Why young talents quit: explaining employee turnover intentions among Albert Heijn workfloor-supervisors

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Why young talents quit: explaining employee turnover intentions among

Albert Heijn workfloor-supervisors

Student: Merve Renda (10906754) Supervisor: Ward van Zoonen Masterthesis (February 1st₂₀₁₈₎

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Abstract

High employee turnover rate of young talents has become a serious issue for the large Dutch retail company Albert Heijn. Because of this turnover, the company is facing a large shortage of candidates for the job of supermarket manager and assistant supermarket manager, which is dysfunctional for the organization. This study investigates the effects of perceived occupational prestige and person-job fit on turnover intention, with a mediating role for person-job satisfaction and organizational

commitment. Also the direct effects of person-study fit and alternative job opportunities on turnover intention have been tested. A questionnaire has been sent to all Albert Heijn stores in the

Netherlands and data were collected from 374 respondents. The findings suggest that perceived external occupational prestige and person-job fit indeed have a significant relationship with intention to leave, mediated through organizational commitment (except for the normative dimension of commitment). Also person-study fit and alternative job opportunities are significantly related to turnover intention. Job satisfaction does not play a role within the mediation relationship, which opens up a new perspective in the field of employee retention. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings will be discussed.

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Introduction

The retail industry heavily relies on part-time student workers. Since the profit margins within this industry are relatively low, most retailers have to rely upon young employees with relative low wages. These student workers represent a large group of contingent workers who keep the organization running. Contingent work is an employment relationship which is considered as non-permanent, is typically part-time and is usually not considered to be part of a career (Polivka & Nardone, 1989). Recent literature (Harrison & Gordon, 2014) points out that employee turnover rates are higher in the retail grocery industry in comparison to other industries. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (2013) reported that the annual turnover rate in this industry was 26.8% compared to the national average at 18.8%. This makes it challenging for retail organizations to retain employees and their skills, experience and knowledge. The corresponding costs to the firm regarding employees quitting the organization and the subsequent hiring of replacement employees can be significant in terms of personal, work-unit and organizational readjustments (Cascio, 1991).

A much smaller part of the workers consist of those with indefinite contracts. These employees are one of the few that are not replaced by younger workers because of their wage. These permanent workers either work full time at the organization (while student workers cannot) or have leadership qualities that are necessary on the work-floor to instruct larger groups of workers. Since they have indefinite contracts, these workers play a more important role in the long-term continuity of the stores because they have more opportunities and time to grow within the organization.

Albert Heijn calls workers with leadership qualities ‘team leaders’, which is a formal title within the organization. Albert Heijn B.V. is the largest supermarket chain in the Netherlands, with a market share of 35,2% (Distrifood, 2017). Team leaders are most of the time student-workers who once stood out because of their leadership qualities. These work-floor supervisors have the

responsibility to run a certain department of a store. They instruct other employees and give them feedback, report to the management of the store and are responsible to meet certain targets. In order to become a team leader, these employees when through a selection process and followed several trainings worth 900 euros.

Albert Heijn faces the challenge to retain their young talents who employ a supervising role as team leader, which resulted in a serious shortage of (assistant) supermarket managers among the stores. On the store-level, team leaders have the most potential to develop themselves as store managers. However, in general, team leaders do not take the step towards becoming a(n) (assistant) store manager. After all the effort put in by the organization and what the employee goes through, these team leaders most of the time still prefer a career outside Albert Heijn and leave the

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since a lot of social capital, experience and knowledge disappears. The lack of desire of the team leaders to grow within the organization, disrupts the flow of employees from lower levels in the organization to higher positions. This impacts business performance, and in this case, the

organization should reallocate resources to set up recruitment procedures in order to find candidates for the job. These activities and the loss of employees cost the organization a lot of time, effort and money (Cascio, 1991).

