The impact of employee turnover in the food sector in Ireland

The Impact of Employee Turnover in the Food Sector in Ireland
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Table of Content
Abstract…………………………………………………………………………..3
Introduction…………………………………………………….……………..…4
Purpose of Study………………………………………………………….………5
Review of literature……………………………………………………………….6
Methodology……………………………………………………………………..7
Research Questions………………………………………………………………8
References……………………………………………………………………….10
Abstract
The prevalence of high turnover rates in the food sector in Ireland has been the subject of several considerable studies. Much of the study has been directed towards formulating strategies and finding the trigger factors of turnover. Few efforts, however, have been afforded towards identifying the actual impact of employee turnover on the victim organization regarding performance and the efficiency of employee policies and practices towards retaining personnel. This study efforts to fill the gap in this domain of study by exploring the impact of employee turnover in the food sector in Ireland on different aspects of performance within the sector and also by studying, how the viability of human resource retention policies within the sector. These targets will be met through a study of relevant literature. Lastly, with regards to study methodology, a combination of a qualitative and quantitative approach will be employed to facilitate data collection. In short, these will prove how the food sector in Ireland is undergoing a huge labor turnover
Keywords: labor/Employee turnover, Retention, Organizational performance, employee motivation
The Impact of Employee Turnover in the Food Sector in Ireland
Introduction
Employee turnover essentially refers to the ratio of personnel who within a given period decide to leave their organization or place of work (Hom et al.

, 2017). This forces the victim organization or business to fill their roles with new personnel at an extra cost. In a constantly competitive environment employee turnover does affect not only the victim organization but also the personnel in that organization. The human management resources have therefore a critical role to execute regarding managing the workforce in an organization by creating a good environment for job satisfaction. The workforce is an important resource for every business, company, and organization. Actually, the success of every business or organization is wholly reliant on the efficiency of its workforce. An organization may invest a lot of resources into its main activities and operations, but starved of highly motivated personnel; long-run success cannot be accomplished (Lu et al., 2016).
Indeed, the food sector in Ireland is undergoing a huge labor turnover. Changing social norms and demographics are upsetting the pool of labor (Kwan, 2014). Be that as it may, there will always come a hard task, that of retaining them (Hom et al., 2017). Increasing costs, high industry turnover rates, and the constricted labor market make personnel turnover the major burden within Ireland’s food sector (Kwan, 2014).Statistics-wise, the food industry or otherwise the food and beverage sector in Ireland accounts for a yearly turnover more than €26 billion of all industrial products. The significance of the food industry in the Irish economy is echoed well in the subsequent figures: 73percent of manufacturing raw materials in Ireland are used within the food industry with the residual 27percent going to other manufacturing industries. The food industry has about 1,200 businesses stretching from multinational companies to medium and small-sized businesses. Some 71percent of these enterprises has personnel of 50 or fewer persons each and take up 16.5percent of the overall hires which paints the general nature of much of the industry. Most of the business is Irish owned and assume 60percent of sectoral employment. The non-local enterprises tend to be large scale, for instance, of the main global infant nutrition companies, three of them Abbotts, Danone, and Nestle do businesses in Ireland (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Website (2016).
The food sector in Ireland is becoming highly competitive. Every enterprise is trying to keep up regarding product standards and customer appeal which is crucial to the retention customer (Hom et al., 2017). Employee turnover compromises this effort. Besides, the intangible and tangible cost related to, turnover directly impacts business productivity (Nica, 2016; Hom, et al. 2017). Low personnel turnover hands enterprises a competitive edge over competitors
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of the study is to investigate the effect of labor turnover on various aspects of performance within Ireland’s food sector. An interest in the topic of study has been invoked by the high turnover rate of employees within Ireland’s food sector. The purpose will be primarily achieved by scrutinizing the past trends of key organizations within the sector of interest in Ireland. Here, vital insights will be sort of regarding employee retention in the industry. An interest will also be given to the underlying factors that lead to this status quo in this crucial industry. It will project how devotion to one employer has seized being the status quo.
Review of Literature
Majority of literature define turnover as the ratio between the quantity of organizational staff who, within a given period, have left the organization divided by the mean total of the quantity of staff members in that organisation during the specified time stretch (Hom et al., 2017; Nica, 2016; Hom, et al 2017). However, more often than not frequently turnover is assumed to be the whole course of undertaking related to the filling of a vacancy. Every time there is a vacancy a new worker must be enlisted and trained. This cycle of replacement is referred to as turnover (Hom et al., 2017).
Some of the studies highlight that the turnover is usually high among younger staff. Within the labor market, younger workers ranked job security at the top of the list of prorates when looking for a job. In this regard, research has established that turnover is especially high among workers between the age of twenty to twenty-nine (Lu et al., 2017). Research has also highlighted that employee turnover is also dependent on organization’s size. Small to medium organizations tend to exhibit low staff turnover as opposed to larger organizations that report higher turnover (Hom et al., 2017). Regardless of the cause of the turnover and the size of the business, employee turnover exerts a significant impact on an organization.
Based on research, turnover occurs is a consequence of a complex sequence of influences that impacts employee attitudes that ultimately erupts into employee turnover (Hom et al., 2017; Nica, 2016; Hom et al 2017). Procuring precise evidence on the reason why employees leave is often hard. The reasons for employee turnover are usually general, a compound made of personal, demographic traits, job satisfaction, work and organization environment and internal motivation (Li et al., 2016). Other studies have also established that the following also affects turnover; nature of the individual units, nature of the industry, and nature of management (Lu et al., 2017).
Methodology
The study embodies all the characteristics of a correlational study. This approach is frequently used in designing studies involving wide scopes; it has been employed in the fields of sociology, phycology, and other branches of social science. A correlational study, in general, refers to a study carried out based on outcomes derived within a given stretch of time concerning given populations where representatives, participants or subject members come from, and who are related by some similarity or commonality (Skolt, 2012). The study will be stretched to cover the industry performance within a five-year time span. This means the study shall consider the industry’s performance from the year 2012 to 2017. The year 2018 has not been considered in the calculation because it is still in its infancy. The target organizations will not be randomly chosen. Participants will be chosen based on the degree of exposure to the adverse factor.
Because this research design is intended to investigate the consequences of the adverse factor, the correlational nature of this design may validate that the “cause” precede the outcomes, this way circumventing the argument as to which is the effect and which is the cause. Furthermore, this design will be very flexible and will allow the delivery of understanding about special effects over a stretch relative to various types of factor sets, for example, cultural, social and economical over turnover (Skolt, 2012).
Besides, before choosing this design, potential challenges and limitation were acknowledged. For instance, in circumstances where related inquiries from two organizations are carried out, like investigating the consequence of one subject set exposed to the influencing factor and another without exposure, an investigator cannot control external influences or confounding variables that might affect the outcomes in the two groups such as nature of management or organization culture (Skolt, 2012).
Owing to the lack of randomization in this study design, the external legitimacy of the findings might be lower than those in research designs where the participants are randomly assigned (Li et al., 2016). Be that as it may, our study direction will not necessarily be affected by the lack of randomization. Our question of interest does not necessitate randomization. As well, to provide insight on the ‘degree’ of agreeableness, a new element, the Likert Scale, will be added in the research design to accompany our other methods of obtaining data. A Likert Scale approach is a broadly utilized approach towards the scaling of responses in studies involving surveys (Sullivan & Aretino, 2013).
Therefore, the Likert scale will be employed in the research process to complement our questionnaires. Rather than asking for a “yes” or “no” response that can sometimes prove difficult to obtain, we will simply throw in statements where the respondents will be requested to give evaluations by providing quantitative values on the level of agreement or disagreement provided. The questioners will primarily target industry leaders within the sector such as managers and head of departments among others. In this regard, it is important to explore the impact of personnel turnover on various aspects of performance within Ireland’s food sector.
Research Questions
Closed questions
Given that your organizations a player in the Ireland food industry, to what degree has the high turnover rate affected your organization? {On the scale of one to ten}
Has your organization put in place to contain the situation? {Yes or No}
Have those measures been effective? {{On the scale of one to ten}
Open-ended questions
What are some of the challenges have your organization faced as a result of this problem?
What measures has your organization put in place to contain the situation?
In general, what do you this should be done across the industry to solve the problem once and for all?
References
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Website. (2016). Agriculture, Food and Fish Sector Profile – Ireland. Retrieved February 1, 2018, from, http://www.agr.gc.ca/eng/industry-markets-and-trade/international-agri-food-market-intelligence/europe/market-intelligence/agriculture-food-and-fish-sector-profile-ireland/?id=1461250597097Hom, P. W., Lee, T. W., Shaw, J. D., & Hausknecht, J. P. (2017). One hundred years of employee turnover theory and research. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(3), 530.Kwan, J. (2014). Staff Turnover in Dublin’s Food Sector: JOB SATISFACTION AND CULTURE. National college of Ireland.
Li, J. J., Lee, T. W., Mitchell, T. R., Hom, P. W., & Griffith, R. W. (2016). The Effects of Proximal Withdrawal States on Job Attitudes, Job Searching, Intent to Leave, and Employee Turnover. Journal of applied psychology, 101(10), 1436.Lu, A. C. C., & Gursoy, D. (2016). Impact of Job Burnout on Satisfaction and Turnover Intention: Do generational differences matter? Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, 40(2), 210-235.
Nica, E. (2016). Employee Voluntary Turnover as a Negative Indicator of Organizational Effectiveness. Psycho-sociological Issues in Human Resource Management, 4(2), 220-226.
Skolt, M. (2012). Population-based Cohort Studies. Epidemiologic reviews, 20(1), 81-90.
Sullivan M. Gail and Artino R. Anthony.(2013). Analyzing and Interpreting Data from Like-type Scale. Retrieved on 3 February 2018, from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3886444/