Feeling the nurturing culture where support, empathy and career plan exist.

Must be Work satisfaction . regards

Could be the feeling to belong to a successful team and to be active part of it.

An interesting job, great colleagues, reasonable bosses, a manageable workload, good career perspectives...

What makes an employee stay with a company, apart from good salary, is a list of several possibilities, e.g., 1) there are little or nil opportunities for an alternative proper job. 2) the employee has been one of the primary founders of the company so s/he wants to ensure the continuity of what was established. 3) the employee is made to feel that s/he is an owner or a partner or a participant in decision-making. This intensifies the sense of belonging.

However, the real test for such possibilities comes when there is a better offer. In a certain university, there was a genius computer specialist with salary (X). He was approached by a private company (Y) which offered him (5X). The man left the university at once & he works now in (Y).

Nice examples Prof. Matar although the offer mentioned is a life opportunity based on capitalizing on the positive work conditions that existed to make that person excel. I do not think the owner or manager of the company would mind for such employee to go forward, thinking that the employee will always keep in touch and give good name to his/her previous work institution.

Agreed with the points commented by all the scholars.  I observe in IT / technology centric companies, opportunity to learn and R&D on the state of the art technology also make a technical employee to stay with the company especially the large and reputable ones.  Surprisingly, when stepped into 1 of the largest IT companies in the world, many white hair employees worked more than 25 years.  The more reputable the company, the longer duration and more employees stick to the company.  However, also observing some of the younger employees try to learn as much as they can before exploring out for better job opportunity.

Apart from salary, I feel, employees stay with the organizations because of  working atmosphere/ colleagues, Job Content, Career Opportunities, Training, Company Image, Company Culture, The Management, Internal Opportunities (Vos. Ans De et al., 2006). Again apart from all these factors the most important factor is Role of a Supervisor or Fortunate to get a good boss because problems with the boss is the main reason to why employees do not like to stay. Employee satisfaction and commitment factors are in control of the managers, supervisors or team leader (A Survey done by Hay Group, 1998, the sample size was half million employees over 300 companies).

Regards.

• Job Satisfaction
• Superior's treatment
• participatory Culture
• Due recognition

In some countries, rarely pay scientific researcher or doctor so that he did not want to find another place to work outside of these countries. Brain drain is not surprising.

Some of these factors are job security, good working conditions, loyalty, full appreciation of work, specific type of job,....

Hi Tia

An interesting question! In Northern Ireland we have many family firms, its clear why most of the family stay- they have a socio emotional investment in the firm and a clear wish to preserve for the following generations - therein lies a problem - we need to address how to retain good employees in these firms, as often there are very limited progression opportunities for no family!

From an employee perspective - its about achieving personal goals for me - if I can see my way to achieving these, then basically I m happy, but an inclusive transparent culture is helpful. No micro management is also important..........

An interesting environment, kind and great colleagues and bosses, a manageable workload, and the most important in my mind is respect (among colleagues and also customers)

In some places or countries, it is hard to have opportunities to change for better job's conditions and salary; people stay in the same company for their salary and the number or years of personal investment in their career despite of the dissatisfaction and the frustration.

I will also add that when a person has a personal agenda for improvement within the current job, he/she will stick to it until objectives are achieved. From there on, the different factors mentioned in this forum are weighted against the next planned move. 

Your answers were really amazing; especially the ones of Dr. Hejase and Dr. Matar.

From my point of view, I think that the financial benefits are used more to attract new people to join the company (although it will increase the level of satisfaction and employee retention).

Job Security, Clear Code of Business Conducts, and a management that "LISTENS"  and "ACTS" are some factors that will retain the employee within the organization.

I think Maslow Hierachy of Needs can apply here i.e. financial benefits can term as means to satisfy lower level needs  i.e. physiological and safety needs.  Moving upward the hierachy, If the employee can find satisfaction in higher level needs like belonging / love, self esteem and self actualization, s/he may stay longer with the company.  May be lesson learnt for employer is that they need to consider an employee's need in order to retain this valuable human asset.

• Perceived Job Scope
• Peer Support
• Individual's ambition alignment

Dear Hassan,

As I read your question I instantly thought of loyalty as Ljubomir has mentioned. In order to create employee loyalty the employer must a) have a product or a service that the workforce is proud of. b) the employee must be treated with as Hatef mentioned respect, dignity, and a challenging job. One that gives the worker a sense of pride and ownership. c) The employer must create a inviting, welcoming, family environment feel for the employee. This is necessary for as Nizar has pointed out the real test is when the other company comes calling with a 5X offer for the employee to move the employer had created, nurtured, and continues fostering enough loyalty that the employee never took the phone call in the first place.   

Look at Herzberg's theory for inspiration.