This high turnover trend among young talents is observable throughout whole the retail sector. There are different types of turnover: a typology of Allen (2008), distinguishes voluntary and involuntary turnover. Voluntary turnover is initiated by the employee, whereas involuntary turnover is initiated by the organization. When an employee leaves an organization voluntarily, this can be either functional or dysfunctional. Dysfunctional turnover is harmful to the organization and can be either avoidable or unavoidable. Avoidable turnover stems from causes the organization may be able to influence, whereas unavoidable turnover stems from causes over which the organization has no control. This research focuses on the dysfunctional and voluntary turnover of team leaders with the aim to investigate the antecedents of their intention to leave Albert Heijn. It is of crucial importance for the organization to identify the specific reasons why team leaders choose not to continue their careers within Albert Heijn. These insights might help them to create strategies in order to retain these young workers and their talent, knowledge and skills. Team leaders who currently work at Albert Heijn will be included in this study and their intention to leave will be examined, because someone’s intention to leave is seen as one of the best predictors of actual turnover (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975).

In the next section, several antecedents will be discussed in more depth in relation to intention to leave. First, perceived external prestige will be discussed. Perceptions of external prestige, regardless of whether they accurately reflect reality, can influence employees’ attachment to or intentions to leave their organization. (Carmeli & Freund, 2009). Second, the concept of person-job fit will be discussed. Individuals who experience a high fit in terms of value congruence, are less likely to exit the organization (Moynihan & Pandey, 2008). One’s expectations of a favorable job is being shaped over the years and the job of (A)SM may not be that satisfying when it comes to the perceived fit between the job and the desires of the team leader. Lastly, alternative job opportunities will be discussed. Since these team leaders are student-workers, the opportunity to advance their career in the field they study for is always present. It is of importance if they perceive their chances of advancing their careers outside Albert Heijn better than within the organization. When other (better) alternatives are present, employees will consider these alternatives with their benefits and disadvantages and eventually leave the organization at the time that it deems most appropriate.

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Theoretical Framework

There is a wide variety of literature concerning turnover intentions of employees across various sectors and employments, but less empirical research is focused on turnover among student workers in retail organizations. In the introduction, it has been made clear why perceived external prestige, person-organization fit and alternative job opportunities will be discussed more in depth in their relation with intention to leave. These concepts will be related to the most prominent antecedents of turnover intentions in literature, namely job satisfaction and organizational commitment. These key attitudes are seen as the trigger of an employee’s withdrawal process (Allen, 2008).

Perceived occupational prestige. Perceived External Prestige (PEP) is conceptualized by Dutton (1994) as a constructed external image and is defined as ‘assessments of the members of an organization about what others think about their organization’ (p.239). It is a construed image that relates to the employee’s own perceptions of the way outsiders in their social environment think about the organization according to some kind of favorable or unfavorable evaluative criteria (Dutton Dukerich & Harquail, 1994). With few exceptions (e.g., Carmeli & Freund, 2002; Herrbach, Mignonac & Gatignon, 2004), little research has focused on the extent to which PEP affects intention to leave. Carmeli and Freund (2002) have clearly suggested the importance of the internal consequences of the image perception by employees, especially on the workplace attitudes such as organizational commitment, job satisfaction and turnover intentions. These workplace attitudes are considered as essential to firm performance and work outcomes (Herrbach et al., 2004).

Personnel retention has consistently been viewed as an important consequence of organizational commitment. Organizational commitment is known as the employee’s sense of belonging to and identification with the organization, which increases involvement in the

organization’s activities, provides a willingness for the employee to pursue the organization’s goals, and elicits a desire to remain with the organization (Rhoades, Eisenberger & Armeli, 2001). Porter, Steers, Mowday and Boulian (1974) define organizational commitment as a ‘strong belief in and acceptance of the organization’s goals and values, a willingness to exert considerable effort on behalf of the organization, and a definite desire to maintain organizational membership’ (p. 604). Meyer and Allen (1991) identified three components of commitment: the affective, the continuance and the normative component. Affective commitment occurs when an employee feels a strong emotional attachment to the organization and the work that he or she does. The employee genuinely wants to be there and he or she is enjoying the work. Continuance commitment occurs when employees weigh up the pros and cons of leaving their organization. Here, an employee feels that they need to stay because the experienced loss would be greater than the benefit one might gain in a new role for example. Lastly, normative commitment, occurs when an employee feels a sense of obligation to the

