Predictive models of employee voluntary turnover in a North American professional sales force using data-mining analysis

摘要

With the supply of talented employees for the predicted available jobs around theworld declining, employee retention and voluntary turnover have jumped to the forefrontof HRD practitioners?, as well as senior managers?, strategic initiative. By 2008,demographers predict that 76 million baby boomers will be eligible for retirement. Thegenerations that followed these individuals, born between 1946 and 1962, are notnumerically adequate to fill the vacancies that these retirements will create. A growingconcern exists that the expected annual growth in the number of eligible employees willbe outpaced by economic growth predictions. While employee retention and employeevoluntary turnover have received considerable scholarly attention, few research studieshave examined the phenomenon in a professional sales arena. No investigation to datehas tracked employee voluntary turnover and retention over a 14-year longitudinal waveas was the focus of this study.This population study examined employee retention of a Fortune 500 NorthAmerican industrial automation manufacturer?s professional sales force over a 14-year period. It focused on personal characteristics, work characteristics, and human resourcedevelopment (HRD) intervention factors influencing employee voluntary turnover. Theresults suggest that training and development participation contributes more significantlyto employee retention than salary and job title promotions to the firm?s ability to retainsales professionals.The theoretical underpinnings associated with these findings reinforce theimportance of human capital theory, social identity theory, expectancy theory, anddistributive justice theory. They also suggest that employee retention should be includedin calculations that measure the return on investment for training and developmentinterventions. Further, these results that emerged from comprehensive data miningsuggest that a structured training and development program embeds aspects of employeesocialization that can influence a professional sales employee?s tenure in theorganization. Formal training can serve to socialize the employee into the organization,thus, deepening the effect of social capital theory to build normative organizationalcommitment, a mediator of employee retention. This effect appeared to be moresignificant for non-Caucasian sales professionals who remained in the organization whenincluded in a structured sales training program.