EXPLORING THE LINK BETWEEN TURNOVER INTENTION AND SALES FORCE PERFORMANCE: STRATEGIES FOR EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT
Prof. Dr. Jagannath Patnaik Vice Chancellor, ICFAI University, Sikkim
Abstract- Due to a lack of "job satisfaction," the "personal selling" profession is plagued by high turnover rates. Employees' "turnover intention" increases as a result of low job satisfaction, which ultimately results in "turnover" at the right time. It has been demonstrated conclusively that there is a negative correlation between job satisfaction and intention to leave. The goal of this study is to find out if there is a contradictory "positive"
relationship between job satisfaction and intention to leave, also known as "dysfunctional turnover intention." The study also looks into whether or not practicing managers are able to identify this intention for dysfunctional turnover and, if so, what strategies are used to manage it. The findings confirm that the study participants have a "dysfunctional turnover intention"; where there is extraordinary positive connection between 'work fulfillment' and 'turnover aim'. In addition, it appears that the line managers have devised their own methods for dealing with cases of this kind that are dysfunctional.
Keywords: sales team; industry of pharmaceuticals; satisfaction at work; purposeful turnover; turnover; functionality.
1 INTRODUCTION
Sales force plays roles that span boundaries and frequently serve as brand ambassadors for customers, particularly in business-to-business marketing situations. As a result, the sales force's stability and contentment become crucial to marketing success and the development of loyal customers. This is especially true in the pharmaceutical sector, where due to the technical nature of the products and legal restrictions on marketing, the organization's marketing efforts are almost entirely dependent on sales force. For the past two decades, the Indian pharmaceutical industry has served as a gauge for the Indian economy alongside the information technology sector. Policy support, increased healthcare spending, which reached 4.0%
of GDP in 2012, according to the World Bank (2014), and increased medical insurance penetration have all contributed to the industry's buoyancy (McKinsey, 2013). In terms of volume and value, the Indian pharmaceutical industry contributes 10% to global pharmaceutical production. Indian generic drug production accounts for 20 percent of the world's total volume of generic drugs.
According to Kodgule (2012), India exports to 200 nations and has the greatest number of USFDA-approved manufacturing plants outside of the United States. There are currently 150,000 medical representatives in India,
as stated by the FMSRAI (Federation of Medical & Sales Representative Association of India) (Joe, 2014). This number is expected to rise to 300,000 by 2020, according to McKinsey & Co.
(McKinsey, 2013). Indian pharmaceutical companies currently spend about 22% of sales volume on marketing. Sales representatives account for 67% of marketing costs, or about 15% of total sales. The sales force cost, which includes their salaries and allowances, accounts for 8-10% (Express Pharma, 2013) of the total volume of sales, according to IMS.
By the end of 2013, this would amount to approximately 6000–7500 crore rupees (1–1.25 billion USD) per year.
Pharmaceutical selling has not been an appealing preposition for young job seekers, despite its significance. Due to a number of factors, the profession is less desirable; a travel schedule that makes it hard to stay at home and have a social life, the profession's low social recognition (like any sales job), and intense competition that makes it hard for customers to buy. Chari and Gupta (2014) found that pharmaceutical sales and marketing professionals had a turnover rate between 25% and 30% in the Mumbai region. Line managers' reports also point to the same trend. The national sales manager of a major international corporation stated that his division had a turnover rate of
approximately 20%. A major Indian pharmaceutical company's general manager of sales also said that the pharmaceutical sales force had about 20% turnover. This turnover has an immense expense related with it. There are both direct and indirect ways that turnover costs money. The immediate expense incorporates division expenses, enlistment and preparing expenses of new representatives and loss of deals due to non portrayal. Loss of implicit knowledge, effects on remaining employees, and employee migration to rival businesses are all examples of indirect costs.
Organizational effectiveness decreases and organizational instability rises as a result of staff instability.
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
There are three distinct notions of job satisfaction, employee turnover, and turnover intention in the literature review.
The three are connected because it is assumed that dissatisfied workers typically leave the company in search of a more fulfilling job. However, this is not a one-time event and begins with the intention to quit before the actual act of quitting.