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organization. The employee has the feeling that he or she should stay within the organization, because it is the right thing to do. For example, a team leader might feel that he or she should remain with Albert Heijn because the organization has invested 900 euros in his or her training. Herrbach and colleagues (2004) reported that PEP is positively related to organizational commitment, which in turn reduces intentions to leave. Organizational commitment is not the only attitude which mediates this relationship. Herrbach and colleagues (2004) also found that PEP has an indirect negative effect on employee turnover intention through job satisfaction. Job satisfaction an organizational commitment are very close related concepts. Job satisfaction is a positive (or negative) evaluative judgement one makes about one’s job or job situation (Weiss, 2002). Job satisfaction is treated as an important predictor in most turnover models presented in literature. While

dissatisfaction can influence the employee’s intention to quit, a positive evaluation can contribute to the intention to stay. This reasoning is based on the idea that employees have certain expectations concerning their job and the degree to which these are satisfied can induce a comparison process with opportunities available elsewhere – which can open the door to intentions to quit (Locke, 1969). When outsiders perceive the company positively, this has a positive influence on how the employee perceives working within the company (Herrbach et al., 2004). In this sense, PEP acts as a cognitive bias in the evaluative process on which satisfaction is based. Tett and Meyer (1993) concluded that job satisfaction and organizational commitment contribute independently to predict turnover intention. Additionally, Carmeli and Freund (2009) found that perceived external prestige results in higher levels of employee commitment and satisfaction, which in turn lead to lower levels of the intention to leave the organization. Another study, conducted by Rathi and Lee (2015), investigated the impact of perceived external prestige among retail employers in India. They found a negative relationship between perceived external prestige and turnover intentions, with a mediating role for affective commitment.

However, in this research, the aim is to look at the prestige perceptions concerning a specific occupation, namely the job of (A)SM, since the shortage of employees is mostly present for this function within the organization. The concept of perceived external prestige discussed above concerns evaluative perceptions about an organization as a whole. Since there is no similar conceptualization available in literature for prestige perceptions about occupations, based on the definition provided for PEP earlier, perceived external occupational prestige can be defined as ‘an individual level assessment of the organizational member about what other think about their occupation’. In this case, the relationships with job satisfaction, organizational commitment and intention to leave for perceived external occupational prestige will be treated the same as for PEP.

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Given these results and explanations, it is hypothesized that perceived external

(occupational) prestige influences one’s job satisfaction level and commitment, and this in turn affects one’s intention to leave or stay. Therefore, the first hypothesis is:

H1: Job satisfaction (a) and organizational commitment (b) mediate the negative relationship between perceived external prestige and turnover intentions.

P-J fit. Fit is defined as an employee's perceived compatibility with the job, organization, or

community. One form of fit, person-job (P-J) fit is defined as the compatibility between an employee and the job (Caldwell & O’Reilly, 1990). Fit posits that employees’ work attitudes and behaviors are shaped by how their personal goals and values align with those of their work environment (Edwards & Cable, 2009). The theory of vocational choice (Holland, 1992) postulates that an individual will select a career or occupation that is similar to or that fits with that person's self-concept. P-J fit is said to occur when people and organizations share similar fundamental characteristics in terms of values and goals (Kristof-Brown, Zimmerman & Johnson, 2005).

Empirical results have typically supported the hypothesis that congruence between individuals' personalities and the demands of their occupations are associated with positive affect (Mount & Muchinsky, 1978; Spokane, 1985) and a high likelihood of their staying in their jobs (Meir & Hasson, 1982). Lofquist and Dawis (1969) also proposed that satisfaction results from "a

harmonious relationship between the individual and his environment, suitability of the individual to the environment and vice versa" (p. 45). Individuals who do not enjoy working for companies or jobs that do no align well with their personal values and often leave as a result (Bell, Doverspike & Villado, 2006). In terms of the relationship between P-J fit and job satisfaction, the degree to which an individual’s and occupation’s values overlap is termed value-goal congruence (Chatman, 1991). When value-goal congruence is high, the more satisfied the employee will be in his or her job (Kristof-Brown et al., 2005). Kristof-(Kristof-Brown and colleagues (2005) showed in their study that PJ-fit has strong correlations with job satisfaction (.56), organizational commitment (.47) and intention to leave (-.46) (p.299).

Given that values play such an important role in the definition of commitment, a person whose personal values match the values of the occupation would be more committed than a person whose personal values differed from it. For example, Finegan (2000) found that fit is positively related to organizational commitment. Individuals with a large fit feel the most satisfied and intent to and