How to Satisfy and Retain Personnel Despite Job-Market Shortage

Abstract

Retaining valuable employees is a major issue for organizations, especially for professions characterized by shortage (e.g., nursing). It is thus important for organizations to determine which factors predict personnel satisfaction and intent to leave at various levels (i.e., organization, group, and individual). Nevertheless, few studies on satisfaction in nursing have analyzed a comprehensive set of factors and taken multiple organizational levels into account using appropriate statistical analysis techniques. We conducted a study with 1,547 nurses working in 17 hospitals in Switzerland. Results from multilevel analyses suggest that job satisfaction is predicted by both individual-level (burnout and work-family conflict) and group-level (group cohesion and unit effectiveness) factors, while organizational-level factors (e.g., autonomy) have less impact. Moreover, intent to leave the job is predicted by job satisfaction, whereas the relationship is moderated by perceived differences in priorities between nurses and their employer. When developing strategies to satisfy and retain key personnel, administrators should consider both individual-level and group-level factors as well as how to align priorities and how to best communicate what they have done.