Towards a Work-Related Turnover Risk Management in Manufacturing SMEs

Abstract: The shortage of skilled workers in Germany caused by demographic change steadily increases. In the manufacturing sector, this situation leads to difficulties filling vacant positions and thus to extended vacancy periods of jobs in companies. Therefore, the turnover of skilled workers becomes a problem, especially in small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises, as individual positions are not filled redundantly. High costs due to temporary workers or the rejection of orders can be the consequences. Turnover research has been conducted for a long time, but there is a lack of a standardized method to capture the turnover risk of skilled workers. This paper presents an approach for the systematic assessment of turnover risk in manufacturing work. The method is based on an employee survey. The results are transferred into a risk matrix in order to derive the level of risk for work-related turnover of individual employees. To ensure a cost-, personnel- and time-efficient implementation in the operations of SMEs, the method will be transferred into a software application. In this way, the turnover risk can be made transparent. The user can select specific measures evaluated according to manufacturing-specific performance indicators. These measures should help SMEs prevent the turnover of critical specialists and avoid high costs caused by long vacancy periods of jobs.

Keywords: Risk assessment, Employee Turnover, Human-centric Manufacturing, Work system

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1002797

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