Unacceptable Turnover at Vestas

A factory consists of numerous moving parts that, at times, make it difficult to keep up. People need the proper training when on a production floor or they run the risk of getting injured. I work for the wind turbine manufacturer, Vestas, and we take pride in providing employees with the proper training. Employee turnover can be a by-product of the lack of training.

In this paper I want to discuss the philosophical shift that has taken place at my place of employment since I first started. In the beginning, our People and Culture department took great pride in searching for and finding overly qualified applicants to staff the new factory. The original workforce consisted of anything from Journeymen electricians to Airline mechanics with many of the people having their degree. Great expense went into the hiring process of all these highly qualified employees. While starting up the second shift less attention has been paid to the calibre of employee. Temporary employees of less qualified experiences were hired to save money, but in fact I believe it has resulted in more expense and ultimately more turnover.

A colleague and I were talking the other day and the topic of turnover came up. We started to count all the different people that we knew had either quit or been fired. We took the time to count those from our original classes who were no longer with the factory compared to those of the temporary workers. The numbers were staggering. That conversation made me think what could be the contributing factor that made all these people leave the company. These were people, even though they were temporary, who were offered fully paid health benefits at a time where those perks are hard to come by. Were they not trea...

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... This quarter was a busy one for me but luckily I was able to connect to content of the course material and apply it to my professional life. Psychology is an imitating subject at times but the fact that it was based around an organizational format made it more relatable. Thank you for being understanding of my different points of view which sometimes makes people question me. I will apply the material and strategies that I have learned to my career going forward. Thanks again for a great class and best of luck in the future.

References

Herman, R. (1997). Reducing costly employee turnover. HR Focus, 74(6), 15.

Lawson, H. (2010). Reducing Employee Turnover in Your Lab. Labtalk, 38(23G), 38

Palmer, W. W., & Dean, C. C. (1973). Increasing Employee Productivity and Reducing Turnover. Training & Development Journal, 27(3), 52.