Abstract:
One of the major challenges facing South African IT organisations today is the
dramatic shortage of IT professionals. Both literature and business sentiment have
indicated that employee turnover within the IT sector is on a continually rising trend.
The ramifications of these high turnover rates translate into exorbitant direct and
indirect costs to organisations. The purpose of this research was to identify the factors
pertaining to the underlying structure of the turnover intention of these employees. A
deeper understanding of these drivers may possibly enable management to reduce the
turnover intention of employees within their organisations.
A quantitative, multi-disciplinary research approach, focussing on the antecedents of
turnover intention and the three systemic levels of organisational behaviour (micro,
meso and macro) was used to operationalise the main research construct of this study.
Data was collected by means of an anonymous self-administered web-based survey.
A sample of 188 completed questionnaires was collected using a snowball sampling
technique from the population of employees in the IT industry in South Africa. A
statistical data reduction method, exploratory factor analysis, was conducted on the
dataset to determine the underlying nature of the construct, IT employees’ perceived
intention to resign from employment.
After an appropriate number of factor analytic rounds, a robust 4-factor model of the
data set was established. The results indicated that the factor, Personal Enrichment
from Management Support, possibly plays the most significant role in understanding,
monitoring, and managing IT employees’ perceived intention to resign from
employment. The study provided support that monetary factors had the most
significant influence in an employee’s decision to join an organisation; however, nonmonetary
benefits, such as job satisfaction and skills development, were found to be
more effective in retaining employees. The practical implications uncovered from this
study will enable management to gain further insight into understanding the underlying
factors and drivers of turnover intention and thereby minimise its impact on the
organisation.
