Investigating behavioral antecedents of turnover at three job tenure levels

A field study was conducted to investigate differences between hourly assembly operators who stayed and hourly assembly operators who voluntarily quit their jobs. A total of 80 stayers and 121 leavers were identified from personnel records and were classified into one of three job tenure groups, 2-5 months, 6-12 months, and more than 12 months. Job performance, attendance measures, and biographical variables were used to predict turnover for each job tenure group. Results indicated poorer performance by leavers with 6-12 months tenure compared with stayers. No differences in performance or attendance were obtained between stayers and leavers with between 2-5 months and those with more than 12-months job tenure. Leavers after 6 and before 12 months demonstrated more absenteeism compared with stayers. Implications for the role of absenteeism and constraints on the performance-retention relation are discussed.