A study of the different aspects of staff retention strategies - A comparison between small, medium and large German knowledge companies

Inhaltsangabe:Introduction: The main capital of knowledge companies is the knowledge of their employees. More and more staff working in knowledge companies do not work ‘physically’ at the company’s office. Very often, this staff stays at offices provided by the customers. In certain cases, the staff does not see their employers organisation for months and sometimes they do not even have contact with their employer’s organisation or their ‘real’ colleagues for months This is especially true for consultancy and insurance companies. The result is that these kind of knowledge workers tend to develop a bigger commitment and psychological bonding with the customer’s organisation than with the employing company that pays their salary. The same process of commitment can be seen from the customers’ perspective in consultancy companies. Very often a customer ‘buys’ a knowledge worker for a special task. Often the knowledge worker stays much longer than the original task lasts. After a certain time the knowledge worker is integrated in the customer’s organisation and has taken responsibility for things other than the original task. He becomes ‘part of the furniture’. It is not unusual in such cases that the customer tries to entice away the knowledge worker. This happens regardless of contract penalties. For knowledge companies, as for companies in similar business environments it is therefore of vital importance to develop and implement a strategy of staff retention. The focus of this research is to examine the different tools used in strategies in staff retention in different companies and how successfully they are implemented in knowledge companies. Three different types of companies will be investigated as case studies. They are different in size and their main field of business activity. The case studies focuses on three different organisations, the ACT AG a middle-sized consulting company, which is specialised in IT consulting organisations in the financial and public sector, the Kreissparkasse Koeln (KSK) a local Bank with about 160 branches and the Deutsche Krankenversicherung (DKV) a international insurance company. The aims and objectives of this research will be investigated from both viewpoints, the management and the workforce. It will be of interest how the different tools used in staff retention strategies work and what their main drivers are. All three companies will be compared regarding these matters. From the feedback received, any [...]