Determine challenges in employee retention as a problem for software based organisation Unleashed Inventory.
The paper intends to discuss and analyse the problem of employee retention prevailing in the organisation Unleashed Software. Employee retention is defined as the process in which an organisation adopts specific practices and policies responsible for acquiring long term service from an employee (Ahammad et al., 2016). This paper would provide a description of an emerging organisation of Australia in order to analyse a problem in employee retention. Unleashed Inventory is a software company of New Zealand that provides cloud based software services. It was founded by Greg Murphy in 2009 in Auckland (Unleashed Software, 2018). The CEO of the Unleashed Inventory software services is Gareth Berry. The organisation expanded with the success of Auckland office and they have branches in USA and UK. The Unleashed software provides business tool for inventory management and provides features such as offline sale, online stores, training and business assistance (Unleashed Software, 2018). The Unleashed Inventory aims at providing the best to their clients but lacks employee satisfaction to a specific extent. The organisation is committed for obtaining increasing growth rate. The Unleashed Inventory is facing challenges in retaining their employees. A report reveals that 32% of global leaders consider employee retention as a major issue in coming years (Bagga, 2013). Considering these statistics, it is essential for the organisation to analyse this situation with the help of their employees and take measures to prevent attrition in the near future. Thus it is important to concentrate on the problem of employee retention, and this paper is compelled to illustrate this issue as a significant issue of the Unleashed Inventory.
Description of the Problem
This section of the paper would provide details about the problem of employee retention in Unleashed Inventory, a software service based organisation of Australia. Employee retention is the ability of an organisation to retain their employee for a long time by enhancing their policies and practices. Employee retention is a significant factor for both the organisation and the employees. Employee retention is considered as a direct loss for the organisation (Vasquez, 2014). The organisation invested in providing grooming and training session to the new employees. When the organisation fails to retain these employees, company face loss both in terms of time and money. The increasing competition among the organisation compels the company to retain their employees.
In the context to the Unleashed Software, it can be said that employee retention is a major problem. This cloud based software company has faced the problem of employee retention from a long period of time. The situation became a matter of concern when a significant increase in the rate of this problem was observed in the chosen organisation. It has been observed that this organisation is overlooking the needs of the employee and focusing merely on the needs of the organisation.
The reasons for the problem of employee retention in the chosen organisation are as follows
Monetary Dissatisfaction
The primary issue in employee retention in Unleashed Inventory is pay for their employees. According to Gallup, 22% of employees quit their job due to pay issues (Mann & Harter, 2016). The pay policies of Unleashed Inventory act as a factor for the dissatisfaction of the employees. The organisation has not done any changes in their payment policies from many years which is the reason for the resentment of the employees. The organisation should change their payment policies and align it with other leading organisations of Australia in order to retain their employees (Terera & Ngirande, 2014). Employees are likely to leave the organisation in case of payment issues. The Unleashed Inventory should enhance their packages, salaries and insurance programs.
Lack of Work Life Balance
The employees of Unleashed Inventory face the challenge of work life balance. The zeal of organisations is to acquire productivity from every minute of the employee. Amount of time spent at work and family characteristics are factors that affect the work life balance of an employee. The Unleashed Inventory is one of the renowned organisation of Australia, and they are they are likely to consider their reputation over employee satisfaction and convenience. This results in the issue of employee dissatisfaction. Inflexibility in job hours, overtime and target oriented jobs are reasons for the issues. A proper balance between work and life is vital for the personal and mental health of an employee. It would also increase the rate of work efficiency (Warren, 2015).
Lack of Non-Financial Rewarding Policies
Lack of motivation and acknowledgement policies in the Unleashed Inventory is the reason for employees quitting jobs. Demotivated employees have a habit of putting very less effort into their work. Non-financial reward policies engage employees in their work. Promotions, leading a team, membership in gym, flex time, free parking and healthcare assurance are some of the rewarding policies that can be adopted by the Unleashed Inventory. Retirement plan and employee services are indirect financial reward policies that attract an employee in serving the organisation for long term (Kwenin, Muathe & Nzulwa, 2013). In the case of lack of motivation in the Unleashed Inventory, employees feel undervalued. The employees of this software based company want their positive efforts in designing website or in any field of work to be recognized and appreciated.
Work culture
The employees of the Unleashed Inventory are also affected by specific external issues such as difference in work culture or culture shock. The culture shock is a feeling of uncertainty experienced by an employee in an organisation due new environment and different job culture. It is a very common incident in organisation and employee behaviour (Taneja, Sewell & Odom, 2015). The Unleashed Inventory should ensure that they provide the adequate environment.
Model of leadership that is efficient in analysing employee retention as a problem in the Unleashed Inventory is as follows:
Autocratic Model of Leadership:
In the autocratic style of leadership, managers of the organisation retains all the authority and decision making power. Applying the Autocratic model of leadership in analysing the problems of the Unleashed Inventory, it can be said that the higher authorities lacks at providing decision making authority to the employees. This can be considered as a major reason for challenges faced by Unleashed Inventory software organisation in retaining their employees for a long time. According to the autocratic model of leadership, only leaders have authority of decision making in determining strategies and actions of an organisation (Rast, Hogg & Giessner, 2013). The employees of this organisation want the leader to include their suggestion and problems during decision making.
