Voluntary Turnover Research Articles

The Outsiders: Examining the Effects of Political Appointments on Public-Sector Employee Engagement

Scholars have long examined the inherent trade-offs between control and capability when presidents politicize the executive branch through their appointment powers, including through appointments. Research has consistently connected high ratios of appointees to career leaders with decreased agency performance and higher voluntary turnover at the career senior ranks. However, far less attention has been paid to the cumulative effect of such appointments on the engagement of the civil service workforce, a factor shown to influence organizational performance. Using the 2012 and 2016 Federal Employee Viewpoint Surveys, I evaluate the relationship between degree of agency politicization and self-reported measures of engagement among civil servants. Preliminary analysis indicates the use of political appointments by presidents can impede agency efforts to build and sustain an engaged workforce. The findings suggest the negative outcomes associated with these appointments are both broader and more enduring than the tenure of a single appointee, presenting a new perspective for scholarly understanding of the dynamics at play when presidents politicize the agencies they are entrusted to lead.

Determinants of managers' voluntary turnover in the Algerian companies: case study

Determinants of managers' voluntary turnover in the Algerian companies: case study

The Temporal Model: Combining Job Embeddedness with the Unfolding Model to Reduce Voluntary Employee Turnover in Law Firms

The Temporal Model: Combining Job Embeddedness with the Unfolding Model to Reduce Voluntary Employee Turnover in Law Firms

Predictors of employees’ voluntary turnover intentions: Analytic hierarchy process approach

The possibility to prevent employees` turnover intentions are important issue for organizations but it is not easy without identifying risk factors. HR analytic methods are seen as the valuable tools for extracting and weighting predictors of employees` withdrawal behavior. This paper ilustrates the potential of analytic hierarchy process method for identifying key predictors of voluntary turnover intentions. The analysis is conducted on 665 production employees using five criteria: work satisfaction, work characteristics (job motivating potential), intrinsic motivation, life aspirations and needs, from the most to the least weighted. Two parementers were included, sector where employees work and their shift. Results indicate the sectors and shift employing people with highest risk of turnover demonstrating the effectivness of using AHP method for the purpose. As previous studies that uses HR analytics tools in the domain mainly operated with demographic and general employees` data, while more orthodox HR approaches focus on direct effect of job satisfaction, we offered the combination of those two. We imply that the integration of more subjective data collected directly from employee, might be integrated in the overal personnel database and available for processing with HR analytic tools.

Labor skill and accounting conservatism

We examine the role of labor market frictions in shaping firms’ accounting policies. We find that firms’ reliance on high-skill labor is negatively related to accounting conservatism, presumably because higher labor adjustment costs make conservative accounting policies more costly. Cross-sectional tests further support the notion that labor adjustment costs are the main driver for the negative relation between labor skill and accounting conservatism. Specifically, the negative relation is more pronounced when a firm i) operates in more competitive industries, ii) has a higher voluntary employee turnover rate, and iii) is more financially constrained. Finally, we show that the positive implication of accounting conservatism for future operating performance and cost of debt is weaker for firms requiring high labor skill, providing plausible explanations for a negative relation between labor skill and accounting conservatism. Collectively, we provide novel evidence on the relation between labor force heterogeneity and accounting conservatism.

Mitigating Tacit Knowledge Loss in South African State-Owned Companies: HRM Approach

This study is an interdisciplinary research that sought to explore knowledge loss risks interdependently in relation to the knowledge management (KM) and human resource management (HRM) disciplines in South African state-owned companies (SOCs). This study highlighted the significant role of knowledge-based HRM systems, which will naturally enhance the management capacity of tacit knowledge to mitigate risks and assist SOCs to deliver on a developmental mandate, as well as ensure their survival and the economic growth of developing nations. The paper aims to explore the connection between KM and HRM practices for the effective management of enterprise tacit knowledge loss risks using the SOCs of South Africa as a case. This study is a mixed methods research project, using the exploratory sequential design as a research strategy. Data were collected qualitatively through interviews with 20 purposively nominated human resource managers, and survey data was collected randomly from 25% (145 of the 585 responses) of the workers employed in SOCs. Qualitative data were analysed thematically using Atlas.ti and Statistical data were analysed using SAS and exploratory factor analysis. The relationship between HRM and KM practices in lessening the risks inherent in tacit knowledge loss, mainly from voluntary turnover, is underdeveloped in many South African SOCs. The study established that the role of HRM in supporting KM is limited and underdeveloped in many SOCs, largely because they are lagging in key structures and knowledge-centric cultures, behaviours and HRM practices to drive the effective management of company knowledge. This study assists HRM executives and KM practitioners to develop knowledge-driven HRM practices in order to mitigate risks from the loss of tacit knowledge, whilst ensuring sustained performance in public enterprises. The study and proposed strategies seek to influence the discourse, policies, practices and theories on KM and HRM praxis in companies to mitigate the risks associated with the loss of tacit knowledge.

