Absence of conflict of interest.
Citation
Jackson, S. (2014). Influential leadership in a diverse retail environment: implications for reducing voluntary employee turnover. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from ProQuest. Accession No. 1640901590.
Highlights
- The study’s objective was to examine the impact of a retail store management intervention on voluntary employee turnover.
- The author used a nonexperimental design to compare the rate of voluntary turnover of employees in stores whose management received the intervention with the rate of stores in the same retail chain whose management did not. The author estimated impacts using store administrative data on employee turnovers as well as an employee opinion survey.
- The study found that treatment group stores experienced a decrease in voluntary employee turnover and that the comparison group stores did not. The author did not test this outcome statistically.
- The quality of causal evidence presented in this report is low because the author did not ensure that the groups being compared were similar before the intervention. This means we are not confident that the estimated effects are attributable to the retail store management intervention; other factors are likely to have contributed.
Intervention Examined
The retail store management intervention
Features of the Intervention
The intervention was a bundle of retail management techniques developed by the study author and were promoted for use in a retail chain establishment. The study author called the four techniques communication, answering, recognition, and training (CART). CART included the following elements: (1) Communication daily with store employees about essential business concerns and functions, (2) answering employee questions or concerns as soon as possible within a 24-hour period, (3) recognition of employees’ achievements in a public forum, and (4) training applicable to job duties that is aligned with industry standards and monitored and measured. These four techniques form what the author refers to as the qualities of “influential leadership” of an organization’s workforce.
As district manager of the stores in the treatment condition, the author required that these store managers implement or increase their use of CART techniques and record their use of these strategies for a period of 60 days on a daily tally sheet.
Features of the Study
The author used a nonexperimental design to compare the rate of voluntary turnover of employees in stores whose management received the intervention with the rate of stores in the same retail chain whose management did not. The author estimated impacts using data on employee turnovers at three treatment and three comparison stores as well as an employee opinion survey completed by 279 employees. Employees receiving a survey were randomly sampled from all eligible employees in those stores. Most employees were primarily Spanish speakers and were immigrants from other countries.
Study Sites
The study was conducted among store managers and employees at six stores in the same retail chain. Three stores in Northern Virginia and Maryland were in the treatment group, which the author of the study managed as the district manager. Three other stores in Maryland formed the comparison group.
Findings
Employment
- The study found that treatment group stores experienced a decrease in voluntary employee turnover and that the comparison group stores did not. The author did not test this association statistically.
- The study found that, for employees in the treatment group, there was a significant association between experiencing more of the intervention elements (communication, answering, recognition, and training) and being in stores with lower turnover. There was no such significant association for employees in the comparison group.
Considerations for Interpreting the Findings
The author noted, but did not account for, existing differences between the groups on voluntary employee turnover before intervention participation. These existing differences between the groups—and not the retail store management intervention—could explain the observed differences in outcomes.
Causal Evidence Rating
The quality of causal evidence presented in this report is low because the author did not ensure that the groups being compared were similar before the intervention. This means we are not confident that the estimated effects are attributable to the retail store intervention; other factors are likely to have contributed.