2.1 Job Satisfaction
Due to its impact on organizational effectiveness, job satisfaction has been one of the most studied attitudes. Be that as it may, there has been no legitimate outline of the parts because of changing ways of thinking. According to Rosenberg and Hovland's (1960) ABC model of attitude, it is a tripartite construct.
Behavior, cognition, and affection are the three components of the attitude. The evaluation of the attitudinal object is the outcome of the cognitive part, which is evaluative in nature. The affective part is how you feel about the attitude, and the behavioral part is how you plan to act in response to the attitude. Work fulfillment, being a mentality, has additionally been managed from every one of the three points separately or in mix by scientists.
This is proven by the definition of job satisfaction. According to Locke (1976), "A Pleasurable or Positive Emotional state resulting from Appraisal of one's Job or Job Experience" is the definition of job satisfaction. From an affective point of
view, this is a clear approach to job satisfaction. Misener and co. Job satisfaction, according to 1996), is a multifaceted construct that includes feelings about the intrinsic and extrinsic aspects of the job. This treatment is based on cognitive processes, and job satisfaction is measured using job attributes (also known as job facets, job characteristics, and job factors). Corner et al. ( According to a definition published in 1992, it is "An Affective Reaction (that is, emotional) to one's Job, resulting from the incumbent's Comparison of Actual Outcomes with Desired (expectated, deserved, etc.)" The approach taken here is both cognitive and affective. According to Hulin and Judge (2003), job satisfaction is a multidimensional psychological response to an individual's job that includes cognitive, affective, and behavioral components. As a result, researchers have approached the issue of job satisfaction from a variety of perspectives within the tripartite construction of attitude. Any behavioural intention regarding the job is preceded by affective job satisfaction, which is an overall evaluation of the position.
Therefore, the study only measures affective job satisfaction and not satisfaction with the various aspects of the job. The link between job-related behaviors and job satisfaction has led to its prominence. Although the relationship between job performance and job satisfaction has not always been consistent, Anyway the connection between work fulfillment and hierarchical execution has been indisputable. Ostroff (1992) asserts that businesses with satisfied employees perform better than those with dissatisfied employees.
Employees who are content also have better organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Employees who are content contribute to the improvement of the organization through innovation and skill development, assist coworkers, and offer suggestions. The entire organization benefits from improved OCB (Bommer et al., 2003). Turnover, among disappointed specialists, is additionally more and this causes extreme shakiness of staff and can decrease hierarchical adequacy.
Additionally, employees who are less satisfied are more likely to report mental
and physical illnesses (Griffin and Bateman, 1986). Life satisfaction (Judge and Watanabe, 1994), attendance at work (Smith, 1977), withdrawal behaviors and turnover decisions (Carsten and Spector, 1987), and job performance (Judge et al.,) are additional effects of job satisfaction.
2000), involvement on the job (Elloy and Terpering, 1992), and stress at work (Ramnathan, 1990). Job characteristics, demographics, culture, and personality have all been examined for their impact on job satisfaction. Mishra (2013) examined the relationship between the following factors and job satisfaction in pharmaceutical workers: compensation, management, unfaltering quality of business, states of work, social connection of the gig, brief settlement of complaints, fair treatment of boss, Age, orientation, Motivations, Working Climate, Instruction and term of work.
2.2 Employee Turnover
According to the business dictionary (www.businessdictionary.com), labor turnover is also known as "the ratio of number of employees that leave company through attrition, dismissal, or resignation during a period to the number of employees on payroll during the same period." According to Abassi and Hollman (2000), employee turnover is the movement of workers across employers, occupations, and employment and non- employment states in the labor market.
According to Price (1977), "the number of organizational members leaving during a period divided by the average number of people in the organization during the period" is the definition of employee turnover. Woods (1995) characterizes turnover as a cycle that beginnings with Intentional or Compulsory excursion of a position and afterward the entire course of recruiting, preparing and supplanting of the situation with another worker.
"Termination of the process of individual obtaining material income from the organization," according to Mobley (1977).
