Examining job satisfaction levels and the intention to quit amongst employees in a small to medium auditing firm in South Africa

Magister Commercii - MComJob Satisfaction and the Intention to Quit are two factors that a synonymous with each other. Various research and studies have been conducted over the years indicting that there is a direct relationship between job satisfaction and intention to quit, suggesting that these factors often result in employees with low levels of job satisfaction resigning from the organisations they are employed at. Therefore the objective of this study was to examine those factors that affect job satisfaction and the intention to quit amongst employees at a small to medium auditing firm in South Africa. Demographic factors such as age, gender, marital status, tenure (length of service), number of dependents and qualification was used to establish the impact it had on employee's job satisfaction levels and their intention to quit. The study was conducted using a quantitative, non-probability, convenience sampling method. The sample group consisted of all permanent employees (N = 350) of an auditing firm with nine (9) offices across South Africa. The one hundred and fifteen (115) participants who voluntarily completed the questionnaires were made up of the CEO, Directors, Managers and employees within the Audit and Assurance, Accounting, Internal Auditing, Consulting and Group Services spectrum. They were required to complete an online biographical questionnaire (BQ), the Work Satisfaction and Motivation Questionnaire (WMQ) as well as the Michigan Organisational Assessment Questionnaire – Intention to Quit (ITQ), was used in order to gather relevant data for the study. Participants were informed that their participation was voluntary, anonymous and strictly confidential. All participants were informed of the purpose of the study and all ethical issues were clarified. Data was analysed by making use of the following data analysis techniques: descriptive, inferential, the Pearson product–moment correlation coefficient and ANOVA statistics. The results indicated that there was a significant positive relationship between job satisfaction and intention to quit amongst the sample of the auditing firms employees. There was also a significant relationship between pay and job satisfaction with a converse relationship between pay and intention to quit. Furthermore, the findings of the current study indicated that when taking into consideration the significant relationship between job satisfaction and intention to quit in relation to various biographic factors, there was no significant difference between different age groups, male or female, number of children (dependents) an employee had, their marital status or the qualifications that they held.However, it was found that there was no statistically significant difference between length of services and job satisfaction, but that there was a significant difference when taking into account the impact length of service had on the intention to quit. Recommendations were made and limitations for future research discussed in order to provide insight to the organisation stemming from the current study