Skilled staff's job characteristics, job satisfaction and intentions to quit in a petrochemical company

Abstract

Organisations lose a lot of money by not retaining their star performers each year. This is of great concern to top level managers, for it influences the profit of the organisations. The big question that is asked is why do people leave organisation? Factors like; job satisfaction, working climate, organisational commitment, and job alternatives are important to understand turnover of employees. The aim of the study was to investigate the relationship between job characteristics, job satisfaction and intentions to quit, that could assist management in retaining the skilled employees in an organisation. The theoretical research conducted in this study was on job characteristics, job satisfaction and the influence both have on quitting intention of employees to establish a good understanding of why skilled employees stay and why they intend to leave an organisation. The empirical study conducted was on a group of skilled employees of about 300, working for a multi–national petrochemical industry. A questionnaire was distributed throughout a specific group in the organisation to determine how the theoretical and empirical data compare. The study concluded that there were some variables that might have an effect on an employee's decision to leave this specific multi–national petrochemical company. The variables in this study were; work variety, ambiguities at work, lack of information and extrinsic job satisfaction. Organisations need to focus on talent retention and talent management to establish the needs and to successfully retaining their skilled employees. Recommendations for future studies and to organisations are provided in this study.