Factors Affecting Employee
Retention at Public, Higher
Education Institutions in Texas
Floyd Quinn
THEHRA 2011 Winter Conference
Factors Affecting Employee Retention
at Public, Higher Education Institutions
in Texas
 Background
 Theoretical Framework
 Literature Review
 Study Framework
– Instrument
– Sampling
– Methods of Analysis
– Definitions
 Research Findings
 Lessons Learned
Factors Affecting Employee Retention
at Public, Higher Education Institutions
in Texas
 Legislative Study – An Annual Report on FullTime Classified State Employee Turnover for
Fiscal Year 2004
 Instrument – Survey of Organizational
Excellence (SOE)
 Collaborative effort with Dr. Noel Landuyt,
Research Associate, The Institute for
Organizational Excellence, located at The
University of Texas at Austin
The statements with the greatest difference in
scores between those employees planning to stay
and those intent to leave
Scaled: 5 Strongly Agree to 1 Strongly Disagree
Intend to
Stay
Intend to
Leave
We are given the opportunity to do our best work.
3.65
2.88
Every employee is valued.
3.42
2.48
Outstanding work is recognized.
3.25
2.46
We feel our efforts count.
3.34
2.55
We are efficient.
3.58
2.86
There is a real feeling of teamwork.
3.31
2.59
The amount of work I am asked to do is reasonable.
3.47
2.86
We feel the channels we must go through at work
are reasonable.
3.41
2.71
Overall finding - “Employees indicating that they
intend to leave feel as though they are not given
the opportunity to do their best work and are not
highly valued. They express dissatisfaction with
how work is recognized and the sense of teamwork
within the workplace. Moreover, they do not feel as
though the workplace is efficient and has too many
unreasonable barriers to successfully completing
tasks.”
Research Question
How does employee development affect intention
to stay at 4-year, public institutions of higher
education in Texas?
Additionally, the study will examine the influence
of several other factors (supervisor
effectiveness, team effectiveness, and job
satisfaction) on employee intention to stay.
Theoretical Framework
 Frederick Herzberg
 Herzberg, F. (1959). Motivation to work. New
York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
 Job-Attitude Factors
– First-Level Factors
– Second-Level Factors
 Satisfiers (motivating factors) versus
Dissatisfiers (hygiene factors)
Theoretical Framework
First-Level Factors – Results from
researcher coding of objective events
Second-Level Factors – Results from
researcher coding of respondent
interpretation of objective events
Theoretical Framework
Percentage of Each First-Level Factor Appearing
in High Attitude Sequences N=228
Factor
Total (%)
1. Achievement
41
2. Recognition
33
5. Advancement
20
7. Possibility of growth
6
8. Interpersonal relations – subordinate 6
10. Interpersonal relations - peers
3
11. Supervision – technical
3
Theoretical Framework
Percentage of Each Second-Level Factor
Appearing in High Job-Attitude Sequences
n=228
Factor
1. Recognition
2. Achievement
3. Possible growth
4. Advancement
5. Responsibility
6. Group feeling
Total (%)
59
57
38
3
30
10
Theoretical Framework
Percentage of Each First-Level Factor Appearing
in Low Job-Attitude Sequences N=228
Factor
Total (%)
1. Company policy and administration 31
2. Technical supervision
20
3. Recognition
18
4. Salary
17
5. Interpersonal relations – superior
15
6. Work itself
14
7. Working conditions
11
Theoretical Framework
Percentage of Each Second-Level Factor
Appearing in High and Low Job-Attitude
Sequences N=228
Factor
Total (%)
1. Fairness-unfairness
38
(Integrity/block to growth)
2. Possible growth
33
3. Achievement
19
4. Pride, guilt, inadequacy
14
5. Salary
13
6. Work itself
13
Theoretical Framework
 J. Stacey Adams
 Miner, J. (2005). Organizational behavior 1:
Essential theories of motivation and leadership.
Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
 Equity Theory
 People may feel that they are under-rewarded
in terms of what they put into a job in
comparison to what other workers are getting
for their contributions.