But you should also look at other factors - determine if yout employees belong to

the Theory X group or the Theory Y.

Then look at labor supply and demand. If there is shortage of labor supply related

to higly skilled professionals, you must aim at satisfying their needs for self

actualization and freedom. Which might imply educating them on how to establish

their own business. That's quite common in IT labor market.

In other words, implement the contingency approach.

As for a general guideline - just be human to humans. Appreciate and respect them

and their effort and act like a mentor and a steward. Or as Peter Senge put it - act

like a gardener!

My Dear

there are another factors help in staying employee in organization such as positive social identity, social links within organization, and growth opportunities.

Not only the "economic benefits" should be the only element to retain people in the Organization, but it must be among others the following: recognition, a career plan perfectly established for each person, which the organization undertakes to highlight and disseminate internally and externally not only the professional prestige, but also its moral authority, i.e. its ethical behavior.

There is a plethora of variables. For example, look at the employer-employee relationship. There are 3 perceptual measures of perceived organizational support, psychological contracts and perceived organizational obstruction.Justice perceptions (distributive, procedural and interactional) will also increase turnover. Organizational commitment has 3 also (affective, normative and continuance). Organizational politics is correlated.  Exit (turnover) is only one of the four responses to dissatisfaction in the EVLN model, so essentially anything causing dissatisfication -Hertzberg is a good start. Job embeddedness and job involvement will influence. Personality characteristics and opportunity will moderate. My point is that you need to narrow your research question.

People need job for the salary and economic benefits which are directly connected with their social conditions. if it meets the curricula and good career opportunities, it is OK, if not or if better conditions and/or salary are available, people move. Usually they do not consider or be attached to some emotional factors connected with their previous one. it is the role of the employer to retain the best employees by good salaries, social and professional conditions.

The work is the work, there are no emotions or sentiments in it, only competency, ethics and good relationships

I have been doing a bit of reading on a somewhat similar subject - ‘Job hoping’ (constantly moving from one Job to another), with a view to carrying out research in my own country, and among the commonest reasons thought to lead to JH are what a number of colleagues here have listed as what could make an employee stay, such as: Job security; Availability of Learning & Development Opportunities; How interesting and challenging the job is; etc. Additionally, however, it has been interesting to learn from what I have read so far on JH that a growing number of people say they job hop due to ‘bad bosses’. So I agree with Tiia Vissak that “reasonable bosses” is another key factor that makes an employee stay with the company they work for, financial benefits notwithstanding.

5 Ways to Help Employees Help Themselves is fine article for this issue! "The first step to making an immediate positive impression is having an effective onboarding process in place. A successful onboarding process is designed to develop and retain employees.

Luckily, the process can be simplified for managers and employees alike, by creating an onboarding system that helps employees essentially help themselves during their beginning stages at the company. Here are five ways employers can aid employees in being independent and confident from the get-go:

Assign new hires a mentor,

Offer (and encourage) opportunities for development,

Automate the process,

Welcome new hire feedback,

Be MIA (sometimes)!" Good reading follows!

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/242425

The loss of key individuals can have negative impacts on productivity and morale within the workplace, which can quickly translate into reduced profitability for the organisation.  Employees feel as though they have to move on in order to progress. Once individuals reach a point when they feel they are no longer developing - whether in terms of gaining new skills, or picking up vital experience - they may look for a promotion. If there are no opportunities for progression internally, professionals will likely consider other options outside their current organisation. Offering flexible benefits to employees can potentially help keep top performers on your books. These allow workers to customise their own rewards package, with pension contributions, childcare vouchers, subsidised training, mentoring, company cars and entertainment incentives among the options

http://www.roberthalf.co.uk/why-employees-stay

Good post-retirement plan

You have to check under the BSC Learning and Growth perspective. That will truly answer your question. Please browse through my thesis for further explanation.

Beside to the financial benefits, the job security and appreciation efforts of employee.

Regards

I like the research that Thewa is doing about job hopping, and I agree that "Bad Bosses" cause high turnover of employees.

Dear Hussin,

and they cause human and financial losses for the company.

Very true Hanno. The problem grows further by the bosses not realizing that what they are doing is wrong. Unfortunately I know many companies whose top managers do not appreciate the people they have until they lose them.

Some of the  factors to have been found as most important in this regard are as follows:

1. Interesting work

2. Growth & development

3. Boss-employee relations

4. Perception of care and dignity by the employee

5. Flexibility and autonomy

6. promotion

7. Benefits

8. Income

9. Personal factors such as distance

High aims, dear Debi, especially "boss-employee relations modulated by personal factors such as distance". Not so easy!

