Contributos para a problemática da retenção na GRH: uma revisão sistemática

Abstract

This paper aims to present the results of a systematic analysis to the literature on retention of employees in organizations, in the last 10 years. The problem of retention has become increasingly relevant since the contexts in which modern organizations operate require the need to develop a set of retention practices (Kaye and Giulionim, 2016) in response to successive economic phases marked by prosperity or crisis. A number of researches have underlined the importance of the topic, given the convergence it has assumed with the increase in turnover and unemployment over the past decade. In this regard, Sullivan and Mainiero (2008) argue that increasing the number of unemployed does not mean increasing the number of people available with the skills that today's organizations need. On the other hand, there is a tendency to increase turnover, since in the past employees changed their organization a maximum of three times during their working lives. However, the average time spent by employees in an organization in recent years has been 3.3 years (Leidner & Smith, 2013). This study emerges with the purpose of exploring the explanatory factors and practices of human resource management of the retention of employees in organizations. In order to answer the question “which are science’s contributions to retention employees problematic”, an extensive systematic review of the published literature between 2006 and 2015 was developed. For the data collection, four phases were considered: (1) identification of information sources; (2) definition of the research protocol (criteria for the admission of scientific documents); (3) systematic collection of scientific papers; (4) analysis of the content of each document. The sample is composed by 188 documents dealing with the retention of employees, published between 2006 and 2015, written by 375 authors. International scientific papers are indexed to the Web of Science and SciVerse Scopus databases and the remaining scientific papers are registered in the scientific data repository RCAAP (Scientific Repository of Open Access of Portugal) and in the database of doctoral theses, made or recognized in Portugal, made available by DGEEC (Directorate General of Statistics of Education and Science). The results obtained allow us to present a synthesis of the information that is reflected in the advances of the investigation, in all the extension of the problem of retention and, thus, it infers on the explanatory factors of the retention of the following areas: (1) employees in general; (2) by business sector; (3) within human diversity; (4) by organizational context; (5) within international missions; (6) by roles; (7) by company size; and (8) by generation. We concluded that most of the scientific investigations publications are made in Europe and in U.S.A., and the quantitative method is the most used one. In response to the key question, this study reveals a major development of science in the employees retention explanatory factors identification (individual, organizational, role and context linked) and practices that promote the retention, implicit to various HRM processes. The organizational factors are the ones that most affect retention, specially the good relationship with hierarchical superior and colleagues. The HRM practices with good impact on retention, are associated to processes like selection and recruitment, reception and integration, professional development (performance management, training, career management), rewards system, organizational culture and managing change. We conclude that, for the practice, the main contribution is in the possibility of HR organizations and specialists being able to reach higher levels of retention of their employees, know the factors that have been explaining the retention capacity, since it is a study in the Portuguese and international context, within the framework of the systematic review of the literature on employee retention.