Some of the causes/consequences could be classified as:

Dissatisfaction parameter: Employees are dissatisfied with the salaries, perks and benefits offered by the organisation they are currently in. They may also be dissatisfied with their bosses or find their jobs meaningless and unimportant as a result of which their job satisfaction levels are very low. Further they may be dissatisfied with career opportunities in the organisation or even its personnel policies in general. As a consequence of the above, employees leave to join other organisations which satisfy their needs. As the wheel of time moves along, they find a third organisation which offers to satisfy them even more. Thus they change again i.e. they are perennially job-hopping from one organisation to another.

Alternatives parameter: Here the employee leaves the organisation in search of "greener pastures" such as starting his own business, joining the family business, joining an organisation in a foreign country or even availing of the Voluntary Retirement Scheme of the organisation and relaxing at home, living off the interest generated from fixed deposits and investment. An interesting trend in recent years has been that many managers leave industry to become consultants or even faculty in management institutes or go abroad to complete their PhD or further studies. It is important to note here that the separation here was not because of dissatisfaction with respect to the present organisation but because of other available alternatives and inclinations in that direction by the employees. The consequence here is that the organisation loses some talented employees for no fault of theirs. In some organisations some of these employees are even used as consultants on a retainer basis from time to time. This is possible if and only if the separated employees are not always in a competitive area of work.

Personal parameter: In this case, the employee chooses to separate himself from the organisation because of personal reasons, such as ill-health, desire to return to the native place for family reasons, the spouse is transferred and the current organisation has no branch in the new location and so on. In the Indian context, women may have to give up their jobs post-marriage to resettle elsewhere in the country or even post-pregnancy. As some of the above problems are more common with the women employees, many organisations have an unwritten policy, which is widely practiced i.e. to minimise employment of women. This is a very unfair and biased policy and unfortunately many competent and well-qualified women have had to suffer. But companies argue that many women executives, even in today’s Indian context have to quit jobs after marriage or pregnancy. It is best therefore not to generalise and treat such cases on their respective merits.

Organisation initiated parameter: Sometimes employees have to separate from an organisation as they have not completed their probation period successfully or they are being laid off for want of work or their appointment was only on a temporary basis. In fact it is this aspect of separation that is most unpleasant since the earlier ones discussed were cases of separation which were employee initiated. Care must be taken by the organisations to ensure that the above be carried out as smoothly as possible else, this could create a lot of negative impressions about the company which could be detrimental for the organisation’s image in the long run. One major consequence of this type of separation is that it affects the morale of the employees at large and creates a feeling of insecurity in general.

Let us realise that today recruitment has become both a highly specialized area and a costly exercise too. Once an individual joins an organisation, costs incurred on him include Acquisition costs i.e. cost of recruitment, selection and placement and training costs i.e. induction, specialised training and on the job training. Besides when he separates from the organisation, the company faces the cost of his position lying vacant besides having to pay his separation pay and such dues.

Hence organisations today are focusing on minimising employee turnover with great seriousness.

Some of the control measures taken are:

In many organisations today, Exit interviews are conducted to obtain feedback from separated employees about their stint in the organisation. This Exit interview is conducted in two phases.

Phase I is conducted as soon as the employee’s boss receives his resignation letter. The objective of his meeting is to ascertain reasons as to why the employee wishes to leave the organisation. If the employee is really worth retaining, attempts are made to eliminate those dissatisfied if any and retain his services for the organisation. This decision has to be taken very judiciously else the employee will use this as a tool to push his demands via a resignation letter. If an employee withdraws his resignation letter; the exit interview has achieved its objective of retaining a good employee. Despite all the attempts made, if the employee still decides to separate then we move on to Phase II.

Usually the second phase of the exit interview should be conducted after the employee who has separated has been paid all his dues and his accounts with the company have been settled. This ensures that the separated employee provides candid and unbiased feedback about the organisation’s procedures, policies and problem areas. All such feedback should be recorded on paper and circulated to the top management. In order to ensure that a good discussion is possible, the exit interview should be held in privacy and conducted by a senior employee of the organisation who is not the boss or departmental head of the separated employee. If the feedback duly obtained by this method is looked into seriously, this serves as a good raw data base through which various irritants and lacunae in the organisation could be eliminated.

In fact, the exit interview also has one more spin-off. If the employee parts with a good feeling, he has a tendency to keep in touch with the separated organisation. Perhaps over a period of time, he would even like to come back to his old organisation. Some management’s are conservative and brand the separated employee as a traitor but many other organisations welcome him back.

Whilst critics argue that a continuous inflow and outflow of people into any organisation keeps it healthy, care should be taken to ensure that the outflow does not exceed the inflow. Further good employees should be retained and developed to assume higher levels of responsibility in the organisation. One needs to remember that employee turnover is not a malady which exists in the organisation. Hence necessary steps should be taken by an organisation to identify the causes and keep this turnover at an acceptable level. Retaining talent and creating a condusive work culture to facilitate performance would ensure the organisation’s health and success. q