Fundamentals of Human Resource Management, 5/e

Managing Employee Retention and Turnover

Learning Objective 4

• Describe a comprehensive approach to retaining employees.

Turnover—the rate at which employees leave a firm—varies widely. For example, in the hotel and food services industry, about half the employees leave voluntarily each year. In contrast, voluntary turnover in education is about 12%. 38

And that reflects only employees who leave voluntarily, such as for better jobs. It doesn’t include involuntary separations, such as for poor performance. 39 Combining voluntary and involuntary turnover produces some astounding statistics. For example, the turnover in many restaurants is around 100% per year. Many need to replace just about all their employees every year! The costs of such ...