Reducing job hopping intentions through personal psychological aspects

This study aims to investigate the impact of personal psychological factors, such as work-life balance and job satisfaction, on the job-hopping intentions of millennials. The research employs a quantitative approach, and the study population consists of millennial employees working in Purwakarta Regency. The data was collected using non-probability and accidental sampling techniques, with a total sample size of 100 employees. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to analyze the data, with the help of the IBM SPSS Statistics 26 application. The findings of this research can help companies understand the reasons behind employee turnover, including voluntary turnover, such as job-hopping. By understanding the psychological aspects of their employees, companies can reduce job-hopping and other forms of turnover. The study provides evidence that taking a personal psychological approach to millennial employees can help reduce job-hopping intentions, which is crucial for companies to minimize losses due to turnover.

Woman's work: The moderating effects of gender role orientations between the relationships of work-family conflict with voluntary turnover and being valued by one's spouse.

Gender role attitudes determine the importance of work-family domains to individuals and how they are influenced by work-family conflict (WFC). In this study, we draw on gender role and social role theories to hypothesize that working mothers' gender role perceptions moderate the relationships between WFC and two outcomes: voluntary turnover (work domain) and feeling valued by one's spouse (family domain). We tested our hypotheses with 14-month time-lagged survey data from 731 working mothers in Japan. The results of our regression analyses suggest that working mothers scoring high on WFC and egalitarian gender roles have a lower propensity to voluntary turnover and a higher propensity to feel valued by their spouses than working mothers low on WFC and egalitarian gender roles. Our study highlights the importance of considering within-gender differences in research on WFC and moderating effects of gender role attitudes between WFC and outcomes in work and family domains.

Should I Stay or Should I Go? From Turning Points to Decision to Quit in a Call Center Environment

Traditionally, call centers have experienced high voluntary turnover rates among their agents (i.e., Customer Service and Sales Representatives). This continues to be an unresolved issue. This paper presents a research study that was conducted to gain a better understanding of the reasons behind employees’ decisions to leave a Customer Service and Sales organization belonging to a large multinational company in Financial Services in the USA. The company’s call centers have consistently experienced a high turnover rate among its agents. This qualitative study was conducted with former employees across three markets to understand the “turning points” which led them to decrease their commitment to the organization and subsequently leave their job. This research aims to enhance our comprehension of the sequential decision-making process that culminates in an employee’s decision to resign. The key findings and recommendations from this study could be used to create targeted organizational development initiatives designed to improve employee retention.

The gender gap in voluntary turnover

PurposeThe study's objective is to measure the gender gap in quit behavior, consider whether it has changed over time and determine whether parenthood affects the gender gap in quit decisions.Design/methodology/approachThe quantitative study design leverages two separate USA data sources to analyze the gender gap in quits over time. Two separate cohorts confirm the study's results in Logit, ordinary least squares (OLS) and fixed effects estimations, using the Current Population Survey (CPS) and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY).FindingsAfter controlling for demographic and job characteristics, individual and geographic fixed effects and local unemployment rates, the study finds that the gender gap in voluntary turnover has declined over time and that parenthood's effect on quit behavior has converged between genders.Originality/valueWomen earn less than men. One common explanation is women's propensity to interrupt their careers, often voluntarily, more so than men. Yet, the determinants and trends of this gender gap in quit behavior has not been given much attention in the literature, including the role of parenthood.

