A Qualitative Study on Causes and Effects of Employee Turnover in the Private Sector in Malaysia

The term “employee turnover” is an important metric that is often central to organizations’ workforce planning and strategy. The reasons why employees leave their current positions; not just the fact that they leave have crucial implications for future retention rates among current staff, job satisfaction and employee engagement and an organization’s ability to attract talented people for job vacancies. The impact of turnover has received considerable attention by senior management, human resources professionals and industrial psychologists. It has proven to be one of the most costly and seemingly intractable human resource challenges confronting several organizations globally. The purpose of this research is therefore, to find out the actual reasons behind turnover and its damaging effects on the productivity of manufacturing industries in Malaysia. To explore turnover in greater detail, this article will examine the main sources of employee turnover, its effects and recommend some strategies on how an organization can retain employees and reduce employee turnover.