Job Satisfaction and Intention to Turnover: An Empirical Study of Trainee Team Members in a Leading Apparel Manufacturing Firm Operating in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Employee retention is a critical need for organizations to keep and grow productivity levels. An empirical study was carried in a leading apparel manufacturing firm by using 100 Trainee Team Members (TTMs). The objectives of the study were to describe the degrees of four dimensions of job satisfaction and the intention to turnover of the trainee team members of the selected leading apparel manufacturer operating in Sri Lanka, and to investigate whether job satisfaction impacts the intention to turnover significantly. A sample of 100 TTMs was selected randomly and the majority (41%) of the trainee team members have been working in this leading apparel manufacturing firm for more than two months. Further, most employees belong to the western province (54%). Descriptively it was found that the majority of the trainee team members in the company had marginally moderate levels of economic, security, social, and psychological satisfactions. However, the standard deviation was greater than 1 in all four variables indicating that the data dispersion from the mean value is considerably high. The hypothesis, i.e., there is a significant negative impact of job satisfaction on the intention to turnover, was substantiated. Two additional hypotheses based on intuition were formulated in order to investigate whether TTMs from Western province and TTMs from other provinces differ significantly by job satisfaction and the intention to turnover. The data analysis did not support the acceptance of these two hypotheses. Implications were discussed.

Key Words: Geographical Location, Intention to Turnover, Job Satisfaction, Trainee Team Member