How well do you know your employees? A contribution towards understanding employee turnover

Abstract

This large-scale, multi-country study aims to examine the relation between individual, organizational and managerial factors and voluntary turnover in a communications technology organization. A comprehensive review of academic literature on employee turnover theories and meta-analysis studies is used to introduce turnover hypotheses along with a set of moderating factors. Linear Probability and Probit models are used to analyze longitudinal employee data from the organization’s human resource information system. The results indicate that traditional individual, organizational and managerial factors such as tenure, performance, manager support and employee rewards have an effect on employee turnover. Specific implications for managers on how to thwart employee turnover are introduced. This study contributes to the existing research on turnover by proposing a way in which human resources professionals can diagnose employees at fly risk using employee records and consequently developing the appropriate retention actions. Research limitations and future research are discussed.