Perceptions of knowledge work : ICT-professionals' job satisfaction and turnover intentions

Digitalization and increasing knowledge work have set new conditions for working life. At the same time as increasing networking, co-operation and workloads, there has also been an increase in problems with coping, social functioning and mental burden related to work. The purpose of this study is to improve managerial competence in IS/IT work. The aim is to find recommendations for management to better affect ICT-employee willingness to stay in company service. These recommendations can be seen as preventive measures against voluntary turnover. To be able to form these guidelines, this research intents to identify the factors that most increase and decrease ICT-professionals’ job satisfaction in the workplace. A comprehensive literature review was performed to cover concepts such as job satisfaction, motivation, commitment, turnover as well as management of specifically knowledge organizations and the results were used as a basis for the methodology choices of the empirical study. Data were collected through a survey questionnaire which was distributed online, as well as structured interviews with ICT-professionals. The results show that in the motivating factors lies big potential for the employer to increase job satisfaction of these ICT-professionals. The results indicate that by enhancing advancement possibilities and especially improving feedback from results and giving more recognition for success, the employer can increase feelings of achievement in the employee which not only affects positively on job satisfaction but also empowers the employee and leads to feelings of responsibility. This is meaningful because high levels of commitment and job satisfaction correlate with a willingness to stay in the organization’s service. This, in turn, is in relation to corporate metrics, like productivity, profit, customer satisfaction, employee turnover decrease, as well as the general health and well-being of the workforce