This is a corrected and marked copy of an essay on developing and retaining human capital by a Ph.D Professor

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Developing and retaining human capital-A challenge and a necessity
Manasvini Vimal Kumar
Personnel Administration MADS 6602
Fairleigh Dickinson University
15 December 2013

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Developing and retaining human capital-A challenge and a necessity
With the growth of technology and communication methods, world has become a much smaller
place, popularly called, a global village. This has also led to employees being inveigled towards
monetarily better jobs and those offering additional perks and benefits. Companies face stiff
competition for experienced and valued people, making it tougher for the human resources
personnel to attract and retain meaningful human capital. Therefore, by using innovation,
experience and studying employee turnover patterns and causes, over time, human resource
workers have developed strategies for retaining their employees, to be able to facilitate the
company in achieving its strategic goals. This essay will focus on the programs developed by the
department to develop and retain talent to maximize return on their investment, and, the efficacy
of such programs.
Facing this challenge, the primary focus of human resources workers, in this direction has
been, to deal with the most common cause of turnover seen among employees. According to,
The Centre for Association Leadership, an association working in 50 countries, helping 10,000
organizations across the globe, to develop and empower their people with leadership skills; there
are seven major reasons leading to employee turnover (ASAE,2011). Unexpected kind of work
being offered, unclear understanding of the job responsibilities, wrong people landing into wrong
jobs, little coaching and feedback given, lack of growth opportunities, not been given enough
appreciation, work-life imbalance and lack of trust in senior managers are the reasons that
dishearten an employee, forcing them to quit (ASAE,2011). But, Ira Wolfe summarizes, that
most of these causes point towards inability of human resources workers to manage human
capital well (Wolfe, 2013).

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Therefore, the problem statement is defined, guiding the human resources staff towards
multifarious solutions available, but, the challenge is to be able to use the right kind of medicine
for the right disease, implying, different strategies have to be used for different people. For
instance, it has been noticed that employees belonging to generation Y or the millennials, have a
shorter attention span and always look for experience fulfillment. There is a team mentality that
drives them as they are unable to take decisions on their own. Being reality-oriented, they
become good volunteers showing sensitivity towards humanity and prefer to innovate instead of
following the 'laid down rules'. On the other hand, employees belonging to generation X and the
baby boomers, need to have better salaries and benefits as they have family responsibilities and
feel the effect of inflation, heavily on their pockets. Generation X people also need sense of
autonomy, are self reliant, constantly endeavor to improve their skills set and they are the ones,
who tend to be less loyal towards organizations. Therefore, human resource workers have to
develop growth and skill development plans addressing each employees' issues differently, while
benefitting maximum from the loyalty, motivation and competitiveness of baby boomers; sound
technical knowledge of value honoring and independent generation X and, also, exploiting the
volatility of the millennials.
As a matter of fact, in most organizations, the commonly used retention method and a
performance management style, suitable to all types of workers due to its rationality, is, looking
at the job from an employee's perspective. Because of a variety of human attitudes and
behaviors; in many corporations, employees are asked to write down their own specific,
measurable, attainable, realistic and timed goals and then the human resources people work with
them to decide a path to tread on, so that, their goals are made congruent with those of the
company and that there is a mutual benefit. Advice from specialists in the field can be sought to

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make it achievable. This procedure is recorded and then after the time period mentioned in the
discussion, their success or shortcomings are evaluated and the lapses addressed. Then, guidance
for working on those points is provided which can be done through a counselor, a human
resources worker, external trainers or through workshops for common benefit. This way, the
employee feels wanted, valued and so, becomes loyal to the company. Here, the key skill that a
human resources worker must exhibit, is, to be polite and to advise instead of reprimand or
castigate, to develop the employee.
It follows that to be able to retain employees, the HR workers must employ practices that
keep the employees interested, upgrade their skills, develop them as a person and keep them
involved. The common areas that they look at are, right recruitment, emphasizing on
socialization and involvement, correct orientation on joining as well as for career development,
meticulous training, congruous compensation, felicitous rewards and punctilious retention
bonuses which act as golden handcuffs for important pillars of the organization. The idea is to
work with the employees rather than getting work done from them; to talk with them, instead of
talking at them.
Due to the fact that different strategies for different people have to thought of, there are a
number of skills that human resources professionals need to possess. Besides being an expert in
human relations, they are expected to have sound knowledge of the type of business the
organization does, the technology involved, the economics and demographics of the business and
the ability to align human resources strategy with the business strategy of the company (Ulrich
and Brockbank,2005) and (Story,2007). This requires a lot of understanding of the administrative
processes and considerable management capability. The skill set also includes the ability to
research and make connections and network, in order to get an insight into the market practices