Turnover is viewed through the lens of a wage-labor contract in this definition. In terms of their capacity to reduce organizational performance, employee turnover has a negative impact on the company. One of the greatest effects of turnover is concerning the expense
engaged with turnover. It has been extremely challenging to learn every one of the costs engaged with turnover as certain expenses are immediate and apparent, where as others have been circuitous and undetectable. The immediate expenses included can be to a great extent ordered in to partition expenses, substitution and preparing costs. The morale of the remaining employees may be impacted, tacit knowledge may be lost, sales or service quality may suffer, trade secrets may be lost with the departing employee, and so on. The cost of turnover has been viewed in a variety of ways. Johnson and others 2000) estimates that the cost of employee turnover is approximately half of the annual salary for the position. As a result, it is essential to minimize employee turnover whenever possible to boost organizational performance. It takes on a greater significance in a field like pharmaceutical sales and marketing, where marketing efforts are heavily dependent on sales forces. According to reviewed research, employees' intentions to quit are negatively correlated with job satisfaction. Employees who are less satisfied are more likely to leave their jobs than employees who are more satisfied.
However, this is not a one-time event;
rather, it is preceded by an intention to quit period characterized by general disengagement from their work. They look at and look over the opportunities that are available before giving up when they find the right one.
2.3 Turnover Intention
According to Henneberger and Souza-Poza (2002), "The (subjective) probability that an individual will change his or her job within a certain period of time" is the definition of turnover intention. Medina (2012) says that an employee wants to work for a different company within the next year. "Turnover intention is a measurement of whether a business's or organization's employees plan to leave their positions or whether that organization plans to remove employees from positions," is how Curtis (2014) defines it. Tett and Meyer (1993, p.262) considers turnover expectation as: ' the deliberate and conscious decision to leave the organization. The use of turnover aim,
to concentrate on genuine turnover, has been generally pervasive. Because it is a representation of actual turnover, turnover intention is significant. An
"Intention to leave" is said to moderate the relationship between job satisfaction and turnover, according to Price and Mueller (1981). According to Mobley's (1977) model of employee turnover, dissatisfaction with one's job leads to the idea of quitting and subsequent actions toward finding a new job. Due to the requirement of longitudinal data, research has restricted the measurement of actual turnover. Turnover intention is a widely used indicator of turnover that has been found to have a strong correlation with turnover (Hom and Griffeth, 1991). The ambiguous empirical relationship between actual turnover and turnover intentions has also made research on turnover intentions challenging. "Turnover intentions" was found by Steel and Ovalle (1994) to be a better predictor of turnover.
A longitudinal report, by Dollar and Suggest (2006) showed a positive relationship between's turnover aim and turnover. The data from the employee attitude surveys for the years 1997, 2000, and 2003 served as the foundation for the study, which was carried out among employees of the Federal Aviation Administration. The turnover rate, expressed as a percentage of intention to turnover, varied, with some years having higher turnover rates than intention; a possible sign that the market is doing well.
According to Yücel (2012), one of the most prominent antecedents of turnover intention and organizational commitment is job satisfaction. Sharma and Nambudiri (2015), while concentrating on the representatives of Indian data innovation area, secured Position Fulfillment to be a mediator in the connection between Occupation recreation struggle and Turnover Goal.
Both organizational commitment and turnover intention, according to Tarigan and Ariani (2015), have a significant negative relationship with job satisfaction.
However, in their research on unskilled labor, Puangyoykeaw and Nishide (2015) discovered no connection between Job Satisfaction and Turnover Intention.
3 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
The following were the goals of the current study, which was conducted in the Indian context: The first goal is to determine whether there is a contradictory and dysfunctional relationship between "Job Satisfaction-Turnover Intention," or whether satisfied workers intend to leave their jobs and dissatisfied workers decide to stay on. The second goal is to find out how functional managers find and handle cases like these that are at odds with one another. It specifically investigates how managers determine why contented employees leave and dissatisfied employees return.
