RECRUITMENT AND EMPLOYEE RETENTION STRATEGY FOR AACT

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Autism Awareness Care and Training (AACT) is an NGO which seeks to create an inclusive environment for children who are faced with Autism Disorder Spectrum. The organization achieves its goals by providing training activities for the children in three different levels; lower, primary and upper level. A needs assessment conducted revealed that most of the employees voluntarily leave the organization because of reasons such as low pay, poor management-employee relationship, lack of career growth and development among many others. The assessment also revealed that most of the employees are employed because of their personal relationship with members of the management team and this contributes to the high turnover on the job. Hence, the need to have a rigorous recruitment process and measures to retain employees is necessary for AACT. Extant related literature revealed that high employee turnover affects the productivity of every organization and it comes with both direct and indirect cost. However, turnover becomes a good thing for a company if they tend to lose the unskilled labor to create room for more skilled labor, and managers also play a key role in attracting the right type of people in every organization. This study proposes a solution to help reduce labor turnover as well as retain employees for a longer period on the job in Autism Awareness Care and Training (AACT). The solution seeks to improve the recruitment and selection process by suggesting a systematic approach proposed by Breaugh and Starke (2000). Retention measures such as creating an intentional communication channel between employees and management, health need support and having staff recognition day are proposed to keep workers longer on the job.