Reducing Voluntary Employee Turnover in Small Construction Companies for Long-term Productivity

Voluntary employee turnover has caused considerable damage to small construction businesses, significantly affecting productivity, profitability, and sustainability. Based on job embeddedness theory, this qualitative multiple case study aimed to explore strategies small construction business owners use to reduce voluntary employee turnover. Participants were 4 successful small construction business owners in Virginia who successfully implemented strategies that reduced voluntary employee turnover by 75% over 5 years. Data were collected from company documents and semi-structured interviews. The three primary themes that emerged from the data analysis were; effective human resource management, favorable working conditions, and employee engagement. A key recommendation for small construction business owners is to improve human resource management, working conditions, and employee engagement. Reducing voluntary employee turnover is critical to business cost reduction and increasing key business processes’ performance. In addition, small construction business owners may use the results of this study to offer job stability to employees and increase families' and governments' incomes to realize some basic projects from revenue generated by employees’ vast career opportunities.