Retaining Top Talent: Lessons from Keeping Suzanne Chalmers
This paper examines the fictional case of Suzanne Chalmers, a software engineer preparing to leave API for travel and a start-up opportunity, as a lens for exploring employee retention challenges. The paper identifies key failures in management practice — including lack of ongoing employee engagement, delayed benefit offerings, and a cramped work environment — and recommends a shift from transactional to servant leadership. Drawing on Maslow's (1943) hierarchy of needs and Gerhart and Fang's (2015) research on intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation, the paper argues that proactive, people-centered leadership is essential to retaining high-performing employees before dissatisfaction reaches the resignation stage.
- Introduction: API's Turnover Problem: Overview of Chalmers case and turnover challenge
- Understanding Why Employees Leave: Chan's failure to identify resignation causes
- Proactive Retention Strategies: Benefits and perks offered too late
- The Importance of a Positive Work Environment: Workplace conditions driving employee departure
- From Transactional to Servant Leadership: Servant leadership as recommended management model
- Motivational Theory: Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: Self-actualization explains Chalmers's decision to leave
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What makes this paper effective
- It applies concrete management theories — servant leadership and Maslow's hierarchy of needs — directly to a specific case scenario, grounding abstract concepts in a practical situation.
- It moves logically from problem diagnosis (why Chalmers wants to leave) to actionable recommendations (retention strategies, leadership style change), giving the argument a clear cause-and-effect structure.
- It integrates peer-reviewed citations (Gerhart & Fang, 2015; Maslow, 1943) to support claims about motivation, lending academic credibility to managerial advice.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates applied theory analysis: it takes established psychological and organizational behavior frameworks (Maslow's motivational hierarchy and the servant leadership model) and uses them as diagnostic tools to explain a real management failure. Rather than simply describing what went wrong, the writer explains why it went wrong in theoretical terms and prescribes theory-driven solutions — a hallmark of graduate-level business writing.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens by framing API's turnover problem through the Chalmers case, then works through three practical retention failures (poor pre-resignation communication, delayed perks, poor environment). It pivots to a leadership recommendation (servant over transactional leadership), and closes with a motivational theory explanation (Maslow's self-actualization). Each section builds on the previous, moving from symptoms to causes to solutions.
Introduction: API's Turnover Problem
API is experiencing the problem of employee turnover up close, and it needs to do a better job of addressing it. The case of Suzanne Chalmers — who is leaving to travel for a few months before joining a start-up — is a case in point. She gives no indication that the workplace itself is the problem; she is simply ready to move somewhere new. There is also the potential that earnings could be more lucrative elsewhere, given the stock options that start-ups are able to offer.
Understanding Why Employees Leave
It is always difficult when an employee wants to resign, but there are steps a manager can take to keep them on board. First and foremost, it is important to find out why the employee wants to leave. Chan attempts to do this but comes up well short — Chalmers does not give him anything meaningful to work with.
To gain a clearer picture of why an employee is considering leaving, managers need to maintain closer contact with their staff before the resignation conversation ever takes place. That way, signs of disengagement can be recognized before the phone call comes. When management cultivates stronger relationships with staff over time, the likelihood of higher job satisfaction increases. When employees feel consistently valued — not only at the point of departure — they are far more inclined to stay.
Proactive Retention Strategies
Another way to retain an employee is to offer additional benefits or perks. Chan does attempt this, but it is too little, too late. These kinds of incentives need to be offered before an employee begins to grow restless. Options might include an annual pay raise or bonus, additional vacation days, or flexible working hours. Research on employee benefits consistently shows that workers who feel well compensated and fairly treated are less likely to seek opportunities elsewhere. If employees feel genuinely cared for, their motivation to leave diminishes considerably.
References
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.
Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370.
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