| Course | HRM 548 Recruitment and Retention Practices (HRM/548) |
|---|---|
| Week | 6 |
| Paper type | Retention and total rewards strategy |
| Length | about 1,218 words, 4 double-spaced pages plus title page and references |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | University of Phoenix |
| Program | MBA |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for HRM 548 Week 6
Why Members' Favorite Tellers Leave and What Would Make Them Stay: A Retention and Total Rewards Strategy for Saguaro Valley Credit Union
[Student Name]
University of Phoenix
HRM/548: Recruitment and Retention Practices
Week 6 Assignment
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
Saguaro Valley Credit Union and all survey and turnover data are composites written for a model paper.
Over five weeks, the composite Saguaro Valley Credit Union has redesigned how it plans, sources, selects, offers and sets policy. Its central problem remains: 44 percent annual turnover among member service representatives, 17 percent among lending staff and a new fraud team that competitors will try to recruit. Members notice when a familiar teller disappears, and branch managers spend much of their time hiring and training. Retention is not a program added after hiring; it is the sum of what an organization offers people once they discover what the job is really like. This paper builds a retention strategy and total rewards package that completes the course's talent plan.
Who Leaves
Separation data for two years show that 70 percent of member service departures occur in the first 18 months. High performers, defined as the top quarter of performance ratings, leave at 31 percent a year, mostly for promotions elsewhere. Lower performers leave at higher rates, many involuntarily. Among lending staff, departures cluster among mortgage loan officers recruited by banks with higher commissions.
Why They Leave
Exit interviews cite pay, schedules, lack of advancement and supervisors. A stay survey, which asked 600 current employees why they remain, found that coworkers, the credit union's mission, tuition assistance and good supervisors were the main reasons. The difference between why people leave and why they stay suggests where to invest.
Research on Turnover Drivers
Allen et al. (2010) reviewed evidence on common misconceptions and found that people do not leave mainly for pay, that managers can influence retention and that turnover's causes differ across groups. Hausknecht et al. (2009) studied reasons employees gave for staying and found that high performers more often cited advancement and organizational prestige, while hourly and lower-level employees more often cited extrinsic rewards such as pay and benefits.
Job Embeddedness
Mitchell et al. (2001) introduced job embeddedness to explain why people stay: the ties they have formed with coworkers and neighbors, how well the work and the place suit them, and what walking away would cost them. In their data, these ties explained quitting even after accounting for how satisfied and committed people said they were. For new tellers with few links and little to lose, embeddedness is low, which helps explain why departures cluster in the first 18 months.
Building Embeddedness Early
The strategy strengthens links through peer mentors for every new representative, team-based branch goals and community volunteer days in which members and staff work together. It strengthens fit through the realistic previews and structured selection from Weeks 3 and 4. It raises what employees would give up through tuition assistance, tenure-based pay steps and a vesting schedule in the 401(k) match.
Total Rewards: Compensation
Pay will be set at the market median with tenure steps of $0.50 an hour at six, 12 and 24 months for member service representatives, rewarding people for staying through the riskiest period. Gerhart and Fang (2015) reviewed research showing that pay can improve performance and attract stronger employees without necessarily undermining intrinsic motivation, which supports pay that rewards both tenure and performance.
Total Rewards: Career Paths
A defined career ladder moves member service representatives to senior representative, then into lending, operations or fraud roles. Each step has posted requirements, training and a pay increase. The internal mobility policy from Week 5 ensures managers cannot block moves. A target is that 10 percent of representatives move into new roles each year.
Total Rewards: Flexibility and Schedules
The predictable scheduling and hybrid work policies from Week 5 form the flexibility component. Branch staff receive first choice of schedules and a branch premium, balancing hybrid options available to contact center and back office staff.
Total Rewards: Benefits and Learning
The credit union will continue its health plan, raise the 401(k) match from 3 to 4 percent with three-year vesting and promote tuition assistance in recruiting and onboarding. A financial wellness benefit, fitting for a credit union, will offer employees free counseling and low-rate emergency loans.
Total Rewards: Recognition
Recognition will tie to behaviors that matter: member compliments, accuracy, fraud catches and mentoring new staff. Peer nominations and small awards will be paired with recognition from senior leaders. Recognition is low cost and signals what the organization values.
The Role of Supervisors
Supervisors shape daily experience, scheduling and development. The strategy trains branch and contact center supervisors in coaching, fair scheduling and conducting stay conversations every six months. Supervisors' scorecards will include team retention and internal promotions.
Segmenting by Job Family
For member service representatives, the focus is early embeddedness, tenure pay steps, schedules and career paths. For mortgage loan officers, it is competitive commission structures and reduced administrative work. For fraud analysts, it is market pay, remote flexibility, certification support and a retention bonus of 10 percent of salary paid after two years.
Costs
The strategy adds about $1.6 million a year: $520,000 for tenure steps, $380,000 for the higher 401(k) match, $250,000 for fraud and lending retention measures, $180,000 for supervisor training and mentoring and $270,000 for the financial wellness program, recognition and administration.
Expected Savings
If member service turnover falls from 44 to 30 percent, about 73 fewer departures a year at $11,500 each save about $840,000. Lending and fraud retention gains and reduced agency use add about $450,000. Better service continuity and fewer errors add value that is harder to measure. The direct return is near break-even in the first year and positive as turnover falls further.
Not All Turnover Is Bad
Some turnover is healthy. Departures of low performers who could not meet accuracy standards open roles for better-matched hires, and some movement brings new ideas. The strategy therefore targets regretted turnover, the loss of employees rated as meeting or exceeding expectations, rather than total turnover. Managers will classify each departure, and HR will audit the classifications to keep them honest. The goal is to cut regretted member service turnover in half while accepting that some departures are good for members and the team.