There's no going back? The influence of prior entrepreneurial experience timing on voluntary turnover in post‐entrepreneurship wage employment

AbstractDespite the prevalent stereotype that former entrepreneurs are undesirable employees due to a high likelihood of quitting, little research has empirically verified its accuracy. With a growing population of former entrepreneurs in the workforce, it has become more important than ever to understand whether, when, and which former entrepreneurs may or may not be likely to quit their post‐entrepreneurship employment. We used a sample of nationally representative 20‐year data from Australia to examine how timing of prior entrepreneurial experience relative to a focal wage job relates to voluntary turnover via a serial mediation by entrepreneurial intention and turnover intention. Results showed that employees with entrepreneurial experience in their second most recent job spell were more likely to develop entrepreneurial intention and turnover intention in sequence, which, in turn, increased quitting risk relative to employees without entrepreneurial experience in the same job spell. However, we did not find evidence for such differences between employees with and without entrepreneurial experience in their most recent job spell. Moreover, the serial mediation effect holds among men but not women. These findings highlight the important role of timing in the relationship between of entrepreneurial experience and post‐entrepreneurship employment attitude and behavior. Theoretical contributions and practical implications are discussed.

How Does Workplace Gossip Benefit Gossip Actors? The Impact of Workplace Gossip on Power and Voluntary Turnover

Although workplace gossip is ubiquitous, more scholarship is needed to determine how employees may use gossip to attain valuable social resources at work—namely, their experience of power. Drawing from the gossip literature and research on power in the workplace, we identify proximal (i.e., increased power accrual) and distal (i.e., diminished voluntary turnover) positive outcomes for employees enacting negative and positive gossip about the organization at work. Using a sample of 338 nurses, we found that positive workplace gossip about the organization increases expert power. Our analysis further revealed that positive workplace gossip about the organization had a negative indirect effect on the voluntary turnover of gossip actors via their expert power. Our findings contribute to the organizational literature on the benefits of gossip to actors and serve to further enrich the emerging literature which has considered the relationship between power and turnover. An important implication of our research is that organizations need to recognize the dynamics of organization-directed gossip and its potential to serve as a source of social power for employees and a retention driver for those who accrue power in expertise.

Turbulence Ahead: Strategic Human Capital Management, Job Satisfaction, and Turnover Intention

The COVID-19 pandemic further illuminated the importance of strategic human capital management (SHCM). As the pandemic surged in the United States, employee retirement and resignation rates grew rapidly. Not surprisingly, the significant number of individuals seeking new employment opportunities or entirely exiting the labor force exacerbated human capital shortages that were already crippling public sector organizations. Fortunately, research has shown organizations that engage in SHCM initiatives can simultaneously enhance performance-related outcomes and successfully endure turbulent workforce conditions. Job satisfaction and employee turnover intention are two such outcomes that have received ample consideration among researchers. But while public sector scholarship has empirically demonstrated that SHCM influences employee job satisfaction, it has failed to adequately account for its indirect linkage to voluntary employee turnover. Therefore, using local government data collected biannually from 2016 to 2022, this study explicitly examines how endogeneity issues factor into the dynamic relationship between SHCM, job satisfaction, and turnover intention. The results of two-stage least squares regression analysis suggest that SHCM is indirectly related to employee turnover intention by way of employee job satisfaction.

Onboarding: just how important is it?

PurposeEmployee retention has become a greater challenge for organizations as today’s employees are more likely to voluntarily change organizations than previous generations. Therefore, this paper aims to examine organizational experiences and how new employees are integrated into their work environments – a process known as onboarding. Specifically, this research explores the relationship between the onboarding processes that new employees experience and their levels of job satisfaction, organizational commitment and job embeddedness.Design/methodology/approachThe authors administered a Web-based survey and tested three hypotheses. The survey was distributed to 170 new employees, with 54 participants responding. The onboarding construct consisted of self-developed questions based on Bauer’s Four Cs (compliance, clarification, culture and connection) model. The constructs for job satisfaction, organizational commitment and job embeddedness were obtained from the literature.FindingsThe authors found that a new employee’s onboarding experience plays a significant role in shaping three variables negatively correlated with turnover: job satisfaction, organizational commitment and job embeddedness. More specifically, job satisfaction appears to be more correlated with the concrete, well-defined aspects of the onboarding experience. Furthermore, the highest level of Bauer’s onboarding model, connection, showed significant correlation with nearly all components of organizational commitment and job embeddedness.Originality/valueOrganizational leaders may use these findings to develop a better understanding of the retention implications of the first few months of a new employee’s time in the organization and then implement strategies that boost onboarding effectiveness to help mitigate losses due to voluntary turnover.

