A Descriptive Analysis of Strategies for Reducing Voluntary Employee Turnover in the Current Business Environment

A skilled and experienced workforce gives an organization a competitive advantage. Organizations that can persuade their most valuable asset, the employee, to stay employed over a prolonged period drastically improve their chance of survival and enjoy continued success; however, convincing them to stay is one of the toughest challenges for managers. Furthermore, replacing key employees is very costly, and organizations must develop a fully consolidated policy that entices their employees to stay employed and committed to the organizational strategic plans. This study aims to critically analyze the various studies on reducing voluntary employee turnover, highlight factors responsible for employee departure, and the initiatives that can be applied to persuade them to stay. Recent devastating natural disasters, the raging effects of the covid 19 pandemic, technological enhancement, innovation, and globalization have brought stiff competition for a skilled and knowledgeable workforce. As the study is descriptive, several secondary articles are analyzed to summarize and synthesize fragmented knowledge and organize the literature review in a terse format. Therefore, the literature review will present traditional and contemporary strategies for reducing voluntary employee turnover. Additionally, more emphasis is put on factors such as the leadership style of superiors, ability to exercise control concerning decision-making and problem-solving, desire for career advancement and skills development, conducive working environments, and ever-increasing aspiration for retention of key employees

Characteristics of calcined palm oil pastes for biosilica extraction as a function of calcination temperatures

Palm oil production in Malaysia has increased over the years. As the consequence of high production of palm oil, surplus quantities of palm oil biomass wastes such as empty fruit bunches (EFB), palm kernel shell (PKS), and oil palm decanter cake (DC) are generated. Generally, these wastes are used as fuel to generate steam for boilers, which end up as ash. As several agricultural wastes are well-known to be rich in silica content, this study aims to investigate the bio-silica content of EFB, PKS and DC and their characteristics when calcined at various calcination temperatures from 400°C to 800°C. Several analyses were conducted such as weight loss, color, BET, SEM and FTIR. The results have shown that all samples favorably exhibited silica at higher temperatures, i.e., 800°C. Color analysis depicted that combustible elements were mostly removed at 800°C, leaving non-combusted silica in the waste ash. Weight loss analysis presented that EFB achieved the highest weight loss at 99.05%, followed by PKS at 95.65% and DC at 83.95%. This led to a relatively high amount or purity of silica in the sample. BET analysis showed highest surface area, 20.087m2/g (PKS) and the lowest is 9.492m2/g (DC) at 800°C which verified the high porosity of samples for further absorption applications. The presence of silica was also significantly observed in 800°C FTIR spectra for all waste samples. Overall, it is concluded that EFB, PKS, and DC are highly potential wastes to contribute to the production of bio-silica, which thus can be an option to overcome waste disposal issues in palm oil industries

Pressure calibration in solid media high pressure apparatus in the range 0-10 GPa.

The pressure dependence of the resistance of tin, lead and13; manganin samples, at 300K has been investigated with a view13; to assessing their suitability as pressure gauges, for the13; continuous determination of sample pressure in apparatus13; using solid pressure transmitter. The opposed anvil apparatus (0-10 GPa) and the cubic anvil apparatus (0-5 GPa) with talc as pressure transmitting medium have been used to pressurize samples. The resistance-pressure data for the tin, lead and manganin samples obtained in the present work have been compared with those in hydrostatic medium.13; It has been observed that the sample pressures can be determined to an uncertainty of + 0.05 GPa at 2.5 GPa and + 0.25 GPa at 8 GPa, using tin as a pressure gauge in the opposed anvil apparatus and + 0.05 GPa up to 5 GPa in the cubic anvil apparatus. Using lead as a pressure sensor, the uncertainty in the determination of sample pressure is + 0.05 GPa up to 5 GPa in the cubic anvil apparatus. The large dimensional changes occurring in lead samples during pressurization in the opposed anvil apparatus makes lead unsuitable as a pressure sensor.A value 0.037:!:O.OOl/GPa for the pressure co-efficient of resistance of manganin wire sample has been obtained and is higher than. 023/GPa, the hydrostatic value.The reasons leading to this increase have been discussed

Pressure and temperature calibration of the cubic press

A cubic press has been constructed in the workshop and installed in the Materials Science Division. This technical memorandum. describes the pressure and temperature calibration of the cubic press. With a 13 mm square anvi11 pressres upto 45 kbar and temperatures upto 1600xB0;C have been reached

Evaluation of an ultra-brief psycho-education and referral intervention provided to patients presenting to a hospital emergency department with symptoms of panic attack

People who experience panic attacks are frequent utilisers of hospital Emergency Departments (EDs). The ED setting provides an opportunity to provide ultra-brief interventions, specifically by referring these patients to specialist mental health care. This study attempted to evaluate the effectiveness of an ultra-brief psycho-education and referral intervention, a panic information card (PIC), currently distributed at three Victorian EDs. Participants were a convenience sample of 72 individuals (20 males and 51 females, 1 unspecified) who had presented to an ED for panic symptoms in the past 12 months. Individuals self-identified as either a card receiver (CR) or a non-card receiver (NCR). Two senior ED staff members were interviewed regarding their evaluation of the effectiveness of the PIC. It was hypothesised that CRs would; (1) review the PIC favourably; (2) be more likely to seek help for PA than NCRs; (3) seek help sooner than NCRs; and (4) seek help on fewer occasions post-intervention than NCRs. Staff were hypothesised to review the card favourably and as a simple addition to ED practice. Both CRs and staff reviewed the PIC favourably, though there were no significant differences in help-seeking behaviour or time taken to access help between groups. CRs sought help on significantly fewer occasions than NCRs. Despite limitations of non-randomisation and modest sample size, this study contributes to evidence on the utility of ultra-brief interventions and supports the potential of ultra-brief ED-based interventions to expedite mental health referral, decrease utilisation of ED by panickers, reduce financial costs for the medical system, and increase psycho-education of sufferers

Design and fabrication of a 600-ton press for sintering studies

High tonnage presses are required for generating high pressure over large volumes. A 600-ton press has been designed and fabrication at the National Aerospace Laboratories for the sintering of ceramic materials at high pressures and high temperatyres. The press is of four-column type, and is fabricated out of hardened EN 24 steel