THE ROLE OF EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE

Inter nation ional Jour nal of Innovative Resear arch c in Infor mation Secur ity ( IJIRIS) IS) Issue 02,, Volume V 7 (Febr uar y 2020) ISSN: 2349-7017 www.ijir is.com THE ROLE R OF EMPLOY YEE RETENTION ION ON JOB PERFOR FORMANCE: A STUDY DY OF OIL & GAS S SECTORS Nikhill Rao R Shelar Researr ch Scholar, Rai Univer sity, Ahmeda edabad (Gujar at), INDIA Nikhil.r ao.shel helar @gmail.com; Dr. Gaur aur av V. Buch Resear ch h Supervisor, Rai Univer sity, Ahme edabad (Gujar at), INDIA Manuscr ipt Histor y Number : IJIRIS/ RS/ Vol.07/ Vo Issue02/ FBIS10080 Received: 02, Febr uar ar y 2020 Final Cor r ection: 12, Februar Fe y 2020 Final Accepted: 18, Febr Feb uar y 2020 Published: Febr uary 2020 2 Citation: Nikhil & Gaur Gau av (2020). The Role of Employe oyee Retention on Job Per formance ce: A Study of Oil & Gas Sectors. Inter national al Jour J nal of Innovative Resear ch in Infor In mation Security, Volume VII, 01-24. 01 doi:/ / 10.26562/ IRJC JCS.2020.FBIS10080 Editor : Dr .A.Ar ul L.S, S, Chief C Editor , IJIRIS, AM Publications ns, India Copyr ight: © 2020 This his is an open access ar ticle distribu ibuted under the terms of the Cr eative tive Commons Attr ibution License, Which Per mit mits unr estricted use, distr ibution, n, and reproduction in any medium m, pr ovided the or iginal author and source arre e cr edited Abstr act: Employees s today ar e differ ent. They ar e nott the t ones w ho do not have good op oppor tunities, especially, exper ienced and talen ented ones. As soon as they feel dissa ssatisfied with the cur r ent employerr o or the job due to lack of advancement oppor tunities, tu salar y and r emuner ation an and other s, they sw itch over to the e next. The r esult is that employer s lose their ir invested resour ces to their com mpetitor s, cor por ate memor y is lo lost, employee-customer r elationships ar e strr ain ained and mor e over the moral of exis existing staff goes down. It is ther efo efor e ver y impor tant that employer s r etain their eir employees, especially the good d a and exper ienced ones. Employee r etention e is a pr ocess in w hich employees arr e encouraged to r emain w ith the o or ganization for the maximum per er iiod of time or unt il the completion of a partic ticular pr oject. This study looks at th the r etention pr actices in Oil & Gas s Sector S , fr om the point of view of its employees ees and w hat r ole r etention plays in their job per for mance. The study udy confir ms that lack of advancement oppor tunities, tu w or k-life balance, lack of r ew e ar d and r ecognition and salar y a and r emuner ation w er e mor e common r eason ons for depar tur e among all employ ployees. Retaining top talent is a prr im imar y concer n for many or ganizations today and an this study r ecommends that r ete tention str ategies should be aimed at r etaining highly skilled per sonnel and at the he same time building up under -per per for mer s. Feedback on employee e per pe for mance is vital t o building confidence in the r etention pr actices of the Oil il & Gas Sector s. In addition, employ oyee value pr oposition as enshr ined in the vision ion statement of the Oil & Gas Sector tor s must be upheld w hile manageme ment should be flexible in ter ms of w or k-life bala alance. This motivation of employees es pr oduces a culture of commitment nt to the objectives of the or ganization. I. INTRO RODUCTION 1.1 Backgr ound off the study In the post-colonial per pe iod having a formal employmentt was w consider ed desir able and sufficie ficient candidates could be found to fill them in tthe past. Mor eover, once employed, yed, w or ker s w ould often spend their eir entire car eer s in those jobs. In ar eas w her e there th w as high tur nover , new employ ployees could be r ecruited easily. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------IJIRIS:: M Mendeley ( Elsevier Indexed) CiteF eFactor Jour nal Citations Impact Factor Fac 1.23 Impact Factorr Value V – SJIF: Innospace, Morocco o ( 2016) : 4.651| Indexcoper nicus: us: ((ICV 2016) : 88.20 © 2014- 20, IJIRI S- All Rights Reser ved Page -1 Inter national Journal of Innovative Research in Information Security ( IJIRIS) Issue 02, Volume 7 (Febr uary 2020) ISSN: 2349-7017 www.ijir is.com Similar ly, w or ker s w er e loyal to their or ganizations and stayed often on the job until their r etir ement. As a r esult of this, employer s w er e loyal to their employees by taking car e of them in a mor e pater nalistic w ay. Inter estingly, w hile today's or ganizations ar e indeed differ ent, the challenge of r etention is gr ow ing. It is quite sad that businesses today ar e not adopting some of the str ategies used in the past to ensur e that mor e employees ar e r etained. Mor eover , most or ganizations ar e not being cr eative in devising str ategies to keep their employees. Companies today ar e not cr eating an envir onment w hich encourages their employees to r emain loyal to the or ganization. Smith (2001) suggests that ther e may be sever al factor s involved in why employees leave their job. It could be voluntary, w her e the employee chooses to leave. It could also be for r easons that may include better car eer oppor tunities, incr eased compensation and br oadening of cur r ent tasks and r esponsibilities and bor edom w ith curr ent task. Involuntar y tur nover occur s w hen employees ar e asked to leave for r easons including poor per for mance or inappr opr iate behavior . Company benefits, employee attitude and job per for mance ar e all factor s w hich play an impor tant r ole in employee r etention. When a company r eplaces a w or ker the company incur s dir ect and indir ect expenses. These expenses include the cost of adver tising, headhunting fees, human r esour ces fee and new hir ing cost. Most companies w ill r eact to employee tur nover if it is found that its effect is felt companyw ide. By offer ing employees benefit such as r easonable flexibility w ith wor k and family balance, per for mance r eview s and per for mance based salar y upgr ade along w ith tr aditional benefits such as paid holidays and sick days companies ar e better able to manage their employee r etention r ates. When a business loses employees, it loses skills, exper ience and “cor porate memor y”. The magnitude and nature of these losses is a cr itical management issue, affecting pr oductivity, pr ofitability, and pr oduct and ser vice quality. For employees, high tur nover can negatively affect employment r elationships, mor ale and w or kplace safety. The cost of replacing w or ker s can be high, the pr oblems associated w ith finding and tr aining new employees can be consider able, and the specific w or kplace- acquir ed skills and know ledge people w alk aw ay w ith can take year s to r eplace. 1.2 Statement of the Pr oblem Today, there is a high demand in the public and pr ivate sector s for w or kers in cr itical ar eas such as health car e, infor mation technology, engineering, accounting, and auditing. The supply of qualified w or ker s is limited and good w or kfor ce planning r equir es a tw ofold appr oach of aggr essive r ecr uitment and innovative r etention str ategies. The pr oblem is that, retention policies or str ategies ar e not focused on elimination of unw anted tur nover . It is also believed that the costs to the employer as a r esult of management’s inability to r etain its employees include separ ation benefits to the employee, lost pr oductivity, r ecr uitment costs, tr aining costs, and diminished ser vices as new employees get up to speed. The study seeks to ver ify the tr uth or other w ise in this statement. 1.3 Objectives of the Study The objectives of the study are as follow s: 1 To deter mine w hether r etention pr actices in Oil& Gas Sector s benefit the employees. 2 To establish the motivational pr ogr ams employed by Oil& Gas Sector s to r etain its employees. To ascer tain if employee r etention has a r elationship w ith job per for mance in Oil & Gas Sector s. 1.4 Resear ch Questions While monetar y consider ations continue to be key elements in r etaining talent, other often intangible factor s can play a significant r ole in an employee's decision to stay w ith or leave an or ganization. The study seeks to r aise the follow ing questions: 1. Will the pr ocess of employee retention benefit of Oil & Gas Sector s? 2. Are motivational pr ogr ams str ong enough to r etain Oil & Gas employees? 3. Does employee r etention have a r elationship w ith job perfor mance in the Oil & Gas Sector s? 1.5 Significance of the Study The r elevance of this study w as to establish that employee r etention has a significant r ole on job perfor mance. Thus, ther e is the need to pr ovide car eer counseling, tr aining, car eer advancement and development for employees in the Oil & Gas Sector s. Furthermor e, the study gener ates inter est fr om the w ider per spective of employee r etention and is of par ticular interest to those concer ned w ith job per for mance in Oil & Gas Sector s. The findings of this study w ill help to pr ovide a foundational basis for the w or k in the ar ea of developing competitive pay and benefits package for the employees of Oil & Gas Sect or s. (Developing r etention str ategies that w ill have positive effect on job per for mance). The study w ill help employer s to implement pr ogr ams such as flexible w or king ar r angements and manager tr aining initiatives to r educe tur nover. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------IJIRIS: Mendeley (Elsevier Indexed) CiteFactor Jour nal Citations Impact Factor 1.23 Impact Factor Value – SJIF: Innospace, Morocco ( 2016) : 4.651| Indexcopernicus: ( ICV 2016): 88.20 © 2014- 20, IJIRIS- All Rights Reser ved Page -2 Inter national Journal of Innovative Research in Information Security ( IJIRIS) Issue 02, Volume 7 (Febr uary 2020) ISSN: 2349-7017 www.ijir is.com 1.6 Limitation and scope of the Study The r esear cher w as limited in scope of r esear ch w or k by sever al factor s such as: Some r espondents w er e demanding gifts befor e r esponding to the questionnair e. In such cases the resear cher had to make it clear that the study w as for academic pur poses. Some of the top management level employees could not be r eached for any comment because of their busy schedules and also obtaining infor mation fr om the Human Resour ces per sonnel w as quite challenging because per sonnel infor mation is not easily given out to employees. Time factor can be consider ed as a main limitation. Some inter view s had to be done over the phone because of nonavailability of cer tain key per sonnel at cer tain per iods. The findings of the study w er e solely based on the infor mation provided by the r espondents. The study w as limited to only the per manent staff of the or ganization. The questionnair es wer e distr ibuted to and answ er ed by the per manent staff only. The accur acy of findings w as limited by the accur acy of statistical tools used for analysis. II. LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Introduction Employee r etention is most cr itical issue facing employer s in the Oil & Gas industr y as a r esult of the shor tage of skilled labor , economic gr ow th and employee tur nover . In their book, Retaining Valued Employees, (Gr iffeth and Hom, 2001) repor t that tur nover costs can r un as high as 200 per cent of the exiting employee’s salar y, depending on his or her skill level. Accor ding to the new sletter of the Inter national Association of Pr ofessionals in Employment Secur ity, “When a valuable employee leaves, it costs the employer money possibly up to a thir d of the employee’s annual salar y. While r emuner ation and other types of benefits continue to be an impor tant factor in the retention equation, it is impor tant to note that the cur r ent Human Resour ce liter atur e tr eats them as only one potential ar ea for r etention, and not alw ays in and of themselves, sufficient to ensur e str ong employee commitment. Over the past 10 or 15 year s, the business liter ature dealing w ith employee par ticipation, w or kplace w ellness, w or k-life balance and other topics has mushr oomed, indicating a str ong inter est in and r ecognition of how other aspects of w or king life influence people’s decisions to stay w ith or leave a company (Hom&Gr iffeth, 1995). 2.2. Definition of Employee Retention Employee Retention involves taking measur es to encour age employees to r emain in the or ganization for the maximum per iod of time (Gr iffeth & Hom 2001). Or ganizations ar e facing a lot of pr oblems in employee r etention these days. Hir ing know ledgeable people for the job is essential for an employer. But r etention is even mor e impor tant than hir ing. Ther e is no dearth of oppor tunities for a talented per son. Ther e ar e many or ganizations w hich ar e looking for such employees. If a per son is not satisfied by t he job he’s doing, he may sw itch over to some other mor e suitable job. In today’s envir onment it becomes ver y impor tant for or ganizations to r etain their employees. The r eason may be per sonal or pr ofessional (Fombr un & Shanley, 1990). These r easons should be under stood by the employer and should be taken car e of. Most or ganizations ar e becoming aw ar e of these r easons and ar e adopting many str ategies for employee retention. The top or ganizations ar e on the top because they value their employees and they know how to keep them glued to the or ganization. Employees stay and leave or ganizations for var ious r easons. 2.3. Reason for Retention Ther e is br oad agr eement in the Human Resour ce liter ature about the gener al featur es of any potential Human Resour ce pr ogr am that contr ibutes to good r etention. Most of these ar e dir ectly r elated to cr eating a satisfact or y w or k envir onment for employees and thus, in turn, to good r etention (Aquino, Gr iffeth, Allen, Hom,1997). These featur es or ‘motivators’ include: A stimulating w or k envir onment that makes effective use of people’s skills and know ledge, allow s them a degr ee of autonomy on the job, pr ovides an avenue for them to contr ibute ideas, and allow s them to see how their ow n contr ibution influence the company’s w ell-being. Oppor tunities for lear ning and skills development and consequent advancements in job r esponsibilities. Effective communications, including channels for open, tw o-w ay communication, employee par ticipation in decisions that affect them, an under standing of w hat is happening in the or ganization and an under standing of the employer ’s main business concer ns. Good compensation and adequate, flexible benefit plans. Recognition on the par t of the employer that employees need to str ike a good balance betw een their lives at w or k and outside of w or k. Respect and suppor t fr om peers and super visor s. Companies that ar e inflexible, or w hose or ganizational cultur e is char acter ized by domination and autocr acy ar e likely to have dissatisfied employees no matter how good the incentives to stay may be (Dalton, & Todor ,1979). Or , at the ver y least, the tenur e of their employees is likely to be highly sensitive to changes in specific incentives: small changes in compensation may lead to numer ous departur es. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------IJIRIS: Mendeley (Elsevier Indexed) CiteFactor Jour nal Citations Impact Factor 1.23 Impact Factor Value – SJIF: Innospace, Morocco ( 2016) : 4.651| Indexcopernicus: ( ICV 2016): 88.20 © 2014- 20, IJIRIS- All Rights Reser ved Page -3 Inter national Journal of Innovative Research in Information Security ( IJIRIS) Issue 02, Volume 7 (Febr uary 2020) ISSN: 2349-7017 www.ijir is.com Ther e ar e how ever other aspects of the w or k envir onment or particular jobs that can act as str ong ‘de-motivator s’ that can cause people to leave their employment. These include:  Lack of contr ol over one’s w or k  Feeling bor ed or unchallenged by r epetitive tasks Lack of job secur ity  Lack of lear ning oppor tunities  Mor e gener ous compensation or benefits package offer ed elsew her e Concer ns about the futur e of the fir m. It is impor tant to note that some of these de-motivator s can occur at the best of or ganizations, or can be the r esult of for ces that originate beyond the company itself. That a par ticular job descr iption involves many repetitive and bor ing tasks is not necessar ily the r esult of indiffer ence on the par t of the employer , but is r ather inher ent in the natur e of that type of job. That employees ar e often pulled to other companies or industr ies by mor e gener ous offer s is, in par t, a r esult of the br oad char acteristics of an industr y or the segment of the mar ket in w hich the company oper ates. (Muchinsky, 1977) ar gues that attentiveness, r esponsiveness, and openness of communications on the par t of management ar e elements of the business vision that sustain high r etention, even under difficult cir cumstances. 2.4. Work Place Cultur e & Commitment Ther e exists a keen inter est in the concept of company or w or kplace ‘cultur e’ and its connection with an employee’s sense of ‘commitment’ to his or her employer . Author s in the Human Resour ce field speak incr easingly of the need to ensure r etention by nur turing ‘affective commitment,’ or , simply put, an employee’s desir e to r emain a member of a par ticular or ganization for motives beyond compensation or obligation (Mar ch, & Simon, (1958). A ‘cultur e of commitment’ is mor e than just the sum of par ticular Human Resour ce policies or r etention initiatives. It is r elated r ather to over all or ganizational cultur e, in other w or ds, not just par ticular pr ogr ams but r ather how such pr ogr ams fall into a company’s over all values, how it communicates with its employees about those values, and how employees per ceive their ow n r ole w ithin the company and the value that the company attaches to their individual contr ibution (Hunter & Hunter ,1984). Because w or kplace cultur e depends a lot on how individual per ceptions and feelings hold together , it can of course be difficult to say exactly w hat decisively makes up a par ticular company’s cultur e. Br anham (2005) suggests that commitment-or iented cor por ate cultur es depend on a number of objective and subjective elements. Cultur es of commitment, he w r ites:  View employees as par tner s.  Recognize the human needs of all employees.  Invest in people as the primar y sour ce of competitive advantage. Communicate clear cor por ate mission, vision, str ategy, goals, and objectives. Commit to long-ter m str ategy and the people needed to car ry it out.  Rew ar d system and management styles to suppor t the mission and str ategy. Focus on “managing the per for mance contr act,” not contr olling the people. Put a pr emium on employee involvement in new ideas and innovation.  Focus on r esults, not on who gets cr edit.  Trust employees enough to delegate.  Toler ate “intelligent err or ” and exper imentation. Similar ly, Collins,(2007) confir ms a str ong link betw een “affective commitment” and tur nover intention; particular ly as such commitment is built thr ough (i) skills development oppor tunities, (ii) systems that allow people to r ecognize their individual contr ibutions, and (iii) systems that encourage gr eater par ticipation in decision-making. Never theless, the liter atur e str ongly suppor ts the notion that people stay w ith their employer s if t he cultur e of commitment is str ong. Beyond this, how ever, it is also clear that people ar e mor e likely to stay if the per ceived w or kplace cultur e is a good “fit” w ith the individual’s ow n inter ests, or ientation and attitudes (DiPietr o, & Milman, (2004). Indeed, (Zhao, Wayne, Glibkow ski, & Br avo,(2007) suggest that w hile compensation, per sonal and pr ofessional development oppor tunities, and other incentives ar e impor tant in attr acting people and keeping them happy, their decision to stay w ith the company depends vitally on how w ell they fit in to the company’s w ay of doing business, how it tr eats employees, w hat it expects of them, and how people r elate to one another in the w orkplace. 2.5. Employee Retention Str ategy In contr ast to “cultur e,” the ter m “str ategy” r efer s to a mor e formalized and planned system of pr actices that ar e linked w ith an over all vision, a set of values and a mission (Jackofsky, 1984). Many companies, particular ly larger ones w ith fully developed Human Resource depar tments, engage in elabor ate planning exer cises in or der to develop a cohesive and unitar y str ategy to deal w ith employee retention or , mor e gener ally, human r esources management w hich often includes r etention as one of its objectives w ill r oll out par ticular Pr ogr ams or inter ventions w ith explicit r eference to an over all or ganizing pr inciple. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------IJIRIS: Mendeley (Elsevier Indexed) CiteFactor Jour nal Citations Impact Factor 1.23 Impact Factor Value – SJIF: Innospace, Morocco ( 2016) : 4.651| Indexcopernicus: ( ICV 2016): 88.20 © 2014- 20, IJIRIS- All Rights Reser ved Page -4 Inter national Journal of Innovative Research in Information Security ( IJIRIS) Issue 02, Volume 7 (Febr uary 2020) ISSN: 2349-7017 www.ijir is.com Indeed, many exper ts w ithin the Human Resour ce liter atur e emphasize the impor tance of such exer cises, and emphasize that good r etention is best assur ed w hen companies take a str ategic appr oach to the question. Yet it is clear that taking a str ategic appr oach to Human Resour ce management can r equir e consider able r esour ces, and may pr ove to be too resour ce-intensive for smaller companies, par ticular ly companies that ar e too small to have a department dedicated to Human Resour ce matter s, or even too small to have an executive exclusively devoted to Human Resour ce questions (Muchinsky,1977). Lockw ood, (2006) has provided evidence that indicates a cor r elation in fir ms betw een “good” w or kfor ce outcomes w hich includes reduced layoffs, quit r ates, accidents and gr ievances and Human Resource strategies that emphasize employee par ticipation and intr insic r ew ar ds. The pr esence of pr actices r elated to inter nal car eer development is often the best pr edictor of an employee's affect ive commitment. Such plans include advancement plans, inter nal pr omotion and accur ate car eer pr eview s at the time of hir ing. Fur ther mor e, as Lockw ood, (2006) point out, it is still unclear w hether successful pr actices engender high per for mance, or whether str ong per for mance cr eates the r esour ces for the implementation of such pr actices. 2.6. Factor s Affecting Retention  Compensation Levels The Human Resource liter atur e that cover s compensation is quite likely the lar gest par t of the liter atur e that applies to employee r etention. Most of the sour ces consulted in this study str ess the impor tance of compensation in attr acting and keeping good employees, particular ly for w or ker s w hose skills and r esponsibilities ar e unique or indispensable to the or ganization, or for those w or kers in w hom the company has invested consider able r esour ces in r ecr uiting or tr aining. Lockw ood, (2006) ar gues that low w age str ategies may be appropr iate if w or k is simple and r epetitive and r equir es little tr aining. These distinctions ar e very gener al in natur e and do not necessarily pr ovide a clear r ule of application to actual companies. Companies in highly competitive local labour mar kets may w ell find that they need to pay highly competitive r ates against some industr y or geogr aphic benchmark in each of their job classifications, even for semi-skilled or unskilled positions. In addition, some commentator s hold that competitive compensation packages can signal str ong commitment on the par t of the company, and can t her efor e build a str ong r ecipr ocal commitment on the par t of w or ker s. How ever , to the extent that it contr ibutes to r etention, competitive compensation is also likely to affect both desir able and undesir able tur nover : it w ill help to r etain w or ker s, ir r espective of the quality of their contribution to the company. While ther e is gener al agr eement about the impor tance of competitive compensation for employee r etention, there is also a gr ow ing consensus that competitive, or even gener ous compensation w ill not single-handedly guar antee that a company will be able to keep its most valuable employees. Lockw ood, (2006) maintained that, the key issue in r etention is the amount of total compensation r elative to levels offer ed by other or ganizations. “Or ganizations that have high levels of compensation,” he w r ote, “have low er tur nover r ates and lar ger number s of individuals applying to w or k for them.” Fur ther mor e, he ar gued, high w age w or kplaces may cr eate a “cultur e of excellence.” It is w orth r emember ing that building “affective commitment” (Muchinsky, (1977) involves much mor e than paying w ell, and that r etention based on the pr inciple of “compensation-based commitment” is of course sensitive to changes in compensation w ithin the company. Employer s that base their r etention on compensation-based commitment w ill alw ays be vulner able to the possibility that their competitor s w ill be able to offer better w ages and thus lur e aw ay their employees. Similar ly, Staw,. (1980) ar gues that “money gets employees in the door , but it doesn’t keep them ther e.” Aquino, Gr iffeth, Allen, Hom, (1997). Classify money as a “satisfier ,” meaning that it is a necessar y but insufficient factor in employee r etention, w hile Collins, (2007).agr ee that money is not the primar y motivator for employees. In fact, many companies have done a ver y good job of r etaining their employees w ithout any pay-based r etention incentives (Collins, (2007). Successful r etention under such cir cumstances seems to depend on a w ide number of factor s. Clear ly, the existence of other Human Resour ce pr actices is also a key to r etention, and ther e is a gr eat deal of inter dependence betw een compensation and these other pr actices. One should not discount the possibility that cer tain companies get along ver y w ell w ithout offer ing high levels of compensation for r easons that ar e not of their ow n doing. Wor ker s in the cities w her e industr ial establishments ar e concentr ated may be mor e likely to move to the competitor even for ver y modest wage differ entials. Companies situated in mor e isolated ar eas know that their w or ker s ar e less likely to move for small incr ements in compensation. The message is that companies that w ish to develop a successful r etention plan that includes compensation and benefits must alw ays under stand t heir ow n unique char acter istics and cir cumstances. Whatever their circumstances, companies that successfully incor por ate compensation and benefits into their r etention effor ts have a clear under standing of their business objectives and use compensation as a tool for influencing or ganizational and employee behavior . --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------IJIRIS: Mendeley (Elsevier Indexed) CiteFactor Jour nal Citations Impact Factor 1.23 Impact Factor Value – SJIF: Innospace, Morocco ( 2016) : 4.651| Indexcopernicus: ( ICV 2016): 88.20 © 2014- 20, IJIRIS- All Rights Reser ved Page -5 Inter national Journal of Innovative Research in Information Security ( IJIRIS) Issue 02, Volume 7 (Febr uary 2020) ISSN: 2349-7017 www.ijir is.com For example, pay systems and practices can have a major impact on employee r etention by motivating member shipor iented behavior (commitment). Pay systems may also affect know ledge shar ing and tr ansfer if shar ing, teamw or k, suggestions, etc. ar e r ew ar ded or r ecognized (Collins,(2007). Accor ding to Br anham (2005) compensation can also dr ive commitment-or iented behavior by:  Sending employees a str ong message about w hat r esults ar e valued.  Recognize and r einfor ce impor tant contr ibutions so that employees feel valued.  Pr ovide a sense of “emotional ow ner ship” and incr eased commitment that comes fr om giving employees “a piece of the action.” Maintain or cut fixed payr oll costs and allocate var iable pay to the employees they most w ant to attr act and keep. Finally, it is impor tant to distinguish betw een w hat might be called nor mal or standar d compensation like w ages, salar ies, benefits, etc. and w hat is commonly r efer r ed to as per for mance-based compensation, that is, specific for ms of compensation that ar e paid for w or kers or gr oups of w or ker s w ho attain cer tain objectives vital to a company’s business str ategy. Per for mance-based compensation or ‘pay for per for mance’ is becoming an incr easingly popular for m of compensation, particular ly since its var ious for ms ar e closely tailor ed to ver y specific company objectives, including employee r etention (Collins,(2007).,1999).  