In our organization we identified certain peculiar instances such as

• lack of competitive skills
• affinity to locality / native place
• Fixed assets
• Children education
• Health Reasons

Observing all the different factors identified, it seems that the issue is bringing up Herzberg 2 factors theory, satisfiers (Motivational) and disastifiers (Hygiene) factors.

Here is the WIKI to Hussins comment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-factor_theory

You see, other persons already started to think about our (at least for me amateurish) attempt to analyse.

I have conducted several academic interviews with Human Resources Managers to get their opinions regarding this question, and I want to share with you the feedback. Below are some of the answers (briefly):

• The way to retain people is by having comparable salaries in addition to the effective and continuous communication.
• To retain the employee he should feel that he is recognized.
• The environment and self-development of skills will let the employee stay where he is.
• Job Security, Work Environment, Career Path, and Good Management.
• There are so many criteria to retain good employees. We are making assessments, evaluation process, performance evaluation by the end of year, coaching on senior positions, succession plan, career path, psychometric tests, and so on.
• “Culture” and “Values” are major reasons. If there is a common area, the employee will be satisfied and will stay as long as possible. In addition to that, there must be “Respect”, “Appreciation”, “Equity”, and “Fairness”.These factors will let employees be more satisfied within the company, and therefore stay.

Hassan, this is a Good way to support further the question validity.

In Russia, for the majority of researchers and teachers of this question makes no sense. Even at extremely low salaries vast majority of teachers or researchers for various reasons can not go to another city or another country.

Very true Dr. Zabrodskii, many countries have particular set of conditions that governs the faculty movement. However, the second part of the issue is, how motivated are the faculty in your country?

Yes dear Hussin and Zabrodskii,

Hussin´s additional question shows the central problem, and this consequence is not restricted to the mentioned countries. It´s the general problem if employees are not motivated to do good jobs by which reason ever.

Very good discussion on faculty members and how to retain them! Yes my dear friends, how to retain and attract faculty! Financial benefits could not be avoided. Here is the experience from Cornell: "With the oldest faculty in its history, the College of Arts and Sciences faces an unprecedented number of retirements in the next decade: nearly half the faculty are over age 55, and about 20 percent are over 65. The college sees this challenge as an extraordinary opportunity, the chance to recruit outstanding new faculty. As Dean Lepage has said, We are hiring our future reputation.Some faculty fundraising goals for recognize and retain faculty include:

• Offering competitive salaries to compensate faculty who are the best in their fields
• Generating resources for recruitment and retention, including support for faculty research, and start-up funds and bridging funds to pre-hire a faculty member prior to a permanent faculty line becoming open
• Increasing the number of endowed professorships
• Establishing additional postdoctoral fellowships..."

http://as.cornell.edu/alumni/campaign/faculty.cfm

The contribution of dear Prof. Ljubomir Jacić  is very interesting to me. We simply have the same problem : By 2020, many of my colleagues in the chemistry department & I will be retired (I am now the first in the line). I told my colleagues, on several occasions, that we ought to work on suitable substitutes for us. We do not want to leave behind us those who will destroy what we have established by hard work. We added few young colleagues but we "suspect" that other departments will try to take some chemistry courses in order to "gain" extra overtime money, no more. This disastrous scenario has become closer to reality within the past few days by a story which is too long to tell. 

I guess the scheme of succession planning is applicable here. So, planning for the next 5 years should start immediately.

Jack Welch has a famous quote regarding the compensation: "If you pick the right people and give them the opportunity to spread their wings and put compensation as a carrier behind it, you almost don't have to manage them".

So, it is about giving the Opportunities!

The approach, of RG friend dear Hassan Chalak, to the subject is very good scientifically. We have a strong evidence of "opportunists" in academic institutions. These will first attack the course contents that are taught by scholars from other departments to theirs and then move to take the easy theoretical parts of them under the false claim of being capable of teaching them more properly. The opportunists have one & only one "un-revealed" aim: OVERTIME MONEY.

I totally agree with you, Dr. Matar.

Dear Dr. Zabrodskii,

I think what you said also applies for employees with "Very weak performance" who might accept the low salary just to ensure having an existing source of income. In  the situation you stated, maybe certain regulations are considered as barriers to the transfer/exit process.

Dear Hassan,

I think teamwork and good relationships is the secret for staying with the company. besides the goal of the person being employed.

Regards

Carmen Camilleri

I was discussing this question with an HR Manager today and she gave several factors. One of these factors was "Work-life Balance". This concept occurs when employees are strongly able to balance between their "Work" and "Lifestyle". I agree with her regarding this factor as I see it satisfactory!

Dear @Hassan, here are some eight fine tips regarding Healthy Work-Life Balance! I do agree that issue of Work-Life Balance may be very important for retaining the emlpoyee!