Stay Conversations
Rather than waiting for exit interviews, supervisors will hold short stay conversations with each employee twice a year, covering the reasons they came back this month, anything tempting them elsewhere and one change that would help. Answers will be summarized for HR without identifying individuals, giving leadership an early warning system. Supervisors will be trained to act on what they hear and to report requests they cannot meet.
Integrating the Course
The talent plan now runs from workforce forecasting in Week 1, through employer branding, structured selection, competitive offers and policies, to retention. Each part reinforces the others: better selection improves fit, realistic offers set expectations and policies and rewards keep people.
Measures
The credit union will track turnover by job family, performance level and tenure; first-year retention; internal fill rate; engagement; and stay survey results, reporting quarterly to leadership.
Conclusion
Saguaro Valley's turnover is concentrated among new member service staff and high performers seeking advancement. A retention strategy built on job embeddedness, segmented total rewards, career paths, schedules, recognition and better supervision addresses the reasons employees gave. Costs are substantial but largely offset by savings, and the strategy completes a talent plan that begins with hiring the right people.
References
Allen, D. G., Bryant, P. C., & Vardaman, J. M. (2010). Retaining talent: Replacing misconceptions with evidence-based strategies. Academy of Management Perspectives, 24(2), 48-64. https://doi.org/10.5465/amp.24.2.48
Gerhart, B., & Fang, M. (2015). Pay, intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, performance, and creativity in the workplace: Revisiting long-held beliefs. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 2, 489-521. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-032414-111418
Hausknecht, J. P., Rodda, J., & Howard, M. J. (2009). Targeted employee retention: Performance-based and job-related differences in reported reasons for staying. Human Resource Management, 48(2), 269-288. https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.20279
Mitchell, T. R., Holtom, B. C., Lee, T. W., Sablynski, C. J., & Erez, M. (2001). Why people stay: Using job embeddedness to predict voluntary turnover. Academy of Management Journal, 44(6), 1102-1121. https://doi.org/10.2307/3069391
What the HRM 548 Week 6 instructions ask
The last HRM 548 assignment often asks students to develop a retention strategy supported by a total rewards approach. Typical requirements include analyzing turnover patterns and causes using exit, stay and survey data; applying retention theory such as job embeddedness; designing total rewards that combine compensation, benefits, career development, flexibility and recognition; tailoring strategies to different employee groups; estimating costs and returns; and setting measures. Many prompts ask students to integrate earlier work on recruiting and selection. Use data and research to justify each element, show the financial case and reference sources in APA format.
How this HRM 548 Week 6 example is built
When a credit union's best tellers keep leaving for banks, retailers and remote call centers, HR needs to learn why some people stay, and the paper starts with stay interviews as well as exit data. It finds that high performers leave for advancement while others leave for pay and schedules. It explains job embeddedness, which shows why links, fit and what people would give up matter. It designs total rewards: market pay with tenure steps, a career ladder into lending and fraud, the scheduling and hybrid policies from Week 5, recognition and a retention bonus for critical roles. It segments strategies by job family, estimates costs and savings, sets quarterly measures and ties the course's six weeks into one plan that leadership can track.
HRM 548 Week 6 grading rubric: where the points go
A strong retention paper diagnoses turnover by group and reason, then designs total rewards that address those reasons rather than raising pay across the board. Faculty credit the use of exit and stay data, accurate application of theory such as job embeddedness, attention to high performers and critical roles and a realistic view of pay's role, neither ignoring nor overstating it. A cost and return estimate shows business judgment. Integrating earlier recruiting, selection and policy work demonstrates command of the course. Measures, owners and APA citations complete an excellent paper. Faculty also notice whether the strategy distinguishes desirable from undesirable turnover and whether it explains how the plan will be adjusted if early results disappoint, since retention programs rarely work exactly as designed.
HRM 548 Week 6 help: mistakes to avoid
Students frequently assume people leave mainly for pay. Research shows pay matters, but so do supervisors, advancement and fit. Use the organization's data. Another gap is treating all turnover as bad; losing low performers can be healthy. Focus on who leaves. Students also design rewards without costing them. Estimate both costs and savings. Avoid generic recognition programs with no link to behaviors that matter. Segment strategies, since tellers and fraud analysts want different things. Remember supervisors, who shape daily experience. Finally, connect the strategy to the recruiting and selection work from earlier weeks, since retention begins with hiring the right people.
Related HRM 548 sample papers
Other HRM 548 week samples
- HRM 548 Week 1: Workforce Planning and Assessment
- HRM 548 Week 2: Employer Branding and Sourcing
- HRM 548 Week 3: Selection Methods
- HRM 548 Week 4: Offers, Negotiation and Relocation
- HRM 548 Week 5: Employment Policies
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HRM 548 Week 6 questions, answered
What does HRM 548 Week 6 usually cover?
It usually covers retention strategy and total rewards: analyzing turnover, applying retention theory, designing compensation, benefits, career, flexibility and recognition elements and estimating costs and returns.
Where can I find a free HRM 548 Week 6 sample paper?
This page holds the full retention and total rewards plan for a Phoenix-area credit union, annotated choice by choice. Your own final paper can start from a free draft if you send the prompt.
What is job embeddedness?
A theory explaining why people stay based on their links to people and groups, their fit with the job and community and what they would sacrifice by leaving, which predicts turnover beyond job satisfaction.
What are total rewards?
Everything an employer offers in exchange for work, including pay, benefits, career development, flexibility, recognition and the work environment, designed together rather than as separate programs.
Do employees leave mainly because of pay?
Pay matters, but research finds that job satisfaction, supervisors, advancement opportunities, schedules and fit also drive turnover, and reasons differ between high and low performers and between job types.
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