreover, turnover intention may be a better barometer of management practices than actual turnover. For example, it is possible that, despite high turnover intention, actual turnover is low because of high unemployment in an industry. The low turnover in this case, may mask the poor management practices.

Employee Turnover model

5. Hypothesis Development

On the basis of these theoretical foundations, hypotheses is developed to be

researched. The hypotheses will be used to design the questionnaire which will be

distributed among employees who are currently working with Ufone and also the

employees who have left Ufone for any reason. Hypotheses is discussed in

detail below:

Hypothesis: Employees at Ufone often look for alternative jobs.

Perceived alternative of job is positively related to employee turnover (hulin et al,1985; steel and griffeth,1989). The importance of this factor increases in the context of Pakistan telecom industry because there are more competitors and opportunities for finding jobs with other employers are in great number. The presence of number competitors in this industry may be a reason for the employees to perceive that they can easily find jobs in the market. Given the labor market conditions and number of jobs available in market, may potentially be a major reason of employee turnover.

6. Research Design:

6.1 Universe

The researcher intends to consider Ufone PTML Pakistan as the universe for this study.

6.2 Sample

Researcher plans that the Islamabad region of Ufone PTML Pakistan will be taken as the Sample. A sample size of 200 employees will be considered for the study.

6.3 Tool for data collection

The Questionnaire will consists of three parts/ Sections

Section A- Demographic Information

It will consist of 10 tools asking about the information of participants; such as, age, gender, qualification, Martial Status, Total Work Experience, and Work Experience with Ufone etc

Section B- Controllable factors

It will be generated considering the Pay, Nature of Work, Supervision, Organizational commitment, Distributive Justice, Procedural Justice related questions will be asked and suggestions will be entertained.

Section C- Job Turnover

For evaluating job turnover 1 tool will be used by which the employees rate their organization.

6.4 Data Analysis Plan

The researcher plans to analyze data using SPSS version 16.

6.5 Report Writing Plan

The Paper will be presented in the form of a research paper

7. Bibliography

Feldman C. Daniel & Ng H. W. Thomas (2007). Careers: Mobility, Embeddedness, and Success. Journal of Management, Volume 33, No. 3, June 2007.

13 January 2010 5:24 Pm

Implications from a National Sample. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, Volume 2, No. 3, December 1991. Jung Kwangho, Moon Jac M. & Hahm Deuk Sung (2007). Do Age, Gender, and

. . 2008. . Retrieved 2009-01-21.

Kirschenbaum Alan & Mano-Negrin Rita (1999). Underlying Labor Market Dimensions of “Opportunities”: The Case of Employee Turnover. Human Relations, Volume 52, No. 10, 1999.

Khatri Naresh, Fern Tze Chong & Budhwar Pawan (2001). Explaining Employee

Turnover in an Asian Context. Human Resource Management Journal, Volume

11, No. 1, 2001, pages 54-74.

Mathematical and Theoretical Model for Organizations. Human Resource Development Review, Volume 6, No. 2, June 2007.Lawrence B. Thomas & Robinson L. Sandra (2007). Ain’t Misbehavin:

Sector Affect Job Satisfaction? Results from the Korean Labor and Income

Panel Data. Review of Public Personnel Administration, Volume 27, No. 2, June 2007.

Udechukwu I. Ikwukanne & Mujtaba G. Bahaudin (2007). Determining the

Probability that an Employee Will Stay or Leave the Organization: A

Workforce Planning for Wisconsin State Government. (2005). Employee retention. Retrieved October 27, 2005, from

Workplace deviance as Organizational Resistance. Journal of Management,

Volume 33, No. 3, June 2007. Weisberg Jacob & Alan Kirschenbaum (1991). Employee Turnover Intentions:

Research Proposal. Title of the proposed study: Employee retention and reasons that result in the employee turnover: Descriptive study carried out on Ufone PTML Pakistan

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