Employee Retention Strategies

Strategic Human Resource Management

Submitted By:
Nimisha Abraham – B037

Under the guidance of Dr. Sreeleakha

Date of Submission: 6th August 2019

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 WAL-MART INC.
Wal-Mart does not provide monetary benefits to their associates, but the management first
concentrates on the recruiting strategy to keep them.

Recruitment and Selection – Getting Good People

Human resource managers concentrate on their background information like education,

experience and references during their face to face interview. For the interviewer to pay
focus on the interviewee’s behaviour such as eye contact, gesture and so on, training
courses on behavioural instruments and validation processes in the interview are provided
to the human resource associates.

Keeping Good People

Wal-Mart leaders always keep three questions in mind for establishing long-term
relationship with their employees.

Do you care about me?

What do I need to do to get ahead?

Where can I go to get justice?

Wal-Mart’s retention strategy includes mandatory participation of the location manager in

new-employee orientation meeting thinking of it as an opportunity for the associates to
know their leaders from the beginning. They build on the relationship between the
managers and the employees in the true sense of partnership. They treat their staff like the
garden of glowers who need regular spiritual encouragement, job promotion and better
treatment for their growth.

Wal-Mart believes that if the company shares profits with employees, like salary, bonus or
dividend, stock etc. then they will treat their company as their own leading to their better
treatment of the customers. This in turn will still lead to the profit flowing into the
company’s account.

Except for economic benefits, the management is more emphasis on the spirit of
encouragement. The manager pays more attention to the views of the staff. Associates can
at any instance share their ideas, suggestions or complaints with the management via
written or oral form. This makes each of the associates feel the warmth of the family of
Wal-mart.

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Growing Good People

It is very important for the associates to be able to have a clear picture of the opportunities
in the future after retention strategies are provided to them. Wal-Mart makes believe their
associates that anyone who is ready can create their own future in Wal-Mart. As a fact, 70%
of the management people began their career in Wal-Mart as an hourly worker which is a
strong proof of the fact that opportunities truly exist within the organisation. There was
even an incredible instance where a single-parent telephone operator from a California
Wal-Mart store eventually became the vice president of recruitment and placement of the
entire organization.

Wal-Mart pays very high importance and put a lot of money in the training of their staff.
They plan and implement effective training for the company located in countries all over
the world including that with the Head Office in September every year. It includes
induction, technical training, job training, overseas training, and leadership training which
is to be attended by all of managers.

Furthermore, there is a Walton College near to the Wal-Mart’s headquarters in the US, and
it provides training courses to people who have potential for development of management
and are good at working. In addition, Wal-Mart also established rotation system to in
charge of the regular rotation at all levels through different work. The rotation system can
bring several benefits to the associates and the company. For example, associates are able
to learn variety of skills and techniques, as well as the company become more competitive
compare to its competitors.

Recommendations

Wal-Mart chooses face to face interview to decide on their key talent. But I suggest that
certain selection tests are important to be able to get knowledge of the candidate’s
abilities. As an example, P&G uses the intelligence test to be able to choose capable person
to interview easily.

Within the Keeping Good People ideology, since Wal-Mart appreciates distinctive ideas of
their associates, what could go wrong is the passing on of such a culture to the future
regenerations. If such an appreciative culture cannot be passed on to future generations,
then such an excellent retention strategy would disappear. Thus probably regular seminars
should be held where associates are made aware of such a culture and are motivational to
them to move in such a direction.

In the step of Growing Good People, though the mix of promotion training courses and
rotation courses is a win-win situation, it is important for them to be given some tasks
where their managers can provide them with creative ideas.

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 AMAZON

This is an example where the company’s image was tarnished as one to have a “bruised”
company culture.
Let us have a look at the retention missteps that led to such a situation.

Cultivate a culture of cooperation, not mistrust

According to the Times article, it was reported that Amazon’s culture was viciously
competitive. One of the biggest factor being the company’s Anytime Feedback Tool, a
communications platform that enabled any employee to anonymously provide feedback
about colleagues directly to that colleague’s manager.

The tool was created to collect both positive and negative feedback, but because all
Amazon employees are ranked and the bottom of the ranks are usually asked to lave, the
tool was often used by cutthroat employees to sabotage one another.
Very often, this negative feedback was used as the basis for withholding promotions and
other benefits, without the employee ever being able to defend himself/herself from her
accuser. This contributed to an overarching atmosphere of fear and mistrust, and was cited
as a major factor for the company’s high employee turnover.

Pivot Program

It is a program where before being fired, employees would have a chance to appeal the
decision and discuss options. Options include a chance to pick up the pace and catch up
with their goals, switching their department or simply leaving the company with a
severance package. Ostensibly, the purpose of the program is to offer a fair and
transparent HR appeals process. However, several employees now claim that Pivot is not
working as intended.

An employee has claimed that when concerns were raised regarding work, there were three
options offered by the company— quit and ask for severance, keep the job and meet
performance goals, or plead case in front of panellists.

While this might seem like a fair review process on the surface, employees have
reportedly described the panel as a 'kangaroo court'. The employee was allowed to write a
draft of appeal, which was presented to the panel. However, the employee claims that the
‘career ambassador’, who was ‘helping’, recommended cutting out important portions of
the appeal. These career ambassadors prepare employees with regard to the panel.

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The panellists attend remotely, and the lack of a personal touch and connection issues make
the presentation almost farcical. The person also claimed that the option to keep the job
was accompanied by unrealistic goals.

Other employees felt that even if the goals were adjusted, there was tension with bosses.

Such disastrous strategies doesn’t mean that Amazon doesn’t have some very impressive
strategies in place for Employee Retention. Some of the few being:

Don’t rely on “golden handcuffs”

Amazon offered its employees stock options that vest after a period of years, usually three
to four as one of its retention strategies. Employees, as the theory goes, will stick around at
least enough to see their stock vest, during which time you can extract enough value out of
them to make the relationship worthwhile.

Pay employees to quit

Amazon once every year, offers to pay full-time associates at its fulfilment centre’s up to
$5,000 to quit, in spite of considering how expensive it is to replace employees; the average
cost per hire. This program though does not make employees work harder, but it does
foster commitment. Those who turn down the offer are essentially signing a tacit contract
with the company at the psychological level. This boosts engagement, productivity, and
ultimately, Amazon’s profitability.

Yet, a study showed that on an average an employee used to stay in the organisation for
only a year, very reason for the same being that nothing can compensate for a toxic culture.