Determinants of turnover intentions of librarians at the city of Johannesburg libraries : implications on provision of library services

Abstract

Organisations are confronted with the challenges of managing, controlling and putting in place retention strategies to mitigate against high turnover intention. This is also the case with public libraries. The purpose of this study was to investigate the determinants of the turnover intention of public librarians at the City of Johannesburg Libraries (COJLIS) in the Gauteng province of South Africa, with a view to developing a retention strategy. Turnover intention can bring devastation to the organisation and can also lead to negative consequences such as decreased morale and productivity, shortage of skilled and qualified librarians, direct and indirect costs to library organisation and loss of knowledge. This quantitative research study utilised the conceptual framework to investigate demographic, personal and organisational factors influencing turnover intentions of librarians. The conceptual framework for the present study incorporated aspects of a theory or theories, concepts from the literature, personal experiences, knowledge of the context and models The aspects of theory or theories and concepts from the literature on employee turnover “content” and “process” models such as Mobley (1977), Jerome (2017), Nair, Mee & Cheik (2016), Perez (2008), Spector (2005), Spector (1997), Price and Mueller (2000) and Price (2001)were modified to suit this study for public librarians at COJLIS. Mobley’s (1977) turnover process model was germane to this study, as it theorises a linear sequence consisting of the following: “dissatisfaction, thoughts of quitting, evaluation of subjective expected utility of job search and costs of quitting, search intentions, evaluation of alternatives, comparison of alternatives and present job, intentions to quit and quitting”. The constituents of the conceptual framework are demographics factors (age, tenure and job designation level), personal factors (job satisfaction and organisational commitment) and organisational factors (payment and fringe benefits, location of workplace, working environment: flexi working hours, perceived alternative employment opportunity, promotion and recognition, personal interaction, supervision and leadership, training and opportunity to utilise skills) as well as turnover intention. This study employed the census method and adopted the cross-sectional survey design method to collect data from 174 librarians working in 89 public libraries and three support sections at COJLIS. Data collection involved the use of a closed-ended questionnaire, as well as analysis documents such as strategic plans and human resource policies. Quantitative data were analysed using the Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS) according to the objectives of the study. The researcher conducted a linear regression test to find the instance of correlation between personal and organisational variables, and librarians’ intention to leave their workplace. The findings revealed that demographic determinants (age, tenure and job designation level) are significantly related to turnover intention. Tenure was a highly significant predictor of turnover intention. The major findings to this study were a negative and significant relationship between payment and fringe benefits, working environment: flexi working hours (work-life balance) promotion and recognition towards turnover intention. The study concludes that COLIS may be able to reduce turnover intention through the improvement of factors such as payment and fringe benefit, working environment: flexi working hours (work-life balance) promotion and recognition which would lead to increased job satisfaction and organisational commitment. It is recommended that in order to mitigate turnover intention and increase retention, the talent retention policy, strategy and initiatives should be developed which could incorporate the variables (e.g. payment and fringe benefits, promotion and recognition and training to develop and utilise new skills) of the suggested conceptual talent retention model for COJLIS. A further study to validate a newly developed retention model in COJLIS is recommended.