Staff retention is crucial to maintaining workplace productivity, improving organisational performance and achieving consistency in business growth over time. A high turnover of staff can not only be disruptive to service delivery and productivity, but also require ongoing recruitment and induction initiatives. Sales, revenue, profitability and customer experience are just some examples of what can be negatively impacted by high rates of staff turnover within a business. Some industries consistently endure high rates of staff turnover. Leaders in the hospitality industry for example, are constantly challenged with the task of minimising the disruptive impact of high staff turnover on service delivery, workplace productivity and customer experience.

Leaders are not only required to maximize staff contributions in the workplace for organizational effectiveness, but must also retain their skills and capabilities to maintain their organization’s competitive advantage (Harris et al., 2011). An organisation’s leaders can have a significant influence on the intention to quit among staff and by adopting innovative leadership practices shown to reduce the intention to quit, it may be possible to improve staff retention and minimise the need for ongoing recruitment initiatives.

Improved staff motivation and job satisfaction can serve to minimise the intention to quit among staff. If leaders are able to improve employee moral and build an improved level of commitment among employees to the business, they may indeed be better placed to reduce the negative impact of staff turnover both on their business and customers. For these reasons a leader’s ability to inspire their staff and build positive workplace attitudes can become so critical.