Abstract:
Talented and skilled employees are vital to the success of any organisation. Lack of human
resources strategies for developing skills, motivating teams and above all, lack of
understanding of needs of employees have contributed to the increased rate of employee
turnover. This research aims to empirically examine the three strategic human resource
management (SIIRM) enhancement practices, i.e. ability, motivation and opportunity from
the resource-based perspective to determine which practice is more influential to employee
turnover in the banking sector. Data were collected from senior managers, human resource
managers and executives in Sri Lanka by employing a self-administered questionnaire
which were subsequently analysed using structural equation modelling. The findings from
238 respondents suggest that all the three SHRM practices exerted significant effect on
employee turnover, in the order of ability enhancement practices, motivation enhancement
practices and opportunity enhancement practices. The results imply that SHRM practitioners
should bear in mind the coherence between the three practices, giving emphasis to
improving work abilities of employees and building a positive work environment, as well as
providing more opportunities for talents to utilise their work experiences. The findings also
fetched several theoretical implications which are elaborated in the paper.