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being used for talent development and retention of employees. Talent management, foresight for
succession planning, ability to make people friendly policies, working with individuals for career
development, instilling confidence among employees and gaining their trust in the organization's
principles also involves them.
Likewise, valuing ethics, building a sense of accountability and accuracy and inspiring
people towards putting in their best efforts, also forms a part of the human resources employee's
competencies (Aswegen and Engelbrecht,2009). As a relationship manager, they are expected to
develop and work with multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary teams and establishing service
level agreements with people. An efficient human resources professional will build positive
internal relations, develop open communication systems, motivate staff and respect diversity in
their cultures. Further, decision making capability, planning well ahead of time and having a
backup plan to confront failure, are also some prerequisites.
In addition to having all these skills, it is important to focus on the reasons of employee
turnover. According to Society for Human Resources Management, the top 10 retention
initiatives, though overlapping in most cases, that worked for companies in 2008, were-62%
were able to retain employees with increase in salary adjusted according to market standards,
60% attracted them by paying hiring bonus, 49% allowed flexible work schedules, casual
dresses, and telecommunication or work-from-home option (SHRM, 2008). Further, 28%
companies offered a retention bonus, 27% organizations developed career plans for employees,
22% included special on-job training and education opportunities, 19% made stock options the
carrot and 15% honored their employees with project milestone bonus (SHRM,2008).
However, thinking of withholding employees, the first pragmatic approach is to recruit
wisely by providing a realistic job preview expanding on the positive job characteristics and the

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real challenges that the prospective employees may face. Using bio data questionnaires,
leveraged through weighted application blanks, which is, giving weightage to answers written by
candidates is the routine recruitment process employed by bigger corporations. Weighted
application blanks are useful particularly for sales and technical jobs and are good predictors of
turnover (SHRM, 2011). Texas Instruments analyzes a Fit Check Tool to determine job
compatibility during recruitment process (SHRM,2011).
Similarly, the compensation and rewards system should demonstrate employee value
proposition-a package of extrinsic and intrinsic rewards, provided in exchange of joining,
performing and remaining in an organization (UTHealth, 2013). This makes the employee
remain rooted to the organization. Here, justice and fairness in the reward system matters a lot
and human resources manager should be able to give rewards germane to employees'
performance in consultation with department managers.
Further, significance of a supervisor's accountability for retention cannot be undermined.
There is usually zero tolerance for abusive managers who are trained towards building positive
relations with their teams (OANHSS,2012). A smart human resources professional would use the
technique of job shadowing, that is enabling a new employee to learn all the skills and
techniques, that an ideal person, or a manager has, by following him like a shadow, and hence
learning every aspect of his job. This, in turn puts a responsibility on the manager to train that
person and thus be accountable for him. This is similar to developing mentorship and reviewing
progress. A noteworthy point is that a mentor should be a good listener, should maintain
confidentiality, and be able to give practical solutions (SHRM,2011). A mentor can be found
within an organization or mentee's department or even outside (SHRM,2011).
Additionally, drivers of turnover in women, minorities and generation Y have to be

