General Description and Background of the Problem
According to a poll released in December of 2006, a startling 75% of employees were looking for new jobs
(Society for Human Resource Management [SHRM], 2006). As a result, Human Resources (HR) professionals' concerns about voluntary resignations increased, resulting in wide-spread acknowledgment that a wait-and-see approach could be costly to their organizations. As a result, SHRM (2006) reports that more than 50% of HR professionals are taking a proactive approach to this problem of keeping key contributors by implementing special retention practices.
There are a wide variety of strategies and options available for creating a retention plan, with the typical focus placed on compensation and providing career- development opportunities. But compensation packages, "while important, have become secondary to employees'