Benefits Benefits can demonstr ate to employees that a company is suppor tive and fair , and ther e is evidence t o suggest that stable benefits ar e at the top of the list of r easons w hy employees choose to stay w ith their employer or to join the company in the fir st place (Aquino, Gr iffeth, Allen, Hom, (1997). How ever , it is often the case that many employees do not r ealize the "tr ue value" of the benefits they r eceive. Nor ar e they alw ays sur e w hat motivates the employer to pr ovide these benefits. Thus, the link betw een benefits and employee commitment is not alw ays str ong. Adequate communication w ith employees is, as w ith most other r etention pr actices, essential (Tr evor,(2001). The range of benefits offer ed by companies includes the following categor ies: health, dental, visions, vacation, par ental/ family leave, disability, r etir ement/ pension, employee assistance pr ogr ams, life insur ance, extended leave, etc. Employee benefits ar e constantly evolving as the w or kfor ce itself evolves, and as people identify new prior ities as being impor tant. We may note, for example, the gr ow ing inter est in fitness subsidies or elder car e pr ovisions which ar e a dir ect r esponse to changes in per sonal prior ities and demogr aphic changes. In addition, ther e is also gr ow ing concern w ithin industr y about the mounting costs of health-related benefits and the magnitude of pension obligations for an aging w or kfor ce. Thus, while benefits do not necessar ily figur e pr ominently w ithin the liter atur e as a major ar ea of Human Resour ce innovation, they ar e the subject of consider able concern among employer s and w or ker s, and a few key obser vations ar e w or th making with r espect t o employee r etention. It is impor tant to note that the r elative importance of benefits w ill var y accor ding to the specific needs of each individual. The impor tance of a benefit plan to an employee w ith dependents may assume far gr eater impor tance par ticular ly in an envir onment w her e benefits costs ar e incr easing r apidly (Tompkins and Beech, 2002). Companies w ith older w or kfor ce demogr aphy might see their r etention effor ts best ser ved thr ough benefit plans that cover health-r elated expenses, car e for elderly par ents, etc. Companies w ith a significantly younger population may find education subsidies or tuition r ebates to be mor e effective r etention dr iver s. Most innovations in the ar ea of benefits appear to be focused on the concept of flexibility. Many companies ar e r esponding to the incr easingly diver se needs of their employees by intr oducing a gr eater element of choice in the r ange of benefits fr om w hich their w or ker s can choose. Thus, the intr oduction of flexibility in benefits packages can be a key ingr edient in ensur ing good r etention, par ticular ly since it affor ds gr eater r esponsiveness to the specific needs and circumstances of individuals (Milman, (2003). Some companies have become mor e cr eative in the types of benefits they offer their employees, and many such initiatives ar e focused on allow ing employees to str ike a better balance betw een their w or king and non-w or king lives. Examples are numer ous and include: ear ned time off, on-site child car e, paid pater nity leave, sabbaticals, tuition r eimbur sement, etc (Milman, (2003). In the inter est of facilitating a better w or klife balance, DiPietr o, &Milman, (2004) advise employer s to make it easier for employees to transfer fr om full-time to par t-time w or k and vice ver sa, intr oduce pro- r ated benefits for par t-time w or ker s, guar antee a r etur n to fulltime status for those w ho elect to w or k par t-time, and pr otect employee senior ity w hen shifting fr om full to parttime w or k, and vice-ver sa.  Per for mance-based Confir mation In gener al, the key pur pose behind per for mance-based compensation is tw ofold. It is a means of modifying individuals’ behavior w ithin an establishment in or der to better align their activity w ith par ticular business objectives, and a w ay of influencing the development of par ticular types of or ganizational cultur e. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------IJIRIS: Mendeley (Elsevier Indexed) CiteFactor Jour nal Citations Impact Factor 1.23 Impact Factor Value – SJIF: Innospace, Morocco ( 2016) : 4.651| Indexcopernicus: ( ICV 2016): 88.20 © 2014- 20, IJIRIS- All Rights Reser ved Page -6 Inter national Journal of Innovative Research in Information Security ( IJIRIS) Issue 02, Volume 7 (Febr uary 2020) ISSN: 2349-7017 www.ijir is.com  Incentive Pay Incentive pay systems pay pr e-deter mined amounts for achievement of specified tar gets.  Merit Pay Mer it pay allocates pay incr eases based on individual per for mance. It can play a major r ole in attr acting and r etaining par ticular employees, and can lead both to good r etention and beneficial tur nover , that is, good per for mer s stay and poor per for mer s leave. Wher e teamw or k is an impor tant par t of pr oductive activity, individual mer it pay may not w or k w ell. As w ith other for ms of per for mance- based compensation, individual merit pay can cause excessive competition for incentives, and can pr omote counter -pr oductive behavior , for example, hoar ding impor tant infor mation r ather than shar ing it w idely w ithin the company and other for ms of ‘zer o-sum’ behavior .  Gain Shar ing Financial gains in or ganizational per for mance ar e shar ed w ith all employees in a single plant using a pr edeter mined for mula measur ed against a histor ical benchmar k. Gain shar ing is usually based on a par ticipative management appr oach, for example, suggestion systems, shop floor committees, self- directed w or k teams, in or der to enhance the coor dination of teamw or k and shar ing of know ledge. Gain shar ing also may be effective in smaller fir ms w ith less than 300 employees.  Profit Shar ing Pay is related to the company’s over all financial per for mance. Pr ofit shar ing is differ ent fr om gain shar ing in that it does not necessar ily involve par ticipative management, and does not measur e employee-contr olled or pr oductivityr elated financial per for mance.  Skill-based Pay Under this ar r angement, the employee is paid accor ding to his or her skills and exper ience. In this case, the company pays for the per son r ather than the job position. Skill-based pay can help or ganizations meet their skill r equir ements by dir ectly motivating w or ker s to lear n specific skills. The major advantage of this pay system is that it can pr omote a cultur e of flexibility. Individuals can per for m multiple tasks, including filling jobs in the w ake of tur nover . Skill-based pay can also contr ibute to low er tur nover since individuals w ill be paid mor e for their know ledge and w ill be unlikely to find similar ly attr active pay in fir ms using mor e tr aditional job-based pay systems.  Bonus Plans These have the advantage of being flexible, and capable of tar geting par ticular behavior s that a company might w ant to change or pr omote w ithout increasing fixed costs (Rappaport, Bancr oft, &Okum, (2003).  Retention-based Compensation These include bonuses and other for ms of compensation based on job tenur e. Rappapor t, Bancr oft, & Okum, (2003) note that a potential disadvantage to this for m of compensation is that it can contr ibute to r educed employee motivation, inhibit behavior al change, encourage r isk aver sion, and can often be expensive for organizations w ith long employee tenur e.  Ter m-based Pay Given the incr eased inter est in employee par ticipation and a gr ow ing inter est in team-based w or k, the list of compensation options w ould not be complet e w ithout some mention of team-based pay, in w hich w or k teams ar e unifor mly compensated for the per for mance of the team as a w hole. Again, team-based pay must be aligned w ith intentions to pr omote cer tain types of behavior . Pr oper ly managed, team-based pay can r einforce cohesion at the gr oup level and gener ate str ong per for mance by particular w or k teams. As w ith individual per formance compensation, team-based pay can also gener ate conflict and competition among w or k teams. In addition, some author s note that team-based pay r aises concer ns about fr ee-r ider pr oblems. It is impor tant to r ecognize that the intr oduction of pay-for -per for mance is not an isolated inter vention, in the sense that it depends upon and is to some extent a r esult of other Human Resour ce and business str ategies. Ther e is, for example, little sense in intr oducing skill-based compensation if the employer is not actively engaged in providing lear ning and development oppor tunities for its member s as a par t of its nor mal business pr actice. Similarly, individual perfor mance bonuses or pay need to be aligned w ith a str uctur ed pr ocess for evaluating and managing employee per formance. Secondly, it should be noted that labor unions ar e often r eticent about embr acing pay-for - per for mance. Pay-for -per for mance natur ally intr oduces pay differ entials among employees w ith similar job classifications, and this is contr ar y to the spir it in w hich unions nor mally negotiate w ith management on issues r elated to compensation. How ever , Br osseau (2000) has cited instances in which pay-for -per for mance systems have successfully met w ith union appr oval. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------IJIRIS: Mendeley (Elsevier Indexed) CiteFactor Jour nal Citations Impact Factor 1.23 Impact Factor Value – SJIF: Innospace, Morocco ( 2016) : 4.651| Indexcopernicus: ( ICV 2016): 88.20 © 2014- 20, IJIRIS- All Rights Reser ved Page -7 Inter national Journal of Innovative Research in Information Security ( IJIRIS) Issue 02, Volume 7 (Febr uary 2020) ISSN: 2349-7017 www.ijir is.com He notes that the involvement of the union in the design, implementation and oper ation of skill-based pay systems is essential to successfully implementing such systems in unionized envir onments. Indeed, union involvement at this level appear s to be consistent w ith w hat much of the liter ature has to say about the need for open communications, as w ell as employee par ticipation and involvement.  Rewar d & Recognition Staw, (1980) argues that r ew ar d systems ought to be a significant spher e of innovation for employer s. The incr easing diver sity of the w or kfor ce, she says, suggests the need for mor e cr eative appr oaches to tailor ing the r ight r ew ar ds to the r ight people. It w ould, how ever , be impossible to list all of the various types of r ecognition and r ew ar ds that companies actually give their w or ker s. Never theless, it is clear that r ew ar d and r ecognition as part of a more compr ehensive effort at keeping w or ker s or adopting good wor kplace pr actices can contr ibute to incr eased r etention. The categor y “Rew ar d and Recognition” is in some w ays a catch-all phr ase as it includes a diverse r ange of for mal and infor mal, financial and non-financial, incentives given to individual employees, groups of employees or to an entir e staff. They come in all shapes and sizes: small employee of the month aw ar ds (for example, gift cer tificates, recognition plaques), company-sponsor ed spor ts teams, company par ties, pr izes, clothing,etc.Theyar eoftenincor por atedintoacompany’soverallHumanResourcepolicy,butar ejustas often aw arded “as the need ar ises” and at the discretion of middle-level manager s or team super visor s. In gener al, and for the pur poses of this study, “Rew ar d and Recognition” cover s all of those incentives that ar e not captur ed under the other categories of r etention measures descr ibed in this r epor t, and w e may tentatively make the obser vation that w hile they ar e not gener ally seen to be the decisive elements in ensur ing good r etention, they often do much to sustain a w or kplace cultur e that is aw ar e of the contr ibutions of its member s, while at the same time helping t o r einfor ce positive behavior . To function pr oper ly, r ew ar ds must be w ell justified, ever yone must have a fair chance at getting one, and that r ew ar d must be something that the r ecipient employee values. Ever yone w ho keeps the company pr oductive deser ves a fair shar e of aw ar ds, inter esting new assignments, honour s or other motivational tr eats t hat the company hand out. Mor ale w ill plummet if employees see the employer as ar bitr ar y, unfair or playing favour ites (Staw,1980). Hunter , & Hunter , (1984) offer the gener al pr inciple that “What get r ew ar ded gets done,” and they emphasize that the principle must be connected to the or ganization’s cor e cultur e. (Staw , 1980) suggest that r ecognition and rew ar ds ar e str ongly tied to the ‘cultur e’ of a par ticular w or kplace, they suppor t t hat cultur e, and they ar e consistent with that cultur e w hether or not that cultur e is something consciously managed or iterated by the company. Rewar ds must, in other w or ds, ‘fit in’ w ith people’s per ception of their employer and their w or kplace. In w or kplaces w her e labour management relations ar e str ained or w her e w or ker s ar e distrustful of management’s intentions, people w ill often r eact w ith skepticism when r ew ar ds ar e suddenly introduced. Wr iting fr om the employer ’s per spective, Dibble (1999) does include money in her discussion of financial incentives but she also points out that money is not alw ays an appr opr iate r ew ar d. In a sur vey that she conducted, almost a quar ter of r espondents said that they left their pr evious job because they did not feel valued or appr eciated. In her view , showing appr eciation “is not r elated to money, flexible w or k hour s or car eer oppor tunities. It is mor e per sonal.” (Collins,2007) also notes the dr aw backs with some types of incentives. They w r ite: For some employees incentives designed to motivate may actually demotivate if they seem to be unfair or too difficult to obtain. Also, incentives can sometimes cause unhealthy competition among employees and either for ce employees to cut cor ner s or sabotage their colleagues. Incentive Pr ogr ams should be w ell thought- out befor e implementation and used w ith car e. Finally, (Collins,2007), w ho also includes r ew ar ds and r ecognition in his list of high-r etention pr actices, also ar gues that incentives and r ew ar ds can turn out to be counter -pr oductive: I know sever al companies that have r elied so heavily on incentives that befor e any action ar e taken, employees ask, “What’s in this for me?” They have r obbed their employees of the intr insic motivation of pr ide and self-r espect a danger ous malady that is ver y difficult to change. Too many gimmicks and too much extr insic motivation w ill eventually har m their cr eativity and initiative. Hom (1995) also cites the w or k of Alfie Kohn w ho, in Punished by Rew ards, comes dow n har d on incentive and bonus plans. Hom, & Gr iffeth, (1995) cautions that used incor r ectly, r ew ar ds, r ecognition, praise, and bonuses can be manipulative and contr olling and amount to little mor e than a br ibe for behavior . In many instances, these behavior ist techniques cr eate an effect opposite fr om that intended. It is tr ue that r ew ar ds can under mine intr insic motivation. It is unfor tunate to see companies wipe out initiative and tur n their employees into Pavlov’s dog sitting r eady for the next bone throw n their w ay. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------IJIRIS: Mendeley (Elsevier Indexed) CiteFactor Jour nal Citations Impact Factor 1.23 Impact Factor Value – SJIF: Innospace, Morocco ( 2016) : 4.651| Indexcopernicus: ( ICV 2016): 88.20 © 2014- 20, IJIRIS- All Rights Reser ved Page -8 Inter national Journal of Innovative Research in Information Security ( IJIRIS) Issue 02, Volume 7 (Febr uary 2020) ISSN: 2349-7017 www.ijir is.com  Training, Development and Career Planning Jackofsky, (1984) unambiguously states all or ganizations will do a better r etention job by spending mor e r esour ces on tr aining and development. A business that pr ovides education and tr aining w ill be mor e competitive and pr oductive and w ill w in the loyalty of its w or kfor ce. That tr aining and development ar e so enthusiastically embr aced as key factor s to good r etention is no doubt due to the fact that w ell- developed tr aining pr ogr ams ar e becoming ever mor e essential to the ongoing sur vival of most moder n companies, whether or not r etention is an impor tant issue to that company. To the extent that oper ational par adigms such as “The Lear ning Or ganization” or the “Know ledge-Based Or ganization” continue to take hold in the contempor ar y business w or ld, tr aining is only likely to become mor e impor tant. In any event, r etention r eflects a desir e to keep one’s valued people; but it is just as much about keeping and managing the skills that a company needs to meet its goals. The pr ovision of tr aining is a w ay of developing those skills in the fir st place. The fact that pr oviding it also tur ns out to be a benefit that is highly valued by those w ho r eceive it makes for a ver y pow er ful appr oach to doing business. Because tr aining and development ar e so fundamental to the operation of a business, it goes against intuition to suggest that tr aining and development ar e to be thought of pr imar ily as “r etention” t ools. We have encounter ed few examples in w hich the development of skills at w or k w as ever consciously intr oduced as a w ay of r etaining people. Never theless, countless studies tend to confir m the fact that a good part of the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of w or ker s is associated w ith issues r elat ed to their pr ofessional development. A r ecent study by Duxbur y and Higgins, quoted in Beaur egar d and Fitzger ald (2000), found that over 40 per cent of small business employees ar e dissatisfied with the amount of tr aining they r eceive. The study also found a str ong corr elation betw een the dissatisfaction and fr ustr ations sur r ounding the lack of opportunities to develop skills, and both an employee’s intention t o leave as w ell as the incidence of absenteeism. Similar ly, a 1999 Gallup poll named the lack of oppor tunities to lear n and gr ow as one of the top thr ee r easons for employee dissatisfaction (B.C. Business, 2001), and other studies have offer ed similar conclusions (BHRC, 2002). Fur ther mor e, the evidence seems to confir m that the link betw een tr aining and r etention is even str onger for mor e highly skilled w or ker s (Kaiser and Haw k, 2001; Par é et al,2000). Meyer et al (2003) suggest that employee lear ning w hich encompasses tr aining and development but is also r elated to socialization w ithin the w or kplace contr ibutes to r etention by (i ) building employee commitment thr ough a show of suppor t, (ii) pr oviding employees with the means to deal w ith str ess r elated to job demands and change, (iii) ser ving as an incentive to stay, and (iv) cr eating a cultur e of car ing. Thus, tr aining and development ar e seen as w ays of building employee commitment in that they allow employees to “see a futur e” w her e they w or k, and pr ovide them w ith the suppor t necessar y to face the on-going challenges r elated to their w or k. Many employer s w ill of cour se voice the familiar concer n that ther e is a r isk that once tr ained; w or ker s may be tempted to leave the company for other opportunities. This is no doubt a valid concer n amongst many employer s, par ticularly those in the Oil & Gas industr y where even semi-skilled w or ker s often oper ate in a highdemand labor mar ket. As such, companies ar e only w illing to pr ovide tr aining at the minimum level or to pr ovide more extensive tr aining on pr oprietar y equipment and pr ocesses. The pictur e may be somew hat differ ent for mor e highly-skilled skilled segments of the w or kfor ce, w her e employer s appear to be mor e w illing to make gr eater investments. How ever , r eview of the liter atur e suggests that the incr eased employability that is developed thr ough employer sponsor ed tr aining does not inevitably lead to voluntar y departur es. In par ticular , it is doubtful that employees in w hom the company invests tr aining r esour ces w ill simply gr avitate to another employer because of modest differ ences in pay or benefit offer ed by the other employer . Investing in tr aining can be inter pr eted as a str ong signal that the employer values the employee and w ishes to keep that individual w ith the fir m. To the extent that employees perceive this to be the case, and pr ovided that the company actually behaves in such a manner by ‘putting its money w her e its mouth is’ employees may in fact be mor e likely to stay. The tr aining incentive is further r einfor ced if it falls within w ell-defined and adequately communicat ed plans for development w ithin the company. Ther e is a good fit betw een tr aining and a number of other r etention-r elated pr actices, such as car eer development and planning, skill-based pay, and other s. Taken together such pr actices can usefully complement one another . Training can be a par ticular ly str ong r etention tool when it is combined w ith measur es designed to allow people t o develop and pr ogr ess w ithin a company (Butter iss, 1999; Meyer et al, 2003). It is impor tant for employer s to put in place effective inter nal pr omotion Pr ogr ams that will allow even their unskilled and semi-skilled w or kfor ce to move tow ar ds positions of gr eater r esponsibility and r emuner ation w ithin the company. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------IJIRIS: Mendeley (Elsevier Indexed) CiteFactor Jour nal Citations Impact Factor 1.23 Impact Factor Value – SJIF: Innospace, Morocco ( 2016) : 4.651| Indexcopernicus: ( ICV 2016): 88.20 © 2014- 20, IJIRIS- All Rights Reser ved Page -9 Inter national Journal of Innovative Research in Information Security ( IJIRIS) Issue 02, Volume 7 (Febr uary 2020) ISSN: 2349-7017 www.ijir is.com Such Progr ams ar e inextr icably linked with the pr ovision of employer -sponsor ed tr aining oppor tunities that dir ectly suppor t per sonal and professional development. And again, they send a ver y str ong signal to employees that they ar e impor tant to the company, and that the company is w illing to make r eal investments in keeping them ther e. In addition, the advantage to tr aining-r elated incentives is that they can allow companies to focus particular ly on employees w ho demonstr ate a str ong potential for gr ow th and contribution to the company. Such arr angements end up being to the advantage of both par ties. The company is able to secur e the skills it needs w hile at the same time gaining some r eassur ance that its skills development investments ar e also cr eating the conditions that w ill keep those skills in the company. The employee, meanwhile, gains the oppor tunity to secur ely move tow ar ds better pay and mor e challenging r esponsibilities (Meyer 2003). Tr aining is alw ays unique to the cir cumstances of each company, and ther e is no met hod or for mula that dictates how much and w hat kind of tr aining is given. No evidence has been found to suggest that specific for ms of tr aining or tr aining content w er e necessar ily mor e conducive to good r etention, nor is any type of training necessarily conducive to r etention. How ever , it does seem plausible that tr aining, w hen combined w ith w ell-communicated plans for advancement and ongoing pr ofessional development w ithin the company, can help companies to keep their valued employees.  Recruitment and Or ientation A r eview of the Human Resour ce liter atur e seems to confir m that good r etention is about mor e than w hat a company does once an employee has been hir ed and established w ithin an or ganization. How companies r ecr uit and how they pr ovide or ientation in the fir st days on the job can be of cr ucial impor tance to keeping w orker s over the longer term. Failur e to effectively r ecr uit and or ient employees may impose significant separ ation and r eplacement costs down the r oad. Jackofsky, (1984) attr ibutes 60% of undesir able tur nover to bad hir ing decisions on the part of the employer . “Bad hiring decisions” may cover a number of consider ations, including overly hasty selection pr ocesses that fail to ensur e that the job candidate r eally has the adequate skills and qualifications to do the job for w hich she or he is hir ed. Good employee r etention is in par t a r esult of a good “fit” betw een a company’s w or kplace cultur e, its w ay of doing business and the qualities that it espouses as valuable and the inter ests, char acter , and motivations of the individuals that exist w ithin it. In terms of r ecr uitment, companies should therefor e put an emphasis on not only evaluating for mal qualifications, job-r elevant technical ability, etc., but also mor e gener al types of qualifications and dispositions on the par t of the r ecruit. If w or k in the company involves being par t of a highly cohesive team, the company may w ant to r ecr uit individuals w ho ar e inter ested in and capable of w or king in such an envir onment. Employees in some w or kplaces, par ticular ly the smaller ones, do mor e than mer ely w or k together : they often shar e similar interests and have a ver y str ong inter -personal r appor t, and these in tur n help to bind them together as a cohesive w hole (Jackofsky,(1984). Indeed, the quality of inter per sonal r elations may contr ibute significantly to r etention in its ow n r ight. It is equally impor tant for the individual job candidate to have a fair chance at deciding w hether the company is a good fit for him or her. Meyer et al (2003) have emphasized the impor tance of pr oviding “r ealistic job pr eview s” to potential employees. These previews pr ovide potential new hires with mor e than just a cur sor y glance at a company’s operations, pr oviding the candidate with enough infor mation to make a decision about w hether it is the r ight w or kplace for him or her . (Jackofsky, 1984) cite the example of a number of companies that simply r elate the positives and negatives of the job and the or ganization in an objective, non-evaluative manner and let the candidate decide w hether this is an opportunity that he or she w ants to pur sue. In the long r un, getting r eal maximizes the fit betw een candidate and or ganization. This is not to dow nplay the impor tance of other tr aditional and non-tr aditional r ecruitment methods such as str uctur ed inter view s, multiple and panel inter view s, pr e-employment testing, biogr aphical data analysis, simulations and w or k samples. The company must have at its disposal the r ight tools to enable it to make r easonably accur ate evaluations about the type of people it might hir e; and ther e exist a gr eat number of evaluation tools at the employer ’s disposal. Staw (1980) suggests that allow ing both parties to the employment contr act to make infor med decisions can help to ensur e that the right hir ing decision is made. Of cour se, the under lying assumption in the liter atur e is that the cost of r ecruitment w ill mor e than compensate for the costs associated w ith unwanted tur nover ; natur ally each company must also engage in making such calculations. Many companies place gr eat tr ust in candidates r efer r ed to them by member s of their ow n fir m, and some even suppor t this pr ocess by aw ar ding bonuses to employees who r efer a candidate w ho eventually gets hir ed by the company Milman, (2003). While less for mal in natur e, employee r eferr als seem to accomplish both of the objectives just descr ibed. The employee w ho pr ovides the r efer r al is able to pr ovide the candidate w ith a r ealistic pr eview of w hat it’s like to w or k in the company based on per sonal exper ience and obser vation. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------IJIRIS: Mendeley (Elsevier Indexed) CiteFactor Jour nal Citations Impact Factor 1.23 Impact Factor Value – SJIF: Innospace, Morocco ( 2016) : 4.651| Indexcopernicus: ( ICV 2016): 88.20 © 2014- 20, IJIRIS- All Rights Reser ved Page -10 Inter national Journal of Innovative Research in Information Security ( IJIRIS) Issue 02, Volume 7 (Febr uary 2020) ISSN: 2349-7017 www.ijir is.com Meanw hile, because they usually know the person they r efer r easonably w ell, and w ould be hesitant to r efer someone w hose per for mance w ould r eflect badly on them, employees can often pr ovide cr itical infor mation that r esumes, job applications and inter view s might not r eveal. Including one’s employees in helping to evaluate candidates may also be par ticular ly effective with r espect to r etention in w or kplaces w her e team-based w or k is the nor m (Milman, (2003). Allowing employees to have a say in w hoever they w ill be w or king w ith, and asking for their assistance in evaluating w hether that per son w ill be a good fit, may pr ove helpful in ensur ing that the candidate not only has the r equisite experience but w ill also be an effective member of the w or k team. Finally, pr oviding a good initial or ientation to the newly-hir ed employee can not only help to effectively integr at e that per son into the w or kplace but can also help to make the new per son feel w elcome and pr ovide him or her infor mation about how to cope w ith the demands of the w or kplace, and any possible pr oblems that may ar ise. These can be impor tant elements of the socialization pr ocess, and some companies spend tw o w eeks or mor e on or ientation, dur ing which they provide infor mation about the company, its values, str uctur e, goals, objectives, clients, customs, and histor y (Foundation for Enter prise Development, 1994).  Healthy Workplace and Well-being Progr ams Ther e is a gr ow ing body of evidence that w or kplace safety, health and w ellness initiatives can make a fundamental contr ibution to business per formance as w ell as the impr oved health and w ell-being of individual employees. An examination of the Human Resour ce liter atur e tended to suppor t this ar gument although most author s did not delve into this ar ea in any consider able amount of detail. Healthy w or kplace pr actices take on a var iety of for ms, including those dir ected at the physical w or k envir onment (safety, er gonomics, etc.); health pr actices (suppor ting healthy lifestyles, fitness, diet, etc.); and social envir onment and per sonal r esour ces (or ganizational cultur e, a sense of contr ol over one’s w or k, w or k-family balance, etc.). Many “healthy w or kplace” r esear cher s have become incr easingly convinced that or ganizations must also become more attuned to the negative consequences of w or kplace str ess and other psycho-social factor s. Low e’s (2003) analysis of data fr om a survey of some 2,300 w orkers indicated that many w or kers link psycho-social factor s, including inter personal r elationships, r elations with supervisors and the availability of other for ms of suppor t to per ception of how healthy a w or kplace may be. A sur vey of16 CEOs also suggests that business leader s ar e also becoming incr easingly aw ar e of the import ance of r educing str ess in the w or kplace (Repor t on Business, 2004). Thus, to the extent that emotional and mental w ellness is impor tant to good r etention and other indicator s of business per for mance, companies might be w ell-advised to tur n their attention to factor s in the w or kplace that cause str ess in the w or kplace. Potential r emedies to poor w or kplace health may, in fact, come fr om a number of the other r etention ar eas descr ibed in this r epor t, for example, vacation benefits, flexible time, a good w or k-life balance, effective and open communications, job enr ichment, etc. Wor k place health and w ellness initiatives w er e seen to r educe health and safety costs, facilitate good labor management r elations, and impr ove pr ofitability and customer satisfaction. They w er e also view ed as key factor s affecting employee r ecr uitment and r et ention.  