EVALUATING THE FACTORS AFFECTING EMPLOYEE RETENTION STRATEGY IN PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES.

Employee retention is an emerging concept in branches of Human Resource Management (HRM). The employee retention concept seems to be expensive, and it is not globally adopted by all pharmaceutical companies. These companies need to be aware of the value of efficient employees and their contribution to the economic growth of their companies. The primary aim of management should be employee retention which will enable companies to reap benefits in the long run. As found in various government and association medical representatives' reports, employee attrition rates in pharmaceutical companies are high when compared to various other sectors. This creates high level of mismatch between employee demand and supply for medical representatives. The objective of the research study is to identify the various factors that are influencing employee retention and also examine the various inter-relationships that exists among those factors. An empirical study was performed to collect data from 128 medical representatives in Salem, Tamilnadu, India through a self-administered questionnaire method. Convenience sampling technique was adopted. The research involved quantitative analysis using the IBM SPSS (version 23) software package and also determined percentage analysis and factor analysis. Structural equation modelling is used to analyse factors such as Monetary Rewards, Work Pressure and Performance and other perquisites which influences employee retention for pharmaceutical companies. The outcome of the study reveals that there exists a high level of inter-relationship amongst these factors which have significant impact on employee retention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]