Employee retention: An investigation of operation workers and their supervisors

Employee turnover is considered as one of the most considerable concerns to companies in today business. It does not only disrupt normal operations but also highly cost organizations for the replacement. Employee retention, therefore, is obviously one of the most important challenges within organizations. This study aimed to investigate the attitudes of frontline employees and of their supervisors toward thirteen research factors that associated with employee retention. Four hundred and eighty-eight Thai operation workers and their supervisors, who worked in the factories which produce several type of products such as cloth, paper, petroleum products, starch, plastic tube, plastic package, textile, and so on from 7 provinces in Thailand responded on thirteen research factors, namely Job Satisfaction, Safety & Healthy, Employee Relations, Compensation, Benefits, Training and Development, Promotion Opportunity, Performance Appraisal, Job Security, Employee Morale, Organization Goal or Objectives, Employees Citizenship, and Organization Location. Major findings indicated that the most four important factors that influenced employees' intention to stay were Safety and Health, Employee Relation, Job Security, and Employee Morale, respectively. Surprisingly, Training and Development was identified as the least important influencing employees' decision. Recommendations are also provided.