Why Do People Stay at Their Jobs?

Research Paper Requirement – Why People Stay at Their Jobs

Employee turnover has to do with the amount of time an employee stays at a company. Exploring what makes these numbers rise or fall is important because high turnover is expensive. When people leave, others need to fill their void and training is expensive, because during training there is no producing; and many times when they begin they are not as efficient as someone who has been on the job for years. Historically there have been many studies on why people leave, but less on why they stay (Kilburn & Kilburn, 2008; Zhao & Liu, 2010).

The degree an employee is embedded in a job relates to the degree they are part of a web of social activity that relates them to the company. There is a direct correlation to degree of embeddedness and turnover (Mitchell, Holtom, Lee, Sablynski, & Ezrez, 2001). This article dives into reasoning of turnover and relationships that exist between them by selecting a random sample of employees and asking them why they stay. A good theoretical foundation is established before diving into the article such as: Human Relations Theory, recruitment, generational differences and retention, and leadership styles.

A multitude of research tactics was at the disposal of the researcher but it phenomenological research was the most appropriate to use. Phenomenological analysis “seeks to grasp and elucidate the meaning, structure, and essence of lived experiences of a phenomenon for a person or group of people” (Patton, 2002, p. 482).

Eighteen HR employees were selected from a government organization for the sample that had been there for three or more years (ranging 3 to 29!). Of the 18, 13 were female and 5 were male. No certain gender or college level was selected – though it seems more females than males participated in the sample. The study took four months and each interview took between 20-40 minutes.

During the interviews the main question asked was how they perceive and describe their experiences of embeddedness on the job. In other words asking why they stay. This was an open-ended question because respected researcher Creswell (2007) recommends them. Though this was the main question, other questions were asked to better understand the answers given from the main question, and to provide a better foundation for the research. These questions included: What do human resource practitioners do? How long have you worked for your current organization? What made you stay with the organization up to this point? What would you like to see changed or improved in the workplace? Is there anything that would make you leave? Is there anything else you want to say or any questions (Paulette Holmes, D.M., Tina Chapman, Ed.D., Timothy Baghurst, Ph.D (2013)?

That is how the data was collected, but now it needed to be organized. The van Kaam (VK) revised