A Literature Review on Employee Retention with Focus on Recent Trends

Abstract

Employees are the most important, valuable and productive asset of an organization and retaining them is one of the toughest challenges for the managers. As the replacement cost of key employees involves huge turnover, there is a need to develop a fully integrative retention policy to tackle such type of problems. The objective of this study is to critically analyze the various works done in the field of employee retention and highlight factors responsible for employee departure and retention initiatives followed to retain them. As the study is descriptive in nature, a number of secondary sources are explored to synthesize the fragmented knowledge and present the literature review in a concise format. As the ever-changing technology, stiff competition, and globalization has brought human resources at the forefront in organizational roles, no organization wants to lose their talented employees. The literature review will present traditional retention techniques followed as well as contemporary techniques used to retain the employees. Also, more emphasis will be put on the factors such as leadership style of superiors, ability to exercise control with respect to decision-making and problem-solving, desire for career advancement and skills development, flexible working and ever increasing aspiration on retention of key employees.