Because of the impact they have on an organization, special attention should be given to turnover among managers, professional personnel and those employees with unique skills. Replacing these employees can be expensive and time-consuming. In order to apply the most appropriate turnover reduction strategies, management must first determine the cause of turnover behavior. To facilitate this, management needs to establish appropriate turnover categories. For example, turnover can be classified as involuntary or voluntary.
Involuntary turnover occurs when an employee is discharged or terminated, often for just cause.
Voluntary turnover occurs when an employee leaves by the employee's own choice, and can be caused by a number of factors. These may include poor job feedback, job dissatisfaction, unmet job expectations, performance problems, situational constraints, socialization difficulties, greater degrees of job stress and a lack of career advancement opportunities. After computing appropriate turnover rates, an organization frequently can determine the reasons for employee separations by compiling and comparing the results of exit interviews by employee group, department, division, etc. Questionnaires also may be used to study turnover. From this type of study, management can determine what probably caused employees to quit and whether the most influential factors are controllable to some degree.