The anatomy of retention in the Federal Government : Why do productive workers stay?

People are an organization’s most important asset. Employees substantially influence organizational performance, and worker turnover imposes considerable costs on organizations. We examine both the intent to retire and the intent to leave the agency (retention), apart from retirement, but we focus on retention. While private organizations can employ a complex mix of high-powered incentives to retain workers, public organizations often lack comparable incentives, making retention more challenging. Fortunately, public employees frequently possess stronger intrinsic motives—a finding that implies public organizations can rely on other means to retain workers. Results indicate discretionary authority and goal and role clarity may be especially useful tools upon which the federal government can rely to retain employees. We also find that the intent to leave rises with each level of education, perhaps indicating more educated employees have better opportunities elsewhere. We also find substantial “lemming” effects: when others in the agency seek to leave, the average individual agency employee is also more likely to report the intention to leave. Findings also point to the need for additional research on public sector turnover and retention.