Predicting turnover of employees from measured job attitudes

Abstract

The study looks at the prediction of turnover by employee job attitudes and intent to remain with the company, among 911 salesmen. Intent to remain was highly correlated with actual turnover, both short term and long term. During the 18 months after attitudes were surveyed, turnover for men who stated they intended to remain was 9% versus 30% of those who were less committed. Employees' expressed intent was a better predictor of turnover than were other job attitudes. An examination of static and dynamic correlations showed that employees' intent to remain is most closely tied to feelings about the work itself and about the company as a place to work.