Turnover and retention of employees in the finance industry in the North West Province

Abstract

Employee turnover and retention is an essential subject of interest in any organisation. South Africa provides a broad choice of specific designations, employers and career paths and to retain knowledgeable and skilled employees are critical. The risk associated with high employee turnover, is an ongoing concern and at times even a threat to organisations as it results in a loss of expertise and is a costly event. The importance of this occurrence is becoming more obvious as it appears that long term employment has become a thing of the past and it is no longer guaranteed. Minimum research focusing on the financial industry in South Africa has been done. This study discusses the vital role that retention plays in an organisation and identifies the factors that influences an employees' perception with regard to turnover and retention. The results should enable managers to create a strategic tool to retain valuable employees and assist managers to explain the needs of employees within financial organisations. The study's population consisted largely of Caucasian (72.7%) males (65.2%) between the ages of 25 and 35 years (34.8%). These individuals mainly have non- leadership roles (77.3%) as professional employees (61.5%) at the accounting or auditing organisations that participated in the study. Most of the participants had a post-degree qualification and 46% had 1 to 5 years' work experience in their current organisation. Self-developed questionnaires were distributed to enable participants to report on their feeling towards certain components of their organisation as well as identify factors that will influence their decision to remain at or leave their organisation. The components that had substantial influence on employees' judgements to remain at or leave their organisation included job satisfaction, responsibility for work outcome, job-company fit, community and communication, organisational commitment and benefit and pay satisfaction. Positive correlations between several organisational components indicated that the higher (more positive) an employee's feeling towards the components evaluated in the questionnaire, the more likely he or she may experience an optimistic feeling towards the organisation which in turn results in lower turnover. Turnover intention correlated negatively with all the components. This is indicative that employee turnover intention is expected to decrease should the other components be experienced positively (increase) in the organisation. The results concluded that job satisfaction, responsibility for work outcome, job- company fit, community and communication, benefit and pay satisfaction are the determining factors in an employee's decision to retain his or her position at an organisation. Further research is thus necessary to explain how job satisfaction, responsibility for work outcome, job-company fit, community and communication, benefit and pay satisfaction influence employees in the South African financial industry.