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tackled differently. The common drivers identified among these classes are, sexual harassment,
pay inequity, supervisor bias and uninteresting jobs. Whereas sexual harassment at job and pay
inequity fall under human rights' violation, and have to be looked into seriously; supervisor bias,
uninteresting jobs, unsupportive workers and performance pressures are relatively easily
manageable. Supervisor bias can be dealt with counseling and training of the employee and the
supervisor; uninteresting jobs can be made more meaningful by job enrichment and job
enlargement, nurturing job satisfaction. Socialization and opportunities to network through inter-
departmental interaction, open communication and staff motivation can solve problems arising
due to unsupportive workers (SHRM,2011). Organizations may be able to retain important
women employees by providing flexibility, in terms of alternate work arrangements to them.
Working-from-home, telecommuting, doing part time work, job sharing and having a
compressed work week are some options. Offering them maternity and child care leave could
prove really helpful. These methods would make them loyal employees, as they would be able to
handle their domestic responsibilities equally well. But, the onus of proving oneself responsible
enough for delivering, in such a setting, lies on the employee.
Conversely though, there are different strategies to be applied for keeping the millennials
interested in an organization. According to Valerie Grillo, chief diversity officer of American
Express, as generation Y candidates join the businesses, strategies will have to be made flexible
to suit them (Koster,2013). As they do not tend to have a linear career path and do not believe in
social security, so, they are not impressed by the usual training and development techniques or
lecture and seminar style of coaching (Koster,2013). They tend to try new things and innovate,
which is what they demand from an organization too. In these cases, reverse mentoring is
effective, which means, using the potential of younger generations Y and Z to teach skills to

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employees from baby boomer population (Koster,2013). This is what satisfies the youngsters, as
their soft skills make them stand out (Koster,2013).
Likewise, another retention strategy called skill based pay, is particularly useful at the
executive level. It is a compensation system rewarding employees with additional pay for formal
certifications demonstrating their skills. Whereas, the type of skills, knowledge and competency
are measured on one hand, the depth and breadth of the skills are also taken, on the other.
Towers Perrin study of more than 600 managers in 21 countries showed that in 27% of cases,
salary increase was contingent on competencies demonstrated by the executives (Ledford and
Henema,2011). Companies, in fact, provide bonuses to the range of $10,000 up to $ 40,000 in
exceptional cases, to employees, just for enlistment and re-enlistment on the list of people
qualifying for skill based pay (US Military, as in, SHRM, Ledford and Henema,2011). To
encourage the idea of this strategy, however, it is important to introduce employees to methods
like job rotation and cross training, as resources for gaining understanding of the required
processes. The key is to incite employees for development of skills by reminding them of job
security, promotion opportunities and most importantly, to communicate to the employees that
the intent of training is not to replace them (Mayhew,2012).
By the same token, HR workers can manage talent at the worker level, to a great extent
by recognition of employees, for instance, by having a Hall of Fame put up, pronouncing
employee of the month and arranging time for a team presentation of their accomplishments to a
senior manager. This can have an encouraging, enabling and empowering effect on people to
excel (John Hopkins University,2010).
Over the years , the importance of on-job training and development of employees, has
emerged as a significant food for thought for the human resources professionals. As retention

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strategies are different for different people, so are the training and development needs. While
common training methods like classroom training, web based methods and using job aids like
pictures, graphs, charts and algorithms are popular and inexpensive; structured training and
interactive discussions encourage instantaneous feedbacks from employees (Pulakos,2004). In
bigger corporations with thousands of employees, hotlines for new employees answer questions
immediately, making them feel valued and involved (Pulakos,2004). The advantage of web
based training is that the learners learn at their own pace and so, it is convenient (Pulakos,2004).
Next, the job specific training and development programs should focus on potential
growth opportunities and should attract employees, by rationalizing that their skill development
will be facilitated. For instance, University of Texas offers reimbursement and time off for job-
related training and education (UTHealth, 2013). However, most employers ask for a
commitment from the employees to work for at least a stipulated time for the same company,
before they are given this benefit (UTHealth, 2013). Their human resources department
encourages eligible employees to apply under the program unraveling the potential benefits that
they might miss by losing the opportunity (UTHealth, 2013). Other organizations may facilitate
employee education by contributing towards tuition fees from the beginning.
In addition, inviting professional organizations to conduct workshops on time
management, leadership skill development, conflict management, writing minutes of meetings
and so on; are also extremely useful as they provide hands on training and employees can
immediately make use of it (UBC,2013). People Smart Tools is a professional organization, with
25 years of experience of working with human resources departments of organizations to
develop different skills among employees. They particularly train managers to get the jobs done
through effective communication and without seemingly bossing around.