Delayed pay and employee turnover: The buffering role of pay‐for‐performance

AbstractIn response to a financial crisis, many organizations adjust their pay systems to reduce labor costs. In this research, we focus on the use of delayed pay (the postponement of employees' contractual compensation) and examine its effect on employee voluntary turnover outcomes. In a field study (Study 1) with data collected from the executive managers of 129 Chinese hotels experiencing a financial crisis caused by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19), we find a positive relationship between delayed pay and the voluntary turnover rate at the organizational level. In addition, this relationship becomes weaker when delayed pay consists of a larger proportion of pay‐for‐performance (PFP). We then conduct an experiment (Study 2) to extend our theoretical framework to the individual level, establish causality, and examine the underlying mechanism. The results show that the perceived negative instrumentality of stay (i.e., expected economic losses associated with staying in an organization) explains why individuals intend to leave organizations adopting delayed base pay but not delayed PFP. We further replicate these findings in a critical incident technique study (Study 3). We also discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.

The interaction of the five-factor personality traits and job embeddedness in explaining voluntary turnover: A necessary-condition perspective

ABSTRACT Job embeddedness is theorized and found to be negatively related with voluntary turnover. To provide an alternative to the dominant correlational understanding of causality in the theory and research on job embeddedness and to improve its ability to predict voluntary turnover, we apply the necessary-condition perspective to propose that a low level of job embeddedness provides a necessary but not sufficient reason for employees to leave their organizations. Specifically, we use the perspective to theorize and examine through a necessary condition analysis whether a low level of job embeddedness is a necessary condition for voluntary turnover, and logistic regression analysis to examine the moderating role of the five-factor personality traits on the negative relationship between job embeddedness and voluntary turnover. To cover a range of job positions and industries, we collected a sample of 478 employees ranging from staff to managers in various organizations and industries in Japan to test our hypotheses. Our findings suggest that a low level of job embeddedness is a necessary condition for voluntary turnover, as well as that extraversion and openness to experience amplified and agreeableness mitigated the negative relationship between job embeddedness on voluntary turnover. This study contributes to the literature by clarifying the role of job embeddedness in predicting voluntary turnover by using the necessary sufficient logic and delineating the moderating effects of personality traits between job embeddedness and turnover.

Leading A Sustainable Workforce: Assessing the Pandemic’s Influence on Job Insecurities, Anxiety, Work Overload, and Turnover Intentions in Hospitality

The COVID-19 pandemic’s acute phase has faded, but the hospitality industry suffered extensive employee shortages due to industry layoffs, downsizing, terminations, closings, and the Great Resignation. Although the hospitality industry has rebounded, staff shortages and the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic remain a concern. This study aims to explore the factors that affect employee turnover intention by highlighting the effect of the pandemic on employees’ anxiety, organizational changes, work stressors, and locus of control. Results found that the top three factors that led to employee voluntary turnover were organizational changes, stress from work, and work locus of control. This study also found that employees' anxiety resulting from COVID-19 does not affect their turnover intention. Analyzing statistical data and relationships among each factor can assist hospitality practitioners in developing strategies to recruit, motivate, retain, and engage staff for future crises, thereby creating a more sustainable workforce. Theoretical and practical implications for future research are also discussed.

Can trust in management help? Job satisfaction, healthy lifestyle, and turnover intentions

PurposeThis study assesses the role of trust in management on relationships between predictors (supervisor support, coworker support and meaningful work) and outcomes (job satisfaction, turnover intentions and healthy lifestyle).Design/methodology/approachData from 1,302 working adults from the National Survey of Changing Workforce was used in this study. Structural equation models and mediation analyses are used to analyze the data.FindingsFindings indicate that trust in management significantly mediates relationships between support (supervisor, coworker) and outcomes and meaningful work and outcomes. Trust in management does not mediate relationships involving turnover intentions. Gender does not have a significant impact on the findings.Practical implicationsThis study shows how trust in management is increasingly important during disruptions including high levels of voluntary turnover known as the Great Resignation. Trust in management is a key factor in work involvement and organizational citizenship behaviors.Originality/valueThis novel study tests how trust mediates relationships between both organizational behavior factors and work factors in relation to outcomes. The importance of developing and sustaining trust in management is paramount because it affects work-related outcomes as well as an individual's job satisfaction and healthy lifestyle.

Training and Voluntary Turnover: Difference between White-and Blue-collar Jobs

Training and Voluntary Turnover: Difference between White-and Blue-collar Jobs

Safe Inside: How Internal Sourcing Lowers Voluntary Turnover in Tight Labor Markets

Safe Inside: How Internal Sourcing Lowers Voluntary Turnover in Tight Labor Markets