How do we retain our valuable employees? : A quantitative study about what makes experienced professional engineers stay with an employer

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate what experienced professional engineers value regarding work related factors and what makes them stay in an employment and in an organization. Theory: The theory used is derived from relevant research regarding work life science and was divided into several parts. The first part contains research about Employer Branding and how employers can use strategies to attract candidates and retain current employees. The second part concerns turnover intentions which is used to examine whether there are relationships between work-related factors that professional engineers believe they have in their workplace and their intentions to stay. The third part embraces Model of retention which contains eight work-related factors which are divided into organizational- and job level. These eight work-related factors shows to have impact on retention of professional workers. Some items were added from Bloom Live Connect Grow Employer Branding framework to complete the ability to measure retention levels. At last we used theory regarding employee engagement to predict the target group’s engagement level to see if it had significant impact on retention of experienced professional engineers. Methodology: A cross-sectional quantitative approach was used in this study and a questionnaire was sent out to 301 experienced professional engineers that had an employment within a global industrial enterprise. Approximately 158 experienced professional engineers completed the survey which lead to a responding frequency of 52,5 % percent. Findings: The result of the study showed that almost all 26 items tested out of Model of retention scored high means. Therefore they proved to be important for the maintenance of professional engineers to make them want to remain in an employment and in an organization. The only work-related factor that showed statistical significance from the regression analysis performed was compensation. Another interesting disclosure found was that the target group proved to be engaged, but nevertheless, there was a greater intention to leave than to remain in the workplace. Practical implications: It is important for employers to pay attention to the results of this study when shaping workforce strategies to become competitive as an employer. Social implications: Engineers are a sought-after target group in the labor market and therefore it is important for employers and HR-departments to work with strategies regarding remaining valuable competences such as experienced professional engineers to ensure the future of the organization