Retention Program: The Case of Jacobs Engineering

MGMT 953: Human Resources Management

Final Project

Title: Retention Program: The Case of Jacobs Engineering (JESA)

Prepared by: Asma bendriss (4904370)

                     Nabil El Fquir (4984754)

                 Sara Akvan (5127075)

                     Soheil Arzang (4952066)

Supervised by: Dr. Wayne James

Spring 2015

Table of Contents

I/ Introduction:        

II/ Company Overview:        

III/ The Issue Faced by the Company:        

1-        Background information of the issue:        

2-        The Issue:        

3- The causes:        

IV/ Company’s managerial response:        

1-        Short term solutions:        

2-        Long term solutions:        

V/ Recommendations:        

1- Selection:        

2- Professional growth:        

3-        Provide career direction:        

4-        Meaningful work and ownership of growth:        

5-        Recognition and reward:        

6-        Culture and environment:        

7-        Promote work life balance:        

8-        Acknowledge achievements:        

VI/ Conclusion:        

VII/ References:        

VIII/ Appendix:        

I/ Introduction:

Employee retention has grown very popular in the past few years due to endless job vacancies available, thus, urging companies to introduce effective retention programs in order to keep their best employees. Research defines employee retention as managerial practices that are implemented to maintain employees and reduce their risk of leaving the organization (Al-Emadi, Schwabenland & Qi 2015). There are many different ways a firm may wish to retain their employees including training, recognition, appraisals, and empowerment (Lookadoo 2015). Employee retention is crucial specifically when it comes to turnover costs whereas the employer will be responsible for both monetary costs such as hiring and training, as well as non-monetary costs such as loss of knowledge and expertise (Al-Emadi, Schwabenland & Qi 2015). Therefore, organizations have recently found the need to integrate human resource practices within the business to maintain and support retention programs (Kim 2012). Similarly, research has proved that employee retention has become more important than hiring (Al-Emadi, Schwabenland & Qi 2015).

In the case of Jacobs Engineering (JESA), they have been recently facing high turnover rates mainly due to lack of culture knowledge and awareness. JESA entered Morocco with minimal culture familiarity and thus, did not enforce any local adaptability. Similarly, JESA entered the country based on generalization as it viewed Morocco as being similar to other countries they operate in within the region (UAE and Saudi Arabia); however, Morocco’s culture is completely different. Likewise, JESA entered Morocco with the intention to gather information and knowledge but what they were unaware of is the protective culture in which Morocco operates in whereas Moroccans do not feel comfortable sharing or giving out information to others. Lastly, JESA hired an American CEO who only knew two languages (fluent English and moderate French) however, they ignored the fact that Moroccans take their education very seriously and for a person at that position to be viewed as ‘well educated’ and ‘well-respected’, he was expected to know at least three languages including English, French, and Spanish. Thus, JESA had a very weak entry into the country due to the lack of prior culture research. Other factors that contributed to the increase in turnover rates include discrepancies in salaries between Moroccans and expats, lack of training, and many more that will be discussed throughout the report.

For JESA to solve this issue, we highly encourage them to introduce a retention program that still does not exist within the business operations. Research shows that employee retention programs can be characterized as either context-generalizable or context-specific whereas context-generalizable states that retention programs can be effectively implemented across all subsidiaries while context-specific states that retention programs may require local adaptability (Reiche 2008). We recommend that JESA introduces a context-specific retention programs to allow for greater flexibility and effectiveness, Reiche argues that MNE’s “need to align their transferable home-country retention practices with overall strategy and complement them with flexible context-specific practices to allow for adaptability across different subsidiaries” (2008, pp676).

II/ Company Overview:

The focus company for this project is going to be Jacobs Engineering (JESA) that is the result of a joint venture between Jacobs and OCP (Cherifian Phosphate Office). Jacobs is considered as the third largest engineering company in the word while OCP is an International leader in the phosphate and phosphate derivatives markets, OCP has been a pioneer in the international market since its creation in 1920. JESA’s head office is in Casablanca, Morocco and was created in August 13, 2010.

JESA shares the same values as Jacobs that are mainly basing the work environment on relationship, growth, and finally considering the people as their greatest value. The goals behind those values as stated by JESA internal reports are:

• Consolidation of harmony within the company
• Spreading the company culture
• Supervising the decision procedure.

In the beginning of 2012, JESA was already employing 376 people at the level of the agency. The composition of the workforce was the following: 61% locals, 26% from Jacobs, and 13% from OCP. The workforce was diversified and had more than 8 nationalities  (USA, France, UK, India, Pakistan, Morocco, etc.). The top management of JESA has set the goal to achieve a majority of locals in the agency (95%) by the end of 2012. However by the end of 2014, only 85% of the workforce was local. In order to enlarge its workforce, JESA has opted for acquisitions, due to what they have more than 1000 employees.