Work organization and intent to leave : a relationship-dependent on work status?

This study investigates the work status-specific relationship between a large set of organizational factors and intent to leave. Organizational factors includes monotonous work, time pressure, skill variety, job autonomy, working hours, flexible schedule, shift work, post rotations, painful postures, thermal and noise pollutions, tensions with the public, aggressions from the public, bullying, supervisor support, colleagues support, and hierarchical control. Three types of work status were represented in the research: fixed-term workers (n = 752), temporary workers (n = 512) and permanent workers (n = 798). Compared to permanent workers, temporary workers have higher probability to report “intent to leave quickly” but fixed-term workers are less likely to report “intent to leave later”. Differences between given reasons for intent to leave were also observed. Compared to permanent workers, fixed-term workers are more likely to report intent to leave for job content reason and temporary workers are more likely to report intent to leave for wage reason. The research also demonstrates that work organization, working conditions and social relations at work have work status-specific links with intent to leave. Our results highlight the importance of work-status-differentiated organizational practices to keep permanent and fixed-term workers.