4 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The subject was approached in this study in a positivist manner. It had two goals and adjusted different procedures. Using cross-sectional data, empirical evidence was generated to prove or disprove an existing theoretical assumption in order to investigate the contradictory relationship between job satisfaction and intention to leave. The survey's findings were used to comprehend how turnover functionality is identified and managed.
Subject matter experts were consulted after the initial cross-sectional data analyses revealed some intriguing patterns. A "descriptive" survey was followed by an "exploratory" survey in the overall design, which was "sequential exploratory" using mixed methods.
For the purpose of determining the relationship between job satisfaction and intention to leave, multistage cluster sampling was used as the sampling method. New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkatta were chosen to represent the North, West, South, and East zones of the country, which was divided into four zones. The subjects were intercepted on the ground at the locations of any three major pharmaceutical distributors selected for the respective cities. A Subject Matter Expert (SME) panel of nine pharmaceutical sales and marketing professionals served as the sample for the second objective. The SME were industry veterans who had worked in the field for at least ten years. They came from middle and upper management levels, as well as the front lines.
For the primary objective, the data were gathered through a seven-item self- administered questionnaire. Mobley et al.
measured "affective satisfaction" with the job with a four-item BIAJS (Broad Index of Affective Job Satisfaction) scale and a three-item turnover intention scale. In 1978, the "turnover intentions" were measured. From "definitely agree" to
"definitely disagree," the instrument used a five-point Likert scale. To test the scales' comprehension, a small group of 20 pharmaceutical sales and marketing professionals participated in a pilot test.
All of the participants agreed that the scale was clear and easily understood.
These scales had previously been utilized in an Indian setting as well (Ghosh et al., 2015; (2012) (Menon and Thingujam). A semi-structured in-depth interview (IDI) conducted by M.A. Sanjeev, N. Abidi, and A.V. Surya was used to collect data from the SME panel for the second objective.
Memoing was used to gather the data. For the first objective, descriptive data were analyzed using SPSS, while for the second objective, grounded theory was utilized.
5 CONCLUSIONS
Every manager and employer strives for employee retention in order to boost organizational performance. This is particularly obvious in associations that are subject to handle staff for their showcasing endeavors. Intentions to leave an organization and job satisfaction are both good indicators of upcoming turnover. Although there is a negative correlation between them, this may not always be the case. There are examples when a profoundly fulfilled representative might show high goals of turnover and the other way around might be valid at times.
5.1 Managerial Implication
One of the most important managerial tasks is staffing, which is essential to a manager's success. Unhappy work is one of the main reasons employees leave their jobs. Employees who are dissatisfied leave their jobs in search of better opportunities. However, it's possible that there isn't a traditional negative correlation between job satisfaction and turnover. Around 29% of the representatives have useless turnover goal, where the connection between work
fulfillment and turnover expectation is positive. A manager in practice must distinguish between these dysfunctional situations, in which the relationship between job satisfaction and turnover intention may be contrary to the normal negative relationship. However, rather than using any measurement that is readily available, this must be accomplished by examining employee behavior and tacit knowledge derived from experience. This study's findings indicate that the behavior of the functional and dysfunctional turnover intention is very different, and that the same behavior can be used to evaluate the turnover intention's functionality. According to the manager's assessment of the situation, if the employee is found to be desirable (as in the case of a dysfunctional leaver, about 18 percent of the time), he or she should take the necessary steps to keep them (as in the case of a dysfunctional stayer, about 11 percent of the time) or to facilitate their turnover (as in the case of a dysfunctional stayer, about 18 percent of the time). The standard strategy of increasing job satisfaction through appropriate interventions should be taken into consideration for employees with functional turnover intention (about 62%).
5.2 Limitations and Future Research Any organization suffers from dysfunctional turnover intentions, which impede its ability to achieve organizational objectives. The current investigation into dysfunctional turnover focuses solely on pharmaceuticals as an industry and sales and marketing as a functional specialization. The extrapolation of the results to other industries and functional areas of an organization will be limited as a result of this. In order for managers to better deal with dysfunctional turnover intentions and turnover among their subordinate professionals, future studies must examine this phenomenon across other industries and functional areas.
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