How Companies Can Utilize Organizational Behavior For Employee Retention in the Workplace

Organizational Behavior is the multidisciplinary, academic study of how people interact within groups. The principles of the study of organizational behavior are applied primarily in attempts to make businesses operate more effectively: for instance, improving job performance, increasing job satisfaction, promoting innovation, and encouraging leadership. In this review, I discuss the implications of organizational behavior in the workplace, and primarily on employees. Over the past decades, the United States has seen a rise in the amount of people resigning from their jobs. Though the pandemic catalyzed and magnified this phenomenon, the reasons for “The Great Resignation” are not primarily attributed to the coronavirus, but rather the failures of the corporate workplace to develop strong organizational culture. An organization's culture consists of shared beliefs and values established by leaders, which are then communicated and reinforced to, ultimately, positively shape employee perceptions, behaviors and understanding. While organizations can fail to promote healthy organizational cultures in their workplaces, employers can utilize teachings embedded in organizational behavior to uphold strong organizational cultures and in turn, produce higher rates of employee retention. This review encompasses a summary of those teachings and their respective effects.