Literature Review
 Rowden, R. (2002). High performance and human
resource characteristics of successful small
manufacturing and processing companies. Leadership &
Organization Development Journal, 23(1), 79-83.
doi:10.1108/01437730210419206
 Rowden sought to identify the high performance work
practices of selected successful companies operating in
the southeastern portion of the United States.
 Results indicated that the most commonly shared high
performance work practices of the companies
participating in this research included training and
development opportunities. Rowden concluded that the
most important corporate success strategy is a
commitment to the training and development of
employees working for the organization.
Literature Review
 Owens, P. (2006). One more reason not to cut your
training budget: The relationship between training and
organizational outcomes. Public Personnel
Management, 35(2), 163-171.
 Owens investigated the relationship between training
participation and turnover intention. In researching his
topic, Owens generated a sample consisting of
employees from a local state government subdivision in
the southeastern United States.
 These employees either had or had not completed a
supervisory training course consisting of basic
supervisory skills, communication skills, and a review of
organizational policies and procedures. The results of
the study indicate a strong positive correlation between
training participation and turnover intention.
Literature Review
 Sahinidis, A. & Bouris, J. (2008). Employee perceived
training effectiveness relationship to employee attitudes.
Journal of European Industrial Training, 32(1), 63-76.
doi:10.1108/03090590810846575.
 Sahinidis & Bouris investigated the relationship between
perceived employee training effectiveness and job
satisfaction, motivation, and commitment. The authors
surveyed 134 employees of five large Greek
organizations after they had completed a performanceenhancing training program. The questions asked of
these participants were related to attitudes toward the
training program and their employers. The results of the
study indicate that there exists a positive relationship
between perceived training effectiveness and job
satisfaction, motivation and commitment to an employer.
Literature Review
 Chew, J. & Chan, C. (2008). Human resources practices,
organizational commitment and intention to stay.
International Journal of Manpower, (29)6, 503-521. doi:
10.1108/01437720810904194
 Chew & Chan examined the impact of key human
resource practices on employee organizational
commitment and intention to stay. One of these practices
was the implementation of training and career
development strategies.
 The study participants were full-time employees of nine
large public and private organizations operating in
Australia. Researchers concluded that training and
development has significant positive association with an
employee’s intention to stay with an employer.
Literature Review
 Soonhee, K. (2005). Factors affecting state government
information technology employee turnover intentions.
American Review of Public Administration, June, 137156. doi:10.1177/0275074004273150.
 Surveys were disseminated to IT employees working in
the central IT departments of two state governments to
examine how job characteristics, work environment and
human resource management practices shape their
turnover intentions. The results of the study indicated
that effective communications with management, a
participative management approach, organizational
support of career development, and opportunities for
advancement are all significant variables affecting job
satisfaction.
Literature Review
 Ellickson, M. & Logsdon, K. (2001). Determinants of job
satisfaction of municipal government employees. State
and Local Government Review, 33(3), 173-184.
doi:10.1177/0160323X0103300302.
 In a study that investigated determinants of job
satisfaction of municipal government employees,
Ellickson and Logsdon collected surveys from 1,227 fulltime, municipal employees representing 18 departments
and serving approximately 200,000 citizens in the
Midwestern region of the United States. The
questionnaire was designed to explore and ascertain
employee views about certain aspects of the workplace
including training, workload, departmental esprit, pay,
benefits, promotional opportunities and supervision. An
analysis of the data revealed that each of these variables
positively and significantly correlated with the study’s
dependent variable: employee job satisfaction.
Literature Review
 Wright, B. & Davis, B. (2003). Job satisfaction in the
public sector: The role of the work environment. The
American Review of Public Administration, 33(1), 70-90.
doi:10.1177/0275074002250254.
 Wright and Davis examined the influence of the work
environment on public employee feelings of job
satisfaction. Surveys were distributed to 385 New York
State employees selected through the use of a
randomized process and representing 11 public service
agencies. The findings of the study found a positive and
significant relationship existed between job satisfaction
and HRD opportunities in the workplace and served to
add credence to their belief that “public organizations
can leverage the positive effects of greater job
satisfaction by developing clear strategies that embrace
the HRD needs of their employees.”
