How can talent remain within the business? : A qualitative study on employee retention activities and strategies within the retail sector

Since the retail industry has been drastically affected due to the growth of online shopping, companies have become more aware of higher competition in their current physical stores. Since there is still demand for companies to have physical stores, they have to understand the values those remaining physical stores possess and understand the undergoing changes in the sector. The change has created a value of digitalization and as it looks the digital environment remains cheaper than labour work in stores which in turn creates a certain attraction of lowering cost and maximizing profit. But statistics have shown that retail suffers low retention rates, and it relates to costs of recruiting, education, loss of sales, service quality and much more. It has become more important due to the high turnover cost to retain employees, and especially those who are “talented” and to attract those employees has become more important. Our research is based on different literature which revolves around the fields of employee retention factors and retention strategies within the retail industry. There is a high academic attention towards retention strategies in general, but far less attention is paid towards the retail industry. We chose a manager approach toward investigating our research questions, since the majority of earlier studies have based their research from employees' perspectives toward why they leave their jobs, or why they stay. Our thesis answers the research question of “What strategies or activities are made by managers in order to retain talented employees within the Swedish retail sector?”. In order to find an answer to our research question, we conducted a qualitative study which involved interviewing managers within the Swedish retail industry. Through thematic analysis we discussed different key takeaways from our empirical findings, which we compared to our theoretical framework, in order to later conclude our discussion into our conclusion chapter. Our findings show how different retention factors, namely: Social support, development opportunities, autonomy, compensation and work life balance are being implemented in practice within different organizations. While our thesis provides answers on how retention factors are being implemented within the Swedish retail sector, it is necessary to research the subject further in order to gain more detailed insights on the implementation of the retention methods and strategies used, as well as gaining an employee perspective on how the effectiveness of each method and strategy are being perceived