Dynamism of HR strategy through academic person-environment fit towards sustaining work life balance and reducing intention to leave: A review

Abstract

Attracting and retaining quality talents in the industry has becoming the main topic of discussion among corporate leaders and hr practitioners. In education industry, the attrition rate of academics continues to rise. Turnover among academics in Malaysia was 12 percent in 2015 and had increased to 18 percent in 2016 is expected to rise further. Despite the high unemployment rate (3.5 percent), universities are facing great challenges to attract good talents and also retaining quality talents. The changes in life style and working environment lead to different HR landscape. The new role of HR requires to look at values development, work life balance mechanism and appropriate retention strategy. The frustration among the academics are mainly due to incompetent academic leadership, poor facilities to promote scholarly culture, high bureaucracy, poor reward system, poor career development programmes, internal politics, and stringent performance indicators. These have caused dissatisfaction, low morale and many to leave the universities for greener opportunities. This issue is centred on HR management. Therefore, the study aims to investigate the dynamic of HR strategy to affect work life balance and intention to leave among the academics in Malaysia. HR strategies will include organizational reputation, vocational prestige and person environment fit (PEF) strategies. Perception towards the image (prestige) of an organisation and the task will be new contribution to the field of HRM. Fundamentally, the study will fill the gap in HRM literature by focusing on factors that affect retention strategy.