WHAT SMALL BUSINESSES AND SMALL HOSPITALS SHOULD KNOW ABOUT EMPLOYEE RETENTION

Organizations that fail to maintain an aggressive and effective employee retention program will allow their talent to walk out of their doors taking with them training and job experience that will benefit the gaining organization. Literature has shown that there are identifiable factors that cause employees to leave their employers and seek opportunity elsewhere. Once healthcare-related business and medical practice managers are aware of these factors, a set of initiatives can be implemented to avoid this loss of human capital. The purpose of this paper is to explore what other business entities have experienced regarding employee retention issues and identify those intrinsic factors that affect employee turnover. Taking Responsibility for Human Resource Management Some small hospital administrators, business owners, and medical practice managers glibly abdicate strategic human resource initiatives by unwittingly accepting “employee turnover of physicians, nurses, and support staff, as a necessary and inevitable cost of doing business ” (Waldman, Kelly, Arora, & Smith, 2004, p. 2). However, they are failin