Onboarding consists of the training and development a new hire receives in their first six months (Barksdale et al., 2003). Continuance commitment" is "... the result of an individual's decision to remain in an organization because of the personal time and resources already devoted to the company and because of the economic costs of changing jobs" (Commeiras & Fournier, 2001, as cited in Barksdale et al., 2003, p. 239).RJPs link directly to expectations about the reality of the job, but also expectations about compensation, especially in a commission-based role (Darrat et al., 2021).
As mentioned earlier, in addition to the elements of the Barksdale et al. 2003) framework, we added compensation and supervisor support to our conceptual framework because the Barksdale et al. 2003) model did not include these elements. The answers to these questions are captured in the following statements listed in the RJP section of the survey: Specifically, we interviewed former and current sales representatives from the DCT-DFW franchise location who voluntarily agreed to participate in the interview and current sales employees.
One of the survey questions asked participants if they would be willing to participate in an interview. We took notes of our initial conversation with the owner, but we did not record and transcribe his assessment of the problem. The highest-rated questions in the survey were: "The employees made me feel welcome when I came to work" and "I felt comfortable approaching other employees if I had a question." The distinctive, people-oriented culture is permeated our research, but socialization involves more than a friendly introduction experience.
We return to Van Maanen and Schein's (1979) definition of socialization as “…the process by which an individual acquires the social knowledge and skills necessary to assume an organizational role” (p. 211). we look at Barksdale et al. 2003) socialization framework, we will discuss the elements that influence retention based on this definition that goes beyond handshakes and hugs. One of the highest scores (4.38 out of 5) from the study was for the participant's satisfaction with their personal development, which is directly related to TSSE (Barksdale et al., 2003). Of the 507 comments regarding turnover (intent to leave), there was a lack of role clarity based on our coding methodology.
The owner tried to cater to individuals and tried to shape and adapt the roles to the wishes of the individual. Although the participants considered the owner to be a great motivator, they did not learn the skills needed to succeed in a sales role, a critical component of socialization. Five out of six, or 83%, left the company within two years of their start date.
Part of the reason may be related to the fact that the participants performed different work tasks and occasionally focused on sales. We found no evidence that salespeople received tactical training outside the sales office that included direct observation and feedback. Our evidence showed us that there was a lack of role clarity stemming from the owner not having an RJP and failing to recognize the difficulty of the sales role.
As mentioned earlier, the gap between job difficulty and reward leads to unmet expectations that often lead to employee turnover (Darrat et al., 2021; Lopez et al., 2006).
Literature Search Methods
The search for articles also includes screening the reference section of relevant studies to identify additional articles. Inclusion criteria include dates published in the period 1975 to 2022 for meta-analysis and the period 1962 to 2022 for primary studies. The search also included articles published in English; The included study types were quantitative, qualitative and peer-reviewed.
Finally, we used the Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome and Context (PICOC) method to help search for studies relevant to describing the occupational context. The literature on the topic of salesperson retention is extensive and offers a variety of reasons why turnover occurs.
Email Invitation to Participants
We are contacting you because you worked for Dale Carnegie and we want to learn about your experience. As Vanderbilt PhD students, we are conducting research with a Dale Carnegie franchise to improve sales employee retention. The first $25 is available to participants willing to take this short survey (about 10 minutes) until October 30th.
Please indicate if you are willing to do an interview by replying to this email or let us know if you have additional questions about this project by October 30th. The professional information and contact information of the research team are listed at the bottom of this email.
Follow up email to Participants
Survey (survey)
Your participation is voluntary and you can withdraw from the survey at any time. Based on your knowledge of your current role, how accurate was what you were told about your position before you started and during your initial training?”. I find the role of salesman in DCT extremely difficult. The pay corresponded to the degree of difficulty of the work.
My experience doing the job matched how the job was described to me when I interviewed. Strongly disagree Disagree Neither agree nor disagree Strongly agree Strongly agree I knew exactly what was expected of me. Based on the experience you had in your sales role, rate how satisfied you were with your performance.
I felt personally connected to other employees. The employees welcomed me when I joined. Using the scale below, how would you rate the training you received in each of the following areas. What concerns or worries did you have about your sales career at DC?
Use the scale to indicate how concerned you were about each of the following issues. I would have been very happy to spend the rest of my career with this company. My supervisor took enough time to talk about my progress at work.
Let us know if you would be willing to talk to us about your experience by including your contact information.
Interview Protocol
Interview Email
Draft Script
My research partners and I are enrolled in the doctoral study program Leadership and Learning in Organizations. We are wrapping up our final capstone project, which requires us to work with an organization to help solve a practice problem they are facing within the company. That's why we worked with your current/former employer, Dale Carnegie, to help them understand why salespeople leave the company.
Your participation in the study is completely voluntary, which means that you can decide to withdraw from this conversation at any time. I will report the findings of this study in full and will maintain confidentiality and protect your identity by using only. I will follow up with a thank you email and include my contact information and Vanderbilt.
Interview Questions
Coding Booklet
Realistic Job Preview (RJP) - How well the job description, as explained before the employee's hire date, matched the reality of the job. Role Clarity (RC) - How well the job was explained and how much authority they had to do the job after they were hired. Relates to confusion due to lack of alignment and clarity among managers and includes difficulties and hardships associated with the job.
Examples correspond to ambiguity around goals, milestones and metrics and how the task should be accomplished. Barksdale defines role clarity as the “explicit or implicit agreement with the work group that articulates what tasks recruits should perform, what the priorities of the tasks are, and how recruits should allocate their time among the tasks.” (Barksdale, 2013). Each coder will add an abbreviation in the body/text of the interview whenever a theme is mentioned in the interview, including the brackets.
If a theme falls outside the 9 themes, the coder will label that phrase or sentence with (O) - Other, indicating that the researchers will need to revisit those sections to determine if a new theme is warranted. So it felt a lot you were really it was an interesting sales cycle was interesting sell unique and then for us I think it was really our particular franchise and I don't have to go into a lot of that (SWO). I think there's been a lot of turnover, which is probably good while you're all doing it.
And so I kind of felt like it was constantly a moving target if you know, what is success (RC). It sounds like it's always hard to know if you'll actually ever sell (JS) (SE) in your career. There was a very good sales training by Dale Carnegie corporate that I personally attended that I thought was a very, very well rounded program.
And then, because I was part of a very small group, I personally received special attention from some of the more experienced cells. There are two experienced cells in our group and then the owner, so it was very easy, I think, for me to acclimatize (SE). And then as we've tried to expand, I don't know that there's always been an opportunity to get new sellers through the program very quickly.
Coding Results (attrition-based comments)
So then you just move a corporation, I think if I just had to put my finger on it, I think it's just growth without structure and enough support in (T) (SE) (LS) applications growth.
Coding Results (retention-based comments)