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Keeping in line with the above, some training and development programs, companies
use to accelerate growth of their employees, are, communication skills development like
assertiveness training for businessmen, salesmen, managers and women employees (American
Management Association,2013). Business writing skills like, business and technical writing for
usual and multilingual professionals, administrative and business grammar workshops (American
Management Association,2013). Training is also encouraged for developing interpersonal skills,
to be able to get work done with diplomacy, tact and credibility. Negotiation skills, managing
emotions and technique of using emotions positively is also taught (American Management
Association,2013). For executives, public speaking, presentation skills, technique of making an
impact and getting things done without use of authority is encouraged (American Management
Association,2013). Institutions like Alliance, American Management Association and The
Sergay Group Ltd. provide onsite seminars and workshops and when organized, HR managers
encourage employees to attend them. For instance, the testimonials of people from Pepsi
America and Edward Jones justify their company's association with The Sergay Group for
employee development and training (The Sergay Group Ltd,2011).
In contrast to the above example of external training, there is an example of internal
training at Coca Cola Company. The 70 20 10 philosophy of The Coca Cola Company, which
means 10% of the employee development comes from formal learning, 20% comes through
feedback and coaching and 70% comes from on-job or internal training ; explains this (Coca
Cola Enterprises, 2013). Many organizations take advantage of educational institutions' services
for training like American Planning Association, that organizes conferences about application of
Geographic Information Systems. The Watershed Academy has been developed by United States
Environmental Protection Agency for imparting training. American Society of Training and

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Development that oversees training aspects of organizations is also popular among the corporate
world and so is, The International City and County Management Association that focuses on
management related training for the local government (ASTD, 2007). Lead Academy, founded
by the East Bay Municipal Utility District is another educational institution run by a government
organization, frequently approached for training (Sykes,2008). The British Columbia Institute of
Technology offers many customized and common programs to upgrade the existing skills of
employees. These include one-day workshops on MS Word, Excel and Access; and two-week
courses on web designing and MS Office and so on.
Also, besides the above stated methods, training can be conducted by having in house
seminars, presentations, transfers, lateral moves and webinars (Heathfield, 2013). The essential
point to consider, for HR person, is that employees need motivation even for getting trained
which points towards importance of brown bag lunches or lunch and learn strategy (Heathfield,
2013). Educating employees about work-life balance, taking care of their health benefits and
providing concierge services for routine work like bill payments, installment deposition and so
on, can also be thoughtful, efficient and inexpensive ways of employee retention.
In the same way, workers' confidence can also be gained by training them on their safety
while on the job, for example, usage of fire extinguishers to industrial workers, training on
material safety data sheet, emergency procedures, training one in a group about cardio
pulmonary resuscitation maneuver and following guidelines by Workplace Hazardous Materials
Information System and Occupational Health and Safety standards (Worksafe,2012). Supervisors
should be given a checklist and be informed about accountability (Worksafe,2012).
However, evaluating the training outcome as well as the efficiency of the retention
strategies. Honest and effective feedback after evaluation minimizes defensiveness on the

