The Long-Term Influence of Service Employee Attrition on Customer Outcomes and Profits
研究利用一家临时帮助服务公司的64个业务单元数据，发现员工自愿离职和裁员会破坏员工与客户的关系，进而损害客户感知的服务品牌形象和未来盈利能力。
The authors proposed and tested a model linking service-employee attrition, customer-perceived service outcomes, and financial performance utilizing time-lagged data obtained from 64 business units of a temporary help services (staffing) firm. Using the notion of relational assets, the authors predicted that employee attrition (both voluntary turnover and downsizing) would disrupt the existing stock of relationships between customer-facing employees and their customers, which would have negative effects on customer outcomes and future financial performance of business units. The authors found that (a) the relationship between voluntary turnover and customer-perceived service brand image (SBI) was fully mediated by customers’ evaluations of service delivery, (b) the relationship between downsizing and SBI was fully mediated by the customer orientation levels of the unit staff, and (c) SBI significantly predicted future unit profitability. These findings point to critical factors that leaders must address when experiencing elevated levels of turnover or considering downsizing. These include focusing on developing customer orientation levels among employees through the effective use of selection, training, performance management, and compensation, minimizing employee voluntary turnover by creating positive work environments, and factoring in the long-term costs of downsizing on the organization’s SBI and future profitability.