Turnover: Mobley's Model
The first model that evolved and dominated the field for a great amount of time was Mobley’s (1977) Model of the Turnover Process. This model demonstrates just how complex the decision for an employee to quit truly is. Mobley (1977) suggests that an employee’s decision to leave a job occurs in multiple stages. The figure above presents a modified version of Mobley’s Model (1977) that displays the decision process employees go through when confronted with the idea of leaving their job. For more a more in depth explanation of what is mean't by this model click on Mobley's Model Simplified below to further explore what happens at each step of the turnover process.
How organizations can deal with the different types of Turnover
Mobley’s Model (1977) presents the idea that there are two types of turnover that are associated with employees leaving an organization. The first type is recognized as avoidance turnover (Britt & Jex, 2008). With avoidance turnover this is when employees leave an organization because of dissatisfaction with their job and during their decision process to leave, the organization could have stepped in and prevented them from leaving (Britt & Jex, 2008). The first step an organization could take toward preventing employees from leaving is by monitoring employee satisfaction levels. Since an employee’s satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their job is the first part of this model, this would be what organizations should address first if they have a turnover rate problem. This demonstrates how job satisfaction impacts an individuals decision to leave an organization or not. The key for organizations is to keep satisfaction levels high among their employees so they don't decide to leave.
To prevent turnover that is avoidable from hapening organizations could monitor their employee satisfaction levels by administering questionnaires that measure employee satisfaction. There are many types of questionnaires that could be administered to measure satisfaction levels. One of these questionnaires is the Job Satisfaction Survey, which highlights areas where the employee has low levels of satisfaction with their job. For example, the survey could reveal an employee has low satisfaction with aspects such as the nature of their work, the opportunities for promotions, and their pay. This survey would then tell orgaizations areas of employees' jobs that may need some improvement inorder for their employees to become more satisfied with the work they are doing. Since this survey does not provide an overall satisfaction score the organization could also administer the short form of the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire. This questionnaire is similar to the Job Satisfaction Survey except it also provides an overall satisfaction score. Essentially the main ideas is, If an organization regularly monitors their employee’s satisfaction levels they can prevent employees, who are dwindling in the evaluation step of Mobley's Model (1977), from following through with their decision to leave (Britt & Jex, 2008).
The other form of turnover this model demonstrates is referred to as unavoidable turnover. This is situations that causes the employee to leave and the organization can do nothing to prevent the employee from leaving. This could be situations such as a spouse being transferred to a new location or a family member getting sick so the employee has to leave their job to go take care of them. There are many situations that occur where an employee has to leave their current job and it is out of the organization’s control to keep them from doing so (Britt & Jex, 2008).
To prevent turnover that is avoidable from hapening organizations could monitor their employee satisfaction levels by administering questionnaires that measure employee satisfaction. There are many types of questionnaires that could be administered to measure satisfaction levels. One of these questionnaires is the Job Satisfaction Survey, which highlights areas where the employee has low levels of satisfaction with their job. For example, the survey could reveal an employee has low satisfaction with aspects such as the nature of their work, the opportunities for promotions, and their pay. This survey would then tell orgaizations areas of employees' jobs that may need some improvement inorder for their employees to become more satisfied with the work they are doing. Since this survey does not provide an overall satisfaction score the organization could also administer the short form of the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire. This questionnaire is similar to the Job Satisfaction Survey except it also provides an overall satisfaction score. Essentially the main ideas is, If an organization regularly monitors their employee’s satisfaction levels they can prevent employees, who are dwindling in the evaluation step of Mobley's Model (1977), from following through with their decision to leave (Britt & Jex, 2008).
The other form of turnover this model demonstrates is referred to as unavoidable turnover. This is situations that causes the employee to leave and the organization can do nothing to prevent the employee from leaving. This could be situations such as a spouse being transferred to a new location or a family member getting sick so the employee has to leave their job to go take care of them. There are many situations that occur where an employee has to leave their current job and it is out of the organization’s control to keep them from doing so (Britt & Jex, 2008).