Research Briefings are a new service from BC HRMA’s research group. Our aim is to make it easier and quicker for HR professionals to find and apply the latest and best people management insight to their challenges and projects.

As the September 2011 article The Turnover Plague explored, research into turnover has moved away from traditional focuses such as individual factors (e.g. job satisfaction), or economic and organizational factors (e.g. job supply and demand, institutional changes within industries, etc.). The focus has become social and interconnection factors both in and out of the workplace.

In the study entitled Why People Stay: Using Job Embeddedness to Predict Voluntary Turnover, Terence R. Mitchell, Brooks C. Holtom, Thomas W. Lee, Chris J. Sablynski and Miriam Erez demonstrate that employees who are more embedded in their organizations and their communities are less likely to leave their jobs.

Given the high cost of voluntary turnover, this study has clear implications for HR professionals and HR functions. As job embeddedness can serve as a predictor of voluntary turnover, it is important that embeddedness is measured and managed by organizations. HR groups need to gain insight into how their organizational practices build, or possible detract from, job embeddedness.

As an example, how does the onboarding process contribute to building embeddedness in the organization and the broader community? Can programs be introduced that build links to community involvement while leveraging and building employees core skills?

To learn more download the full briefing.