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employee's part. According to Louise Goeser, vice president of quality department, at Ford, there
are four major variables to determine the effects of training are reaction, learning, application
and eventually retention (Smith, 2003). For example, if a manager is given training for
leadership skills, initially, the human resources worker would evaluate the attitude, willingness
and openness of the employee during the training. Whether enough was learnt or not can be
evaluated by a feedback from team members and subordinates; and their ability to put learnt
skills into action can be judged in delegation of future assignments and their results. Hence, in
this way the lack of skill which used to be a stumbling block for the manager, leading into being
a turnover drive, can be evaluated. If now the manager is generally, seemingly happy and
satisfied with the team's work, the goal is accomplished and the training was useful. Giving
examples from Ford, he stated that with inception of 6-sigma training approach, the company has
saved $One billion annually, across the globe, with regard to waste elimination (Smith, 2003).
More than satisfied with its progress, Ford now has 200 master black belts, 2,200 black belts and
40,000 green belts in different areas of expertise (Smith, 2003). The company is now looking at
getting at least a green belt for the process, for all its employees (Smith, 2003).
The best evaluation process to measure the effectiveness of the retention programs is,
probably the employee turnover rate and job satisfaction surveys. This means, answering the
question from where the problem was defined initially, as employees, if satisfied would not leave
and continue to perform well and be an asset to the organization. If the human resources have
solved all the major seven issues listed in the beginning, and counseled the employees well, there
should not be a rationale for employees to leave. For example, at Ford Motors, they take a Pulse
survey, every year to measure employee satisfaction. The survey measures 53 items, 8 of which

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contribute towards employee satisfaction index. In 2011, the favorable response rate was 69%, a
point above from that of 2010 (Ford Sustainability, 2012).
To make this point more clear, a practical life illustration of the effects of retention
programs can be seen at Ford Motor Company (Hickman,2013). According to John Roberts,
director of HR department, Ford Retail group dealership, UK; staff retention rates at Ford Motors
are at 85% and employee satisfaction has grown from 45% to 61% from 2007 to 2013
(Hickman,2013). The success mantra was, defining awards in a detailed way by grading them
(Hickman,2013). Earlier, rewards were given arbitrarily; but during his leadership, a project was
launched to review pay structures and then they were graded into 9 types , now reduced to 8
(Hickman,2013). Earlier the pay drift was nearly 5% which was brought down to 1% by these
endeavors (Hickman,2013). Roberts also made sure that the salaries and rewards were
comparative to existing market practices which was also a loophole earlier (Hickman,2013).
Benefits were increased from mere pension and insurance to healthcare which is expensive in
Britain (Hickman,2013). Next, employees were brought to agree to part with a part of their salary
for certain benefits which were otherwise expensive, saving them GBP 750,000 a year. The
added benefits, were, amusement park discounts, giving choice to employees to purchase their
own computers by sacrificing a part of salary, and allowing each one to have a unique website
through auto-enrollment, where every employee could manage their benefits and pensions
(Hickman,2013). The online system used by Ford Retails, is designed to monitor age-related
behaviors, if any, as generation Z joins the working class (Hickman,2013). Overall, Roberts has
been able to add GBP 2.5 million a year into working capital and has nailed savings upto GBP
1.25 million per year; in addition to making employees happier, more satisfied and retained by
working around 'compensation and benefits' (Hickman,2013).

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In conclusion, a human resources professional must have a clear understanding of the
precedence of attaining and retaining valuable human capital and apply valid, result oriented
retention strategies, effectively, to preserve the organizations investment-their employees. If
these habits become consuetude, for the human resources professionals, a great contribution can
be made by the department, towards building a stronger and an empowered workforce and thus,
an organization's strategic goals can be attained.

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Ministry of business innovation and employment. (2013). Developing a training plan for your
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Employee Retention- Grading Rubric - Final Assignment
Skills Possible points
1. HR skills and competencies 5/5
2. HR programs for staff to develop
competencies
5/2
3. Programs and partnerships between
HR and educational vendors and/or
institutions
2/2
4. What evaluation process best
measures effectiveness of programs
2/2
5. Demonstrate the evaluation process
within your presentation
2/2
6. Use an example to illustrate the
evaluation process
2/2
7. Use five APA peer reviewed articles 5/5
8. Essay/Lecture or Power Point 5/5

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Copy received by professor
Hello Manus,
You are writing at a level that is rare for any
individual for whom English is a second
language. Generally speaking, you write as a
level that could be on par with the native
English speaker. This is a huge testament to
your persistence for excellence. You have a
good discussion developed more than ample
resources to support your argument and you
approach the concept of retention from
various theories. You should be very proud of
your work. I wish you all the best in the future.
Total 25/25