Study Framework
 Non-experimental
 Instrument – SOE – FY2008 Data
 Convenience Sample – Eight Texas Institutions of
Higher Education
 Small to Midsize Institutions
 Rural to Urban Locations
 Staff Analysis
– Faculty Removed From Dataset
– Incomplete Records Removed from Dataset
 1,083 Total Records
 Powerful Sample
Study Framework
 Methods of Analysis
– Bivariate correlations in SPSS
– Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) using linear and
logistic regression in AMOS
 Definitions
– Employee development – perceived organizational
commitment to training
– Team effectiveness – perceived efficiency and
effectiveness of a work group
– Supervisor effectiveness – perceived supervisor
performance (competence)
– Job satisfaction – perceived quality of the work
environment in terms of performance and work-life balance
– Intention to stay – response to the single survey item, “I
plan to be working for this institution in two years.”
Group Activity
From your own experiences, discuss your
anticipated outcomes of the following analyses:
 The effects of supervisor effectiveness, team
effectiveness and employee development on
job satisfaction.
 The effects of supervisor effectiveness, team
effectiveness and employee development on
intention to stay.
Research Findings
Correlations
JobSat - EmplDev
JobSat
Sig. (2-tailed)
N
EmplDev
Sig. (2-tailed)
N
.643**
.000
1083
.643**
.000
1083
** Correlation is significant at the 0.01
level (2-tailed).
Research Findings
Correlations
JobSat-TeamEff
JobSat
Sig. (2-tailed)
N
TeamEff
Sig. (2-tailed)
N
.737**
.000
1083
.737**
.000
1083
** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level
(2-tailed).
Research Findings
Correlations
SuperEffect-JobSat
SuperEffect
Sig. (2-tailed)
N
JobSat
Sig. (2-tailed)
N
.771**
.000
1083
.771**
.000
1083
** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2tailed).
Research Findings
Correlations
EmplDev-WorkTwoYears
EmplDev
-.204**
Sig. (2-tailed)
.000
N
1083
WorkTwoYears
-.204**
Sig. (2-tailed)
.000
N
1083
** Correlation is significant at the 0.01
level (2-tailed).
Research Findings
Correlations
TeamEff-WorkTwoYears
WorkTwoYears
-.212**
Sig. (2-tailed)
.000
N
1083
TeamEff
-.212**
Sig. (2-tailed)
.000
N
1083
** Correlation is significant at the 0.01
level (2-tailed).
Research Findings
Correlations
SuperEffect-WorkTwoYears
WorkTwoYears
-.223**
Sig. (2-tailed)
.000
N
1083
SuperEffect
-.223**
Sig. (2-tailed)
.000
N
1083
** Correlation is significant at the 0.01
level (2-tailed).
Research Findings
Correlations
JobSat-WorkTwoYears
WorkTwoYears
-.192**
Sig. (2-tailed)
.000
N
1083
JobSat
-.192**
Sig. (2-tailed)
.000
N
1083
** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level
(2-tailed).
Lessons Learned
 Supervisor effectiveness strongly correlated to
employee job satisfaction. It was the singlemost contributing factor in this study.
 Team effectiveness strongly correlated to
employee job satisfaction and had a significant
practical effect.
 Employee development strongly correlated to
employee job satisfaction but had an
insignificant practical effect.
 In SPSS, team effectiveness, supervisor
effectiveness and employee development did
not correlate to a significant practical degree to
employee intention to stay.
Lessons Learned
 In AMOS, team effectiveness, supervisor
effectiveness and employee development were
shown to have little practical effect on
employee intention to stay. As such, these
variables are not considered contributing
factors in such decisions.
 Job satisfaction did not correlate to a significant
practical degree with employee intention to
stay. In reviewing the dataset, 9% of
respondents anticipated leaving their employer
within two years while 29% indicated they were
dissatisfied with their employment.