Democratic Model of Leadership:
The organisations of modern technology are emphasizing on the democratic model of leadership for the constant involvement of their employees (Woods & Woods, 2013). The Unleashed Inventory is considered to implement this model of leadership for attracting their employees. Although the organisation can implement an autocratic method for short term projects where the employees are new but not in the case of experienced employees. The experienced employees are likely to enjoy the authority of decision making.
Motivation and Organisation Culture in context to Challenges in Employee Retention
The more convenient way to understand the challenges faced in employee retention by the Unleashed Inventory can be understood by emphasizing motivational and organizational culture. The three parameters of motivation and organisation culture are as follows:
Personal culture: The Unleashed Inventory lacks in conducting effective individual interaction and in providing an ethical guideline for the behaviour of the employees. It emerges as a problem for the employees in working for a long term in this software based company (Awadh & Alyahya, 2013). Personal culture seems to be a small and internal matter of concern but results in a problematic situation of employee attrition.
Adaptive culture: The employees of the company lacks at adapting new idea and process. The organisation is also inefficient in providing simple ways for adopting those changes. Thus it can be concluded that the chosen organisation is likely to introduce the innovation without providing a proper plan of adoption.
Role and Power Culture: The employees of the Unleashed Inventory are not aware of their responsibilities and authorities which leads to confusion. The company is failing at providing solutions to this issue. The organisation also fails at providing the position of an employee in organisational structure. Thus the employees find themselves as a mere insignificant part of the organisation (Goetsch & Davis, 2014).
Intervention to Improve Employee Retention
The intervention that can be adopted by the Unleashed Inventory for employee retention can be as follows
Proper Recruitment: The organisation should recruit the suitable individual for a particular job. They should keep transparency with the employees about the facilities, pay and working environment provided.
Providing Non-financial benefits: Offering a flexible schedule to the employees can be a reason for the motivation for employees of the Unleashed Inventory (Cloutier et al., 2015). Non-financial benefits such as free parking, membership and coupons can be helpful for the employees.
Training and Guidance: Offering training and providing guidance to the employees of the company can have a positive effect on retaining the employees. The employee who is well trained is likely to enjoy the work environment and stay in the organisation for a long period of time (Dabale, Jagero & Nyauchi, 2014).
Conduct Stay Interviews: It is essential to discuss the issue with the employees and provide a solution to them before they leave the organisation. This organisation can conduct a stay interview which will aim at knowing the problems and providing a solution (Dobre, 2013). The organisation should continuously acquire feedback from the employees.
Avoiding Micromanaging: The organisation can avoid micromanaging by allowing the employees to work on the projects which are never done by them. The members should experience new project and extend their area of expertise (Vasquez, 2014). This can be helpful for the employees in feeling motivated and involved in the working of the organisation.
Allowing Anonymous Communication: The company can adopt the method of anonymous communication of employee with the higher authority. For instance, tiny pulse service is used by the employees of a specific organisation to communicate with other team members without disclosing their identity (Gong et al., 2017). This kind of services is capable of knowing issues of employee that they are not likely to share.
This paper recommends the Unleashed Inventory to adopt policies for employee engagement in works of the organisation. Analysing the issue of employees of this company, it is recommendable that the organisation should make a team of members responsible for analysing the situation of employee attrition and resulting behaviour prevailing in the organisation. The team members can identify the reasons for challenges in employee retention through interviews and questionnaires or with the help of anonymous reviews. The major identified issue can be solved by the organisation on the priority basis. The company is recommended to seek for the solution that can be implemented as a measure. Employee are likely to provide alternatives for them such as flexibility, increase in pay and decision making authority. Also, the interventions provided in this paper can be helpful for the company in retaining the employee.
Conclusion
It can be concluded from this paper that the primary objective of the Unleashed Inventory is to generate revenue, but in order to attain the maximum profit, the organization should focus more on the ways to retain the employee for long time. Analysing this paper, it can be concluded that this paper efficiently provides a description of problem of employee retention in this company. This paper identifies that lack of authority, flexibility and pay issues are the most critical factors which are forcing employees of the company to quit their job. This paper concludes that to reduce the challenges in employee retention, the Unleashed Inventory could create proper infrastructure for their growth within the organization. The paper discusses the issue of employee retention by analysing various models such as model of leadership and model of motivation and organisation culture. The paper provides the interventions that can be adopted to solve the issues of employee retention. They know that it is advantageous to have better people management practices. They not only have implemented good salary/compensation packages for the employees but more importantly, they take care of the career needs of the employees. The paper concludes employee engagement in the activities of Unleashed Inventory as the most critical intervention for retaining the employees
References
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