Wor k-Life Balance Wor k-life balance pr ograms cover a var iety of interventions, and include such practices as dependent car e leave, childcar e subsidies, elder car e pr ogr ams, counseling and r eferr al, and flexible w or king hour s (Muchinsky,1977). As the list suggests, the concept of “w or k-life balance” r ecognizes that employees have important family and extr apr ofessional obligations that compete w ith their pr ofessional commitments; benefits that may be gr ouped under this concept ther efor e allow people to str ike a mor e meaningful and potentially less str essful balance betw een obligations at the w or kplace and obligations at home. (Lockw ood,2006) note that the 1990s saw an intensification of w or k-life conflicts for many w or ker s. “Jobs,” they note, “have become mor e str essful and less satisfying, and employees gener ally exhibit less commitment to their employer s and higher absence r ates fr om w or k.” They add that high levels of “r ole over load” and “w or k to family inter ference” play a significant r ole in fr ustrating r ecr uitment and r etention in Canadian companies. “The fast tr ack has lost much of its luster in r ecent year s,” say Har r is and Br annick (1999), r eflecting a per haps common per ception that w e ar e w itnessing a change in cultur e in the w ay people ar e choosing to live their lives, and or ganize their car eer s accor dingly. In a survey of 448 employees r epor ted on by Dibble (1999), “flexibility in hour s” w as the thir d most fr equently mentioned reason why employees r emain w ith their cur r ent employer . A sur vey of 1,862 employees in the U.S., cited in Ashby and Pell (2001), r epor ted that most w or ker s w anted a job w ith flexible hour s and that allow ed them to take car e of per sonal concer ns, while a substantial number cit ed similar r easons for their pr efer ence for w or king at home. Similar ly, Business (2001) r epor ts that the amount of salar y and number of w or k hour s w or ker s say they ar e w illing to give up to achieve a w or k/ life balance has doubled. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------IJIRIS: Mendeley (Elsevier Indexed) CiteFactor Jour nal Citations Impact Factor 1.23 Impact Factor Value – SJIF: Innospace, Morocco ( 2016) : 4.651| Indexcopernicus: ( ICV 2016): 88.20 © 2014- 20, IJIRIS- All Rights Reser ved Page -11 Inter national Journal of Innovative Research in Information Security ( IJIRIS) Issue 02, Volume 7 (Febr uary 2020) ISSN: 2349-7017 www.ijir is.com Whether or not w e ar e in the midst of a cultural shift, many employer s have begun to r espond to such demands by implementing “w or k-life balance” initiatives in their w or kplace, and have done so out of a conviction that pr oviding such benefits can substantially enhance pr oductivity, r evenues, and employee r etention and commitment (Wither s, 2001). In a sur vey of 300 small businesses in Canada, the Centr e for Families, Wor k and Well-Being (2000)asked" w hat ar e the w or k- life str ategies that make small companies successful in concur r ently meeting their business objectives and being a good place for employees to w or k?" Such ar r angements har dly r equir e a detailed explanation. It is wor th noting, how ever , that some of these pr actices par ticularly those r elated to ‘time off’ and flexibility for addr essing particular needs need not be a par t of some for mal benefits pr ogr ams. The key to success in this ar ea appear s to be, fir st and for emost, a good channel of communications and a w or kplace cultur e in w hich employees feel comfor table in asking for time off to deal w ith pr essing family matter s, and employer s ar e w illing to r ecognize that granting time off in such a manner ultimately may contr ibute to gr eater employee commitment and pr oductivity in the long r un. Duxbur y and Higgins (2001) ar gue, in this vein, that employers can help to create mor e suppor tive w or k envir onments by (i) w or king w ith employees to identify and implement the types of support they say they need, and better inform them about policies that may cur r ently be available to them, and (ii) encour aging employees to use the suppor ts that ar e r eadily available and ensur e that employees w ho could make use of such assistance do not feel that their car eer pr ospects w ould be jeopar dized by doing so (Duxbur y and Higgins,2001). Finally, it should be noted that or ganizations that function on the basis of shift w or k may have employees w ho found it par ticular ly difficult to balance family and w or k obligations. Again, a cer tain degr ee of flexibility and r esponsiveness on the part of employer s can go a long w ay in helping employees to r esolve such conflicts and be more pr oductive at w or k. Duxbur y and Higgins (2001) note a number of policies that pr ove to be effective in helping employees to manage w or k-life balance in a shift w or k setting. These include (i) limiting split shifts, (ii) pr oviding advanced notice of shift changes, (iii) per mitting employees to tr ade shifts amongst themselves and, most impor tantly, consulting w ith employees about their w or k-life balance needs w hile planning shifts.  Job Design and Work Team Employee r etention thus far suggests that w or kers stay w ith a company for r easons other than just good pay, benefits and other sundry per ks. With respect to r etention, the liter atur e suggests that “intr insic” r ew ar ds ar e just as impor tant as mater ial r ew ar ds. This means that w or ker s value their jobs not only w hen they ar e w ell compensated, but often because doing the job is in itself a r ew ar ding exper ience. In other w or ds, it is fulfilling, challenging, inter esting, and stimulating. Along this line of thinking, much of the contempor ar y Human Resour ce liter atur e r eflects a gr ow ing inter est in pr actices that enhance such intr insic r ew ar ds, and a good par t of this inter est has focused on business pr actices that hand over a cer tain degr ee of autonomy contr ol and managerial r esponsibility to the w or ker s themselves. Pr actices such as autonomous or semi-autonomous w ork teams, ‘selfscheduling,’ and job r otation can not only improve r etention but have also been show n to impr ove a number of other impor tant indicator s such as pr oductivity, accidents and injur ies and pr oduct quality. Lockw ood, 2006) speaks gener ally about the r etention benefits of “high-involvement” w or k envir onments. Mobley, Gr iffeth, Hand, & Meglino, (1979) list “allow ing employees fr eedom to contr ol their w or k” as a major ‘best pr actice’ in r etention, w hile Aquino, Gr iffeth, Allen, Hom, (1997) r epor t that “the highest tur nover r ates ar e those in w hich the cor por ate cultur e is one of domination, autocr acy and inflexibility.” They also r epor t on a sur vey of 3,000 Amer ican employees, quoted in the May 2000 issue of Bottom Line Business’s May2000, w hich listed the r easons w hy employees stay in their curr ent job and the evidence seems to suggest that the intr insic rew ar ds of a challenging job, including good r elations w ith co-w or ker s, meaningful w or k, team-based activity, and a degr ee of autonomy often guide w or ker s’ decisions to stay w ith their employer . Lockw ood, (2006) points out, in addition, that the benefits of gr eater autonomy thr ough teamw or k go beyond simply r etention. One’s goals in promoting teamw ork, accor ding to Lockw ood,(2006) ar e to: Use the joint know ledge and skills of teams to solve pr oblems Encour age cooper ation among employees Incr ease pr oductivity by shar ing the w or k load Motivate teams to achieve the goals of the business, and Incr ease job satisfaction for employees. Most commentator s ar e quick to point out that if the intention behind implementing w or k teams is t o allow a gr eater degr ee of flexibility and autonomy in making decisions, then w or k teams must also take on a cor r esponding measur e of r esponsibility and accountability for the w ork they do. For example, teams must be w illing to have their effor ts measured and evaluated as par t of their taking r esponsibility for success. Each member of the team must also r ecognize that she or he has specific r esponsibilities to the other member s of the team, and so ther e also exists a measur e of individual inter nal accountability for r esults. At the same time, if autonomous teamw or k is valuable to a company, then that company may also be w ell advised to r ew ar d and r ecognize behavior that gener ates positive r esults thr ough autonomous team w or k. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------IJIRIS: Mendeley (Elsevier Indexed) CiteFactor Jour nal Citations Impact Factor 1.23 Impact Factor Value – SJIF: Innospace, Morocco ( 2016) : 4.651| Indexcopernicus: ( ICV 2016): 88.20 © 2014- 20, IJIRIS- All Rights Reser ved Page -12 Inter national Journal of Innovative Research in Information Security ( IJIRIS) Issue 02, Volume 7 (Febr uary 2020) ISSN: 2349-7017 www.ijir is.com Fr om the point of view of r etention, the concept of the autonomous w or k team is one among a number of pr actices that contr ibute to w hat is called “job enr ichment” Lockw ood, (2006), w hich can be defined as: w ays of or ganizing w or k so as to maximize the benefits that employees der ive fr om a job’s intr insic rew ards. In this sense, aut onomous w or k t eams ar e only one for m of job enr ichment, and ther e are many other w ays to enr ich a job, such as:  Seeking to combine r elated tasks under one job descr iption so as to cr eate mor e unified sense of pur pose for the per son w ho car ries out that job.  Rotating people thr ough assignments so as to introduce an element of task-diver sity for w or ker s w hose nor mal assignments involve a high degree of r epetitiveness (Aquino, Gr iffeth, Allen, Hom,(1997) In any event, if pr omoting good r etention is one of the objectives in allow ing for gr eater autonomy on the job, pr esenting mor e inter esting challenges, or incr easing the diver sity of tasks, then the entire exer cise must clear ly begin w ith tw o questions: “How can one design this par ticular job assignment or position in such a w ay that is mor e inter esting or intrinsically r ew arding to the individual w ho occupies it?” and “What for ms of job design or w or k or ganization ar e appr opr iate to the w or kplace?” The fir st question is obvious, but the second question is cr ucial in tr anslating intentions into sustainable pr actice. A company scar cely distinguishes itself fr om its competitor s by saying that it values ‘teamw ork’ or that its employees ar e ‘empow er ed’ to make a contr ibution to the company’s success. And cer tainly, such pr actices ar e seldom embr aced solely for the sake of r etention but rather because companies per ceive that they w ill also tr anslate into better per for mance in other ar eas such as pr oductivity. This is not to dow nplay the value of r e-designing the nature and scope of w or k with a view to making it mor e challenging, inter esting and intr insically r ew ar ding. Rather , the r esear cher w ishes to suggest that such pr actices w ill be effective and sustainable only if they ar e integr ated into w or k pr ocesses thr ough a car eful consider ation of how they w ill impact business activity.  Communication & Employee Par ticipation Retention w ould be far fr om complete if the impor tance of communications is not addressed. Open, r esponsive, tw ow ay communications w ould appear to be vital to good employee r etention. “The fastest w ay to tr ansfor m a topper for ming staff into a gr oup of disgr untled, discour aged job-seeking w or ker s,” according to Har r is and Aquino, Griffeth, Allen, Hom, 1997), “is to shut them out of the loop of cor por ate infor mation.” Conversely, they say, the feeling that one is in the loop r einfor ces the employee’s connection to the or ganization. Most, if not all, of the other types of pr actices descr ibed in our r eview of the Human Resour ce liter atur e fundamentally depend on a sound appr oach to communicating w ith employees. Communication is the bedr ock upon which all the other job r etention pr actices can be successful. Without communications, many of these pr actices w ould be difficult to implement, or it w ould at least be difficult to implement them w ith the goal of r etaining employees. We may consider a few illustr ative examples: Employees ar e often unaw ar e of exactly how competitive their w ages and benefits r eally ar e. If the employer is not effective at communicating the content of total compensation and benefits, employees may lack the infor mation to for m judgments about the company, and may end up not for ming a str ong commitment to the company. The need for good communications is especially gr eat under pay-for -per for mance plans if employees ar e to align their behaviour at w or k w ith the intended r ew ar ds and outcomes. Pr ofessional development and car eer tr acking must r est on a solid foundation of communication if employees ar e to under stand their place and their future w ithin the company, and w hat they need to do to follow a developmental path. Almost all of the effor ts w e have descr ibed in our section on “Recr uitment and Or ientation” ar e fundamentally about communicating w ith pr ospective and new employees. A good system of employee r efer r als r elies upon a w or kplace envir onment w her e management is r eceptive of suggestions fr om employees and actively uses open communication channels to secur e vital feedback fr om its w or ker s. The incidence of high str ess and its attendant consequences for employee health and w ellbeing is in part a function of inter -per sonal r elations in the w or kplace (w hich mediate and ar e mediated by communications) and the availability of open and trusted lines of communication that can help to identify potential health pr oblems befor e they become too sever e. The implementation of autonomous w or k teams, self-scheduling, job r otation, etc. depends on effective adher ence to for ms and standar ds of communication that ar e appr opr iate to and supportive of such w ays of or ganizing w or k. This is har dly an exhaustive list, but it does under scor e the conclusion that communication is a basic building block of any effective r etention pr actice. Most liter atur e is emphatic about the need to keep employees “in the loop”, and a number of companies make consider able effor ts t o communicate w ith employees for purposes beyond what is immediately necessar y for them to do their jobs. Thus, many Oil & Gas industr ies w ill keep their employees r egular ly up to date on the company’s sales per for mance. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------IJIRIS: Mendeley (Elsevier Indexed) CiteFactor Jour nal Citations Impact Factor 1.23 Impact Factor Value – SJIF: Innospace, Morocco ( 2016) : 4.651| Indexcopernicus: ( ICV 2016): 88.20 © 2014- 20, IJIRIS- All Rights Reser ved Page -13 Inter national Journal of Innovative Research in Information Security ( IJIRIS) Issue 02, Volume 7 (Febr uary 2020) ISSN: 2349-7017 www.ijir is.com In addition, many companies have an open-book policy thr ough w hich employees ar e kept up to date on the financial per for mance of the company be it good or bad and ar e equally keen to apprise employees of changes to business str ategy. The r ationale for good communications is best summed up by Kaye and Jor dan-Evans (1999): Conspicuously w ithholding infor mation can lead to deleter ious consequences w ithin the or ganization. When top leader s shar e infor mation and expect other manager s to shar e it w ith employees, employees tend to feel mor e included and their trust is r einfor ced, resulting in smaller dips in pr oductivity dur ing cr ises. Additionally, infor med employees ar e sometimes able to pr ovide solutions to otherw ise unr esolved pr oblems. Information shar ing includes: str ategic dir ections, the or ganization's and industr y's futur e, emerging tr ends that could affect career possibilities, and other cultur al political r ealities affecting the or ganization. These types of infor mation help to suppor t employee car eer development and advancement. Indeed, the mor e companies w ant to devolve decision-making, pr omote innovation and cr eative pr oblem-solving, and address pr oblems in the w or kplace befor e they become bigger pr oblems, the mor e innovative and r esponsive they have to be in the ways in which they communicate w ith employees. And as the Kaye and Jor dan-Evans (1999) quotation suggests, innovative communications involve pr ocesses that allow employees to communicate w ith employer s, r ather than just the other w ay ar ound. Again, ther e is no magical for mula for effective communication. It is clear , how ever , that the success of any communications pr actices w ill hinge upon management’s commitment to and belief in the value of good and open communications in the fir st place; the lack of leader ship w ill other w ise ensur e that communications pr actices ar e dr opped or not adopted as a par t of the company’s cultur e. Thus, implementing pr actices in the absence of a w illingness to communicate about both positive and negative matter s w ill not likely contr ibute to r etention. Communications is, in the end, a gener al featur e of a company’s cultur e, and not r educible to par ticular practices, systems or inter ventions. Kaye and Jordan-Evans (1999) suggest that many companies’ par ticular ly small companies ar e extr emely effective in speaking w ith, and listening to, their employees. It is in these small companies that w e have obser ved ‘open door ’ policies w her ein employees ar e encour aged and able to w alk into the pr esident’s or owner’s office to discuss any issue of concer n. How ever , ‘open door ’ policies w or k because w or kers do not feel apprehensive, fear ful or aw kw ar d about w alking into the boss’s office in the fir st place: and that in tur n depends not on the existence of the open door policy but a basic disposition that allows, and indeed encour ages, people at all levels to speak openly.  Per for mance Appr aisal & Per for mance Management Per for mance appr aisals ar e not uncommon to the Oil & Gas industry. How ever , w hat counts as an appr aisal or per for mance management var ies a gr eat deal in sophistication and or ganization. Her e, the r esear cher seek to char act er ize ‘perfor mance management’ as a type of Human Resour ce pr actice that can effectively help an or ganization to meet its r etention objectives, in addition to other import ant business goals. As such, the r esear cher is r efer r ing to a pr ocess of employee per for mance evaluation that is closely tied t o str ategic objectives, that pr ovides good feedback to employees and gives them a view of their longer -ter m pr ogr ess w ithin the company, and is potentially mar r ied to training and other development oppor tunities. Gener ally speaking, per formance management seeks to: Develop an objective basis for talking about per for mance. Let employees know the differ ence betw een acceptable and unacceptable r esults; Increase job satisfaction by infor ming teams w hen a job is w ell done; Let new staff know about expectations r egar ding job per formance, and; encour age an open and tr usting r elationship with employees. Per for mance appr aisals inform a number of Human Resour ce decisions r elated to compensation, training, pr omotion, and even ter mination. How ever , as par t of a human r esour ces policy that values open communication and employee commitment, per for mance appr aisals also allow objectives and values to be effectively communicated to employees and can ensur e a steady stream of critical feedback about business pr ocesses (Dalton, & Mesch, (1990). When closely aligned w ith ongoing tr aining and car eer development, per for mance management can be a successful r etention tool. Accor ding to Hom (1995) per for mance management aligns the goals of individual members to those of the or ganization w ith w hich they ar e associated. It r equires clear ly ar ticulated and w ell-communicated str ategic goals for the or ganization as a w hole. The design of a perfor mance management system, accor ding to Meyer , involves five essential components: i. A Str ategic Plan. Set by the top of the or ganization, it ser ves as the starting point for division, unit, team and individual goal setting. ii. Individual goals ar e set jointly by manager s and employees. Manager s play an impor tant r ole in communicating how these goals r elate to goals in successively larger units of the company. Manager s may also help to r elat e per for mance goals to employee development concer ns. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------IJIRIS: Mendeley (Elsevier Indexed) CiteFactor Jour nal Citations Impact Factor 1.23 Impact Factor Value – SJIF: Innospace, Morocco ( 2016) : 4.651| Indexcopernicus: ( ICV 2016): 88.20 © 2014- 20, IJIRIS- All Rights Reser ved Page -14 Inter national Journal of Innovative Research in Information Security ( IJIRIS) Issue 02, Volume 7 (Febr uary 2020) ISSN: 2349-7017 www.ijir is.com iii. Monitor ing, Feedback and Coaching. Manager s ar e instr umental in helping employees to monitor their per for mance and development, and make changes w her e necessar y. iv. Per for mance management r equir es mor e of a coaching r ole for the manager , and gr eater participation by the employee. Tr aining is r equir ed to suppor t these expanded r oles. v. For mal per formance r eview s should take place at r egular ly scheduled inter vals and should focus on pr ogr ess w ith r espect to goal attainment, and to setting goals for the next cycle vi. Evaluation. The per for mance management system must itself be the subject of evaluation. As w ith other r etention pr actices, employee per ceptions about the per for mance appr aisal system can have an impor tant impact on their decision to stay w ith a company. Most importantly, effective per for mance management r equir es a system that is fair , and that employees tr ust as being fair , both in ter ms of procedur e (for example, consistent and w ell-communicated evaluation cr iter ia) and in ter ms of the potential benefits ar ising fr om such evaluations (for example, tr aining, professional development). Indeed, fair ness and openness about the evaluation pr ocess ar e of par amount impor tance w hen per for mance management is tied to specific r ew ar ds or advancement.  Knowledge Management & Knowledge Tr ansfer Knowledge is tacit; it is held so deeply by the individual that it is har d to expr ess or document. If w ays can be found to tr ansfer that know ledge to other s in the fir m, either thr ough per sonal inter action or by r ecor ding it, then that know ledge becomes a key sour ce of advantage ( Hom 1995). To under stand w hat the liter ature means by know ledge management and tr ansfer , one must fir st under stand the distinction betw een tacit and explicit know ledge. These concepts w er e fir st intr oduced to the business liter atur e by Muchinsky, & Mor r ow , ( 1980), w ho explains the tw o concepts in the following manner . Accor ding to Muchinsky & Mor r ow (1980) tacit know ledge consists of technical skills that ar e of an infor mal natur e or at least “difficult to for malize.” It also consists of individual “mental models, beliefs, and per spectives” that tend not to be explicitly ar ticulated. In other w or ds, tacit know ledge is made upof skills and exper iences that ar e not alw ays easy to point out or identify, but may be impor tant components of job per for mance. Even the individuals w ho possess such skills may not be able to identify them or communicate them easily to other s. Because tacit know ledge is so har d to identify, companies often do not r ealize w hat know ledge is held by which people, and to w hat extent it contr ibutes to business per for mance. Unfor tunately, many companies only come to these r ealizations after par ticular people leave and pr oduction pr oblems begin to emer ge. Explicit know ledge, on the other hand, is objective and quantifiable, and covers all for ms of know ledge, relevant to business oper ations that a fir m has alr eady made effor ts to collect and document (Muchinsky, & Mor r ow ,1980). On the one hand, then, explicit know ledge may be contained in per for mance evaluations, competency examination r esults, tr aining r epor ts, psychometr ic testing, or formally documented certifications. Explicit know ledge can also be, follow ing Muchinsky, & Mor r ow ,1980) tacit know ledge that has been successfully identified, r ecor ded and made under standable to other people. At the hear t of know ledge management is the question of how explicit and tacit know ledge can be br ought together as a single r esource that can contribute to or ganizational per for mance. Knowledge tr ansfer is simply the pr ocess by which differ ent types of know ledge ar e tr ansfor med into useable know ledge. But most impor tantly, to r etur n to the hear t of the discussion, know ledge tr ansfer is about how the shar ing of know ledge among individuals can be augmented and impr oved. Employee tur nover is a nor mal and expected part of business, no matter how good the incentives to stay may be. It can r esult fr om r etir ements or for other r easons that have little to do w ith the employer . For a company, the loss of employees w hatever the causes is a loss of their valuable skills, know ledge, and potentially vast years of experience w or king with plant equipment, manufactur ing pr ocesses, and business strategies not to mention potentially lar ge, accumulated financial investments in training. The w or kers who r eplace them may eventually r each the level of exper ience of those w ho preceded them, but in the inter im a company can exper ience skills and knowledge deficits that may have a significantly negative impact on business per for mance. If the mar ket for skilled w or ker s is tight or employee tur nover is high, the pr oblem can be ser iously pr olonged and compounded. At the same time, the incr easing technological sophistication of pr oduction pr ocesses often r equir es gr eater amounts of skill on the par t of w or ker s, ever gr eater investments in tr aining on the par t of employer s, and in some cases, ever gr eater effor ts to keep tr ack of ‘w ho know s w hat’ wi thin a given or ganization. And mor e and mor e, many manufactur er s ar e finding that r emaining competitive in the mar ket depends on their ability to employ the know ledge, experience and unique abilities of their w or ker s in or der to r emain innovative, solve pr oblems cr eatively, r espond to customer s’ needs, save on costs, and add high value to end pr oducts (Muchinsky & Mor r ow ,1980). --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------IJIRIS: Mendeley (Elsevier Indexed) CiteFactor Jour nal Citations Impact Factor 1.23 Impact Factor Value – SJIF: Innospace, Morocco ( 2016) : 4.651| Indexcopernicus: ( ICV 2016): 88.20 © 2014- 20, IJIRIS- All Rights Reser ved Page -15 Inter national Journal of Innovative Research in Information Security ( IJIRIS) Issue 02, Volume 7 (Febr uary 2020) ISSN: 2349-7017 www.ijir is.com As these pr ior ities become mor e impor tant, many fir ms find that they have no choice but to pay ver y close attention to w hat their people know, to take stock of this know ledge, and to effectively manage it. The concept of know ledge management the pr ocess of gather ing value fr om the intellectual and know ledge-based assets available to a fir m attempts to addr ess the tw o main concer ns described above. Know ledge tr ansfer , as a par t of know ledge management, refer s mor e specifically to processes that achieve the effective sharing of know ledge among individuals, business units, departments, or even differ ent branch plants of the same company. Thus, while employee r etention pr actices str ive to r etain individuals, know ledge tr ansfer policies ser ve as a r etention policy for know ledge and exper ience.  Mentor ing & Coaching Mentor ing and coaching ar e alr eady familiar to most fir ms as a tr aining tool, but they also ar e valuable in tr ansfer r ing intangible and tacit know ledge (Frank, 2002). They achieve this by pair ing exper ienced w or ker s w ith less exper ienced w or ker s over a per iod of time, allow ing the less exper ienced partner to obser ve and absor b the actions of the mentor or coach. Mentor ing and coaching ar e also effective inter - gener ational knowledge tr ansfer tools, and may be par ticular ly important to companies facing the retir ement of key staff (Hom, 1995). Hom also mentions that mentor ing and coaching ar e useful w ays for w or ker s to shar e “lessons lear ned,” as the mentor ee w ill often have the chance to benefit fr om the mentor ’s tr ial and er r or exper ience.  Job Rotation Alr eady a familiar tr aining and development pr actice, r otating employees thr ough differ ent positions, and often differ ent depar tments, per mits experience and know ledge to be shar ed among ar eas of a fir m that might not nor mally collabor ate closely w ith one another . For example, a job r otation in w hich technicians or engineers in the manufactur ing ar ea of a company ar e tempor arily posted to positions in sales w ould allow for a gr eater dissemination of knowledge betw een these tw o depar tments and allow them to benefit fr om each other ’s know ledge. The sales depar tment w ould acquir e a better under standing about the pr oduct manufactured and the pr ocess involved ther eby impr oving its ability to communicate w ith customer s, and the manufactur ing side w ould have an oppor tunity to lear n mor e about customer’s expectations and r equir ements. In addition, the individual employee acquir es a br oader perspective of the company’s oper ations w hich can then be shar ed w ith colleagues. Similar ly, cr oss tr aining w her e, for example, manufactur ing oper ator s ar e r otated thr ough positions that allow them to acquir e competency using differ ent machines and equipment allow s for a mor e limited for m of know ledge shar ing, usually w ithin a par ticular ar ea of a company par ticular ly manufactur ing, for the pur poses of this study. It should be noted that cr oss-tr aining also has the added benefit of developing an incr easingly flexible skilled w or kfor ce.  Retir ements Phased-in r etir ement is any ar r angement that enables employees appr oaching nor mal r etir ement age to r educe their wor k hour s and job r esponsibilities for the pur pose of gr adually easing into full r etir ement (Staw 1980). In addition to being a useful r etention tool, phased-in r etir ements can be effective know ledge tr ansfer tools, par ticular ly for companies concer ned about waves of w or ker s r etir ing in a shor t per iod of time. Phased-in r etir ements can allow for increased lead time in br inging in new r ecr uits, w hile tempor ar ily r etaining the know ledge of a company’s most exper ienced w or ker s. The w or ker going thr ough phased-in r etir ement w ill see a r eduction in w or k hour s and r esponsibilities, and some companies choose to use a par t of that per son’s r emaining time on the job on activities r elated to coaching, mentor ing and pr oviding other for ms of tr aining. This in tur n allow s for a longer per iod of time to achieve intergener ational tr ansfer s of know ledge and exper ience.  Communities of Pr actice Communities of pr actice ar e a form of online teamw ork that, par ticularly in lar ger or ganizations, can be effective at shar ing exper ience and allowing individuals to build up one another ’s know ledge base. Usually developed through a computer -based system that allow s discussion and the shar ing of documents, communities of pr actice br ing together people w ith differ ent skills and fr om differ ent ar eas of a company or differ ent pr oject teams or even differ ent plants in differ ent r egions, to conver ge on par ticular issues or pr oblems to be solved (Muchinsky, & Morr ow , 1980).Discussion and the exchange of ideas ar e usually tightly focused on an issue or pr oblem, and individual r oles and accountabilities within the community may be defined str ictly (Muchinsky, & Mor r ow ,1980), but even in doing so, communities of pr actice also allow each member to contr ibute his or her individual exper ience in the pr ocess of collective pr oblem-solving. Numer ous companies cur r ently offer softw ar e applications for hosting and administer ing communities of pr actice. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------IJIRIS: Mendeley (Elsevier Indexed) CiteFactor Jour nal Citations Impact Factor 1.23 Impact Factor Value – SJIF: Innospace, Morocco ( 2016) : 4.651| Indexcopernicus: ( ICV 2016): 88.20 © 2014- 20, IJIRIS- All Rights Reser ved Page -16 Inter national Journal of Innovative Research in Information Security ( IJIRIS) Issue 02, Volume 7 (Febr uary 2020) ISSN: 2349-7017 www.ijir is.com  Knowledge Transfer : A Retention Str ategy Although know ledge management and know ledge tr ansfer ar e r ar ely under taken w ith the singular goal of coping w ith the negative effects of turnover , this does not mean that they do not have potentially positive effects on r etention. As Hom (1985) points out, know ledge management pr actices can have a str ong, positive effect on r etention. They ar e usually pr emised on good communications, the development of skills in the w or kplace, and the valuing of employees’ inputs and contr ibutions. It is evident that such pr actices ar e not only impor tant but often cr ucial to building str ong employee commitment.  The Impor tance of Employee Retention When a business loses employees, it loses skills, exper ience and “cor por ate memor y”. The magnitude and natur e of these losses is a cr itical management issue, affecting pr oductivity, pr ofitability, and pr oduct and ser vice quality. For employees, high tur nover can negatively affect employment r elationships, mor ale and w or kplace safety (Muchinsky,& Mor r ow ,1980). The cost of replacing w or ker s can be high, the pr oblems associated w ith finding and training new employees can be consider able, and the specific w or kplace-acquir ed skills and know ledge people walk aw ay w ith can take year s t o r eplace. The pr oblem of turnover can be addr essed thr ough a var iety of pr o- active r etention str ategies: w or kplace policies and pr actices which increase employee commitment and loyalty. Know ledge tr ansfer initiatives on the other hand, ensur e that the know ledge and exper tise of a company’s employees its 'cor por ate memor y' ar e systematically and effectively shar ed among employees. They can offset the negative impact of tur nover , but can also w or k pr o-actively to r educe turnover by pr oviding lear ning and skills development oppor tunities to employees - factor s know n to r educe tur nover . Employee r etention and know ledge tr ansfer ar e tw o elements of a mor e gener al concer n that might be best ter med ‘skills management,’ that is, ever ything that has to do w ith r ecr uiting, maintaining and developing the necessar y mix and levels of skill r equir ed to achieve or ganizational and business objectives. III.METHODOLOGY 3.1 Introduction This chapter pr esents the pr ofile of Oil& Gas Sectors and also discusses the methodology employed by the r esear cher for the study w hich includes the administr ation of questionnaires to employees w ith specific duties at the Oil & Gas. This chapter again obser ved the resear ch design, sampling techniques, data collection tools as w ell as the method of data analysis. 3.2 Resear ch Design The main aim of this resear ch study is to examine the r ole of employee r etention on job per formance at Oil & Gas Sector s. A br oad r esear ch of this natur e w ould r equir e an appr oach bear ing in mind the population hence a descr iptive survey pr ocess of collecting data w as used in testing the hypothesis or r esear ch questions concer ning the status of the subject under study. For the pur pose of the study, this appr oach w as consider ed suitable as a method of eliciting infor mation needed in dr awing useful conclusions fr om the r esearch study. Other designs such as inter view s w er e also employed consider ing the subject under study. 3.3 Population & Sample The sample population of the r esear ch study w as made of Thir ty (30) employees compr ising of senior and junior level staff in the var ious depar tment and w ith specific duties and r esponsibilities at Oil & Gas. The under lying r eason w as that r espondents w ould be in good position to mention the r ole of employee r etention on the job per for mance at Oil & Gas. In addition, view s and opinions fr om the HR manager and customers w er e also consider ed to effectively contr ibute much in the r esear ch. 3.4 Sample Techniques A r andom sampling technique w as employed to select 30 employees out of a total r espondent’s population of 70 for the study. This technique w as used because it ensur ed that ever yone in the population had an equal chance of being selected. The goal of the sampling method used w as to obtain a sample that is a r epr esentative of the population. The techniques used by the r esear cher to select the sample size r equired pr ior know ledge of the tar get population w hich allow ed a deter mination of the size of the sample needed to achieve a r easonable estimate w ith accepted pr ecision and accur acy of the population. 3.5 Data Collection Procedure The r esear cher per sonally administer ed the questionnaire. Respondents w er e allow ed sufficient time of five w or king days to complete the questionnair e. The questionnair es contained a ser ies of str uctur ed questions w hich w er e r elated to the r esear ch w or k and dir ected to r espondents w ith the aim of gaining fir st-hand information. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------IJIRIS: Mendeley (Elsevier Indexed) CiteFactor Jour nal Citations Impact Factor 1.23 Impact Factor Value – SJIF: Innospace, Morocco ( 2016) : 4.651| Indexcopernicus: ( ICV 2016): 88.20 © 2014- 20, IJIRIS- All Rights Reser ved Page -17 Inter national Journal of Innovative Research in Information Security ( IJIRIS) Issue 02, Volume 7 (Febr uary 2020) ISSN: 2349-7017 www.ijir is.com The questionnair e consisted of both open ended and close-ended questions. Thus, in some cases, r espondents w er e to choose the option that best r eflected their opinions.The questionnair e affor ded r espondents much flexibility and pr ivacy in answ er ing the questions w ithout any undue influence. The questionnair e w as in simple and unambiguous language and as such, did not pose any pr oblem as r egar ds inter pr etation. The r esear cher per sonally conducted the inter view w ith the HR Dir ector w ho is also in-char ge of the Employee w elfar e and job per for mance. The per sonal inter view w as a face to face inter action. This method w as purposefully selected so that the r esear cher could inter act on a per sonal level w ith the HR Dir ector . 3.6 Secondary Sources Secondar y data w as selected as a sour ce of data collection for this r esear ch to enable infor mation to be obtained for liter atur e r eview for the study. The sour ces of secondar y data for this r esear ch consist mainly of published text books, employee ret ention jour nals, and other human r esource publications. Data w as also collected fr om academic jour nals and paper s that featur e ar ticles on str ategies for effective job per for mance and a number of r esear ch w or ks that have been published on the subject in the electr onic media. The advantages associated w ith this method among other sour ces of data collection ar e outlined as follow s: • Secondary data is r eadily available and is usually quite inexpensive • Collecting secondar y data and analyzing it saves time and effor t • Secondary data is unobtr usive. It is easily available and the r esear cher can get it w ithout much str uggle 3.7 Primary Sour ces of Data Bear ing in mind the size of the population, and subject under r eview , the r esear cher found it necessar y to use a str uctur ed questionnair e and inter view skills. This is as a r esult of the fact that the r espondents w ill feel fr ee to shar e infor mation about intimate and r elevant matter s concer ning the subject under r eview . For the pur pose of this study, primar y data compr ised of r esponses obtained thr ough questionnair es administer ed to tar get r espondents under study. The per sonal inter view method w hich w as also employed w as mor e flexible for both the r esear cher and r espondent. Ther e ar e sever al advantages associated w ith the use of this method and they include: Access to dir ect data or r esponse fr om selected r espondents Unbiased, Infor mation& Or iginal Data. 3.8 Resear ch Constr aints & Pr oblems Sever al challenges w er e encounter ed by the r esear cher in the administr ation of the questionnair es w hich have been outlined follow ing: Situations w her e r espondents w er e not met at all or even those pr esent had misplaced their questionnair es and new ones had to be given to them. Some r espondents having been assur ed of their anonymity of their per sonalities declined to offer any assistance to the r esear cher . IV. RESULT & DATA ANALYSIS 4.1 Introduction This chapter thor oughly examines and analyses the data gather ed on the sampled r espondents in under studying the r ole of employee r etention on job per for mance at Oil & Gas Sector s. These findings and the subsequent analysis car r ied out on the responses r elate to the key ar eas of employee r etention and its challenges on job per for mance. Responses fr om multiple questions in some cases w er e mor e than the sample size as r espondents had the option to choose mor e than one answ er . 4.2 Analysis of Findings A total number of Thir ty (30) employees comprising Fifteen (15) r esponses each fr om senior level staff as w ell as junior level staff r espectively. The tar get r espondents (senior level staff and junior level staff) w er e selected to pr ovide answ er s to the str uctur ed questionnaire. The employees w er e expected to pr ovide r easons for their choice of an answ er . 4.3 Findings fr om Senior Staff Category Responses fr om 15 Senior Level Staff Count Percent Does Oil & Gas make any r etention effor ts 8 53.33 Has anyone left Oil & Gas in the past six months 15 100 Is there a motivating team cultur e and improved r elationship str ategy 12 80 Employee r etention is one of the biggest challenges of businesses today 15 100 Effective employee r etention plan will help Oil & Gas 15 100 Ar e you satisfied w ith the r etention plan w ithin Oil & Gas 4 26.66 Will the pr ocess of employee r etention benefit Oil & Gas 11 73.33 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------IJIRIS: Mendeley (Elsevier Indexed) CiteFactor Jour nal Citations Impact Factor 1.23 Impact Factor Value – SJIF: Innospace, Morocco ( 2016) : 4.651| Indexcopernicus: ( ICV 2016): 88.20 © 2014- 20, IJIRIS- All Rights Reser ved Page -18 Inter nation ional Jour nal of Innovative Resear arch c in Infor mation Secur ity ( IJIRIS) IS) Issue 02,, Volume V 7 (Febr uar y 2020) ISSN: 2349-7017 www.ijir is.com 4.4 Inter pr etation of o Senior Staff The senior employees es w ere asked to indicate whether Oil il & Gas Sector s makes nay r etention on effor ts, a minimum of 8 r espondents r epr esent enting 53.33% mentioned that Oil & Gas G Sector s has indeed made some e effor e t in r etention. The question of w heth ther anyone has left Oil & Gas Sector or s in the past six months w as pr edom ominantly popular among the responses; all r espo spondents r epr esenting 100% mentio tioned that some employees have left eft Oil & Gas Sectors in the past six months. Reaso asons such as no employee benefits,, low l salar y and lack of oppor tunities ies for advancement w er e identified. Also the que uestion of whether ther e is a motivat ivating team culture and impr oved r el elationship str ategy at Oil & Gas Sector s w as answer an ed by 12 r espondents repr pr esenting 80% of total r esponden dents. They agr eed that a motivating team cultur ture and impr oved r elationship str ate ategy existed at Oil & Gas Sectors. The question of Empl ployee retention as one of the biggest bigg challenges of businesses toda oday disclosed that total r espondents (15) r ep epr esenting 100% mentioned that at they agr eed Employee r etention on is one of the biggest challenges of business sses today. Total r espondents fr om the th senior staff employees r epr esent nting 100% all shar ed the view that effective emp mployee r etention plan w ill help Oil il & Gas Sector s. This accor ding to the hem w as as a r esult of the w or th and value of the th human contr ibution to the job. ob. 4 r espondents r epr esenting 26.6 .66% w ho answ er ed the questionnair e disclose sed that they w er e satisfied with the he r etention plan w ithin Oil & Gas Sector Sec s. This figur e is ver y minimal and indicates es dissatisfaction among major ity off staff. s 4.5 Findings fr om Junior Ju Staff Categor y Respo sponses fr om 15 Junior Level Staff C Count Per cent 5 33.33 10 66.67 3 20.00 13 86.67 15 100 4 26.67 15 100 Does Oil & Gas Sector tor s make any r etention effor ts? Has anyone left Oil il & Gas Sector s in the past six months hs Is ther e a motivating ing team cultur e and impr oved r elation ionship str ategy Employee r etention n is one of the biggest challenges of businesses bu today Effective employee r e etention plan w ill help Oil & Gas Sector Se s Are you satisfied w ith the r etention plan w ithin Oil & Ga Gas Sector s Limited Will the pr ocess of employee em r etention benefit Oil & Gas as Sector s Limited 4.6 Inter pr etation of o Junior Staff Responses fr om Junio ior Staff a minimum 5 r espondents s r epr esenting 33.33% of total r espon ondents indicated that Oil & Gas Sectors make ke some r etention effor ts. Responde ndents added that a lot of conditio ditions expected to r et ain employees ar e not implemented, im such as ease of obtai taining financial suppor t in difficult lt times, non-r eflection of appraisal scor es in year y ly incr ement etc. 10 r esponden dents r epr esenting 66.67% fr om a ttotal of 15 r espondents indicated that mostt employees e have left Oil & Gas in the th past six months. Meanw hile, r espo espondents indicated that most employees feel el that they ar e w or th mor e than they the ar e actually paid at Oil & Gas Se Sectors. A minimum of 3 r espondents r epr esen senting 20% indicated that ther e w as a some kind of motivating team cultur c e and r elat ionship impr ovement str ateg egy at Oil & Gas. For instance, man anagement acknow ledges pr oductio tion staff w hen ther e ar e impr ovements in prr oduction o figur es, occasional get-tog together for cr oss-section of staff sponsor spo ed by the head of depar tment. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------IJIRIS:: M Mendeley ( Elsevier Indexed) CiteF eFactor Jour nal Citations Impact Factor Fac 1.23 Impact Factorr Value V – SJIF: Innospace, Morocco o ( 2016) : 4.651| Indexcoper nicus: us: ((ICV 2016) : 88.20 © 2014- 20, IJIRI S- All Rights Reser ved Page -19 Inter national Journal of Innovative Research in Information Security ( IJIRIS) Issue 02, Volume 7 (Febr uary 2020) ISSN: 2349-7017 www.ijir is.com They expected a significant impr ovement w ith the r etention str ategy w hich they disclosed w ould enhance motivation and impr ove r elationship. With r egards to the issue of w hether employee r etention is one of the biggest challenges of businesses t oday, 13 r espondents r epr esenting 86.67% of total r espondents mentioned that they agreed. All r espondents r epr esenting 100% disclosed that effective employee r etention plan w ill help Oil & Gas t o sustain their leader ship and gr ow th in the mar ketplace. How ever , only a minimum of 4 r espondents r epr esenting 26.67 indicated that they w er e satisfied w ith the r etention plan w ithin Oil & Gas. 4.7 Findings of Resear ch Resear ch has been balance the per spective of pr oblems so w e can empow er the r esponsibilities & factor s tow ar ds Employee Retention str ategies i.e.  Recognize & Appr eciate tow ar ds achievement,  Faith, Tr ust & Respect with all,  Rew ar ds (Gifts, Cer tificates etc)  Anniver sar y Gifts,  New Bor n Baby Gifts,  Scholar ship for employee’s Childr en  Get to-gather / Celebr ations,  Spor ts Events,  Monthly Bir thday Celebr ations,  Employee of the Month Scheme,  Employee of the Year Scheme,  Medical Health Per iodic Check-up,  Vehicle Facility for their Families (Once in a w eek),  Emer gency Response Team Ser vices 24X7 to all employees,  Hygienic & Good Food fr om Canteen,  Water & Shelter Facility in Wor k Place,  Employee Friendly HR Policies,  Benefits & Facilities tow ar ds Social Secur ities,  Per for mance Linked Bonus,  Best Suggestion Aw ar ds tow ar ds Or ganization Development,  Higher Education Scheme for Employee’s,  Loan Facility (Housing, Medical, Education, Mar r iage, Car ) The entir e above mentioned Employee Retention Str ategies scheme depends on the feasibility of the company.  Tur nover leads to mor e tur novers: When an employee ter minates employment w ith a company, the effect is      felt thr oughout the or ganization. Co-w or ker s ar e often r equir ed to pick up the slack. The unspoken negativity often intensifies for the r emaining staff. Goodwill of the company: The goodw ill of a company is maintained w hen the attr ition r ates ar e low . Higher r etention r ates motivate potential employees to join the or ganization. Retaining Efficiency: If an employee r esigns, fr om good amount of time is lost in hir ing a new employee and then tr aining him/ her and his and this goes to the loss of the company dir ectly w hich many a times goes unnoticed. Even after this you cannot assur e us of the same efficiency fr om the new employee. What make employees leave? Employees do not leave an or ganization w ithout any significant r eason. Ther e ar e cer tain cir cumstances that lead to their leaving the or ganization. The most common r easons can be the job is not w hat the employee expected. Sometimes the job r esponsibilities don’t come out to be same as expected by the candidate. Unexpected job r esponsibilities lead to job dissatisfaction and attr ition. Job and Per son Mismatch: A candidate may be fit to do a cer tain type of job w hich matches his per sonality. If he is given a job w hich mismatches his per sonality, then he w on’t be able to per for m it w ell and w ill tr y to find out r easons t o leave the job. No gr owth oppor tunities: No or less learning and gr ow th oppor tunities in the cur r ent job w ill make candidate’s job and car eer stagnant. Lack of Appr eciation: If the w or k is not appr eciated by the super visor , the employee feels de-motivated and loses inter est in the job. Lack of tr ust and suppor t fr om co-w or ker s, senior s and management: Tr ust is the most impor tant factor that is r equir ed for an individual to stay in the job. Non-suppor tive co-w or kers, senior s and management can make office envir onment unfr iendly and difficult to w or k in. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------IJIRIS: Mendeley (Elsevier Indexed) CiteFactor Jour nal Citations Impact Factor 1.23 Impact Factor Value – SJIF: Innospace, Morocco ( 2016) : 4.651| Indexcopernicus: ( ICV 2016): 88.20 © 2014- 20, IJIRIS- All Rights Reser ved Page -20 Inter national Journal of Innovative Research in Information Security ( IJIRIS) Issue 02, Volume 7 (Febr uary 2020) ISSN: 2349-7017 www.ijir is.com  Str ess fr om over wor k and wor k life imbalance: Job str ess can lead to w or k life imbalance w hich ultimately many times, lead to employee leaving the or ganization.  Compensation: Better compensation packages being offer ed by other companies may attr act employees tow ar ds themselves.  New Job Offer : An attr active job offer w hich an employee thinks is good for him w ith r espect to job r esponsibility, compensation, gr ow th and lear ning etc. can lead an employee to leave the or ganization. V. SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS  Summar y The pur pose of this r esear ch w as to evaluate the r ole of employee r etention on job per for mance at Oil & Gas Sector s. The r esearch commenced with a brief backgr ound to the study, statement of the pr oblem, objectives of the study, r esear ch questions and its significance and answ er ing the specific questions identified for the evaluation. The findings of this r esearch w ill have w ide implications for employee per for mance and effective r etention str ategies Oil & Gas must adopt to retain its pr omising staff. Retention is an impor tant concept that has been r eceiving consider able attention from academicians, r esear chers and pr acticing HR manager s. In its essence, retention compr ises impor tant elements such as the need for constant sear ch and choice of str ategies, goal-dir ected behavior s, r ew ar ds and r ecognition, per for mance-satisfaction and other s. The incr easing attention paid tow ar ds r etention is justified because of sever al r easons. Motivated employees come out w ith new w ays of doing things that impr ove the competitiveness of or ganizations. They ar e quality oriented and mor e pr oductive. Data analysis obtained fr om the r esear ch outlines the follow ing findings: Successful or ganizations r ealize by having an effective employee r etention plan w ill help them sustain their leader ship and gr ow th in the mar ketplace, incr eased taxes for the gover nment leading to increased r evenue. Good or ganizations make employee r etention a cor e element of their talent management str ategy and or ganizational development pr ocess ver y positive. Those that fail to make employee r etention a pr ior ity ar e at risk of losing their top talented people to the competition. A mor e attr active mar ket for job seeker s means that the sw itching costs of seeking new employment ar e no longer a significant factor in deciding w hether or not to leave an or ganization. The follow ing w er e key issues outlined by major ity of the r espondents: It was found out that, only 33.33% junior and 53.33% of senior staff mentioned that Oil & Gas indeed makes any r etention effor ts. Major ity of r espondents indicated that some of employees have left Oil & Gas Sectors in the past six months due to var ious r easons such as no employee benefit s, low salar y and lack of oppor tunities for advancement. All r espondents inter view ed disclosed that employee r etention is one of the biggest challenges of businesses today. A key disadvantage of employees leaving, accor ding to total r espondents inter view ed is inter r uption of customer ser vice because w hen an employee leaves, the r elationships that they built for t he company ar e sever ed, w hich could lead to potential customer loss. Trust is the most important factor that is r equir ed for an individual to stay in the job as r evealed by all r espondents. Additionally all r espondents fr om both senior and junior staff level indicated that if the w or k is not appr eciated by the supervisor, the employee feels de-motivated and loses inter est in the job. Major ity of employees disclosed that salar y has been their gr eatest challenge w or king w ith Oil & Gas. Majority of r espondents mentioned that they w ould classify the idea of making employees r ealize that they ar e the most valuable asset of the or ganization as the best pr actice in employee r etention str ategies. Employees in the junior staff level disclosed that it is incr edibly impor tant to include team member s in the decision making pr ocesses, especially w hen decisions w ill affect an individual's depar tment or w or k team. This can help to cr eate a cultur e of employee involvement and w ill gener ate new ideas and per spectives that top management might never have thought of. Again, a lar ge number of the r espondents w ere of the view that compensation and lack of tr aining and development w ere the main r easons w hy employees have been leaving Oil & Gas.  Conclusion Employees w ant to be r ecognized for a job w ell done. Rew ar ds and r ecognition r espond to this need by validating per for mance and motivating employees tow ar d continuous impr ovement. Rew ar ding and r ecognizing people for per for mance not only affect the per son being r ecognized, but other s in the or ganization as w ell. Thr ough a r ew ar ds pr ogr am, the entire or ganization can exper ience the commitment to excellence, w hen the r ew ar d system is cr edible and r ew ar ds ar e meaningful. How ever , if the rew ard system is br oken, the opposite effect w ill occur . Employees may feel that their per for mance is unr ecognized and not valued, or that other s in the or ganization ar e r ew ar ded for the wr ong behaviors. Unr ecognized and no valued per for mance can contr ibute to turnover . Recognition for a job w ell done fills the employees' need to r eceive positive, honest feedback for their efforts. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------IJIRIS: Mendeley (Elsevier Indexed) CiteFactor Jour nal Citations Impact Factor 1.23 Impact Factor Value – SJIF: Innospace, Morocco ( 2016) : 4.651| Indexcopernicus: ( ICV 2016): 88.20 © 2014- 20, IJIRIS- All Rights Reser ved Page -21 Inter national Journal of Innovative Research in Information Security ( IJIRIS) Issue 02, Volume 7 (Febr uary 2020) ISSN: 2349-7017 www.ijir is.com  Recommendation Retaining top talent r emains a pr imar y concer n for many or ganizations today. Cr itical analysis of w or kfor ce tr ends points to an impending shor tage of highly-skilled employees w ho possess the r equisite know ledge and ability to per for m at high levels, meaning that or ganizations failing to r etain high per for mer s w ill be left w ith an under staffed, less qualified w or kfor ce that ultimately hinder s their ability to r emain competitive (Rappapor t, Bancr oft, &Okum, 2003). Despite the vast liter atur e on employee tur nover, w hich is aimed at identifying factor s that cause employees to quit (e.g., Griffeth, Hom, &Gaer tner , 2000), much less is know n about the factor s that compel employees to stay. For example, Maer tz and Campion noted “r elatively less tur nover r esear ch has focused specifically on how an employee decides to r emain w ith an or ganization and w hat deter mines this attachment…r etention pr ocesses should be studied along w ith quitting pr ocesses” (1998, p. 65). Steel, Gr iffeth, and Hom added “the fact is often over looked, but the reasons people stay ar e not alw ays the same as the r easons people leave” (2002, p. 152). Retention is a cr itical element of an or ganization’s mor e gener al appr oach to talent management, which is defined as “the implementation of integr ated str ategies or systems designed to incr ease w or kplace pr oductivity by developing impr oved pr ocesses for attr acting, developing, retaining, and utilizing people w ith the r equired skills and aptitude to meet cur r ent and futur e business needs” (Lockw ood, 2006, p. 2). The latter par t of this definition is impor tant because it suggests that talent management pr ogr ams should be tailor ed to those w ho ar e most r esponsible for the or ganization’s success. In this study, w e focus on job per for mance as one indicator of employee value under the assumption that high per for mer s ar e most likely to possess the knowledge, skills, and exper ience necessary to contr ibute to the over all success of the or ganization. We also examine employees at differ ent job levels based on the pr emise that an or ganization’s most cr itical talent, w hether top management or line employees, may value differ ent aspects of what the or ganization has to offer w hen deciding w hether to stay. Thus, w e pr opose that under standing the r easons w hy people stay, on aver age, is an impor tant goal, but also contend that it may be mor e valuable to examine how these r etention factor s differ for high per for mer s and those at differ ent levels of the or ganizati on (Griffeth&Hom, 2001). Blanket r etention policies may be disadvantageous if they appeal to employees at all levels of per for mance, and or ganizations w ould w ant to adopt par ticular str ategies that contr ibute to the r etention of their most valued employees w hile avoiding contr ol methods that w ould appeal pr imar ily to aver age or low per for mer s (Steel et al., 2002). In terms of job level differ ences, many talent management pr ogr ams emphasize developing and r etaining the gr oup of employees w ho have potential to occupy the top leader ship positions w ithin the or ganization in the near futur e. To this end, Oil & Gas can benefit fr om know ing w hether r etention r easons differ based on job level, w hich might then call for differ ent r etention str ategies depending on w her e individuals reside w ithin the or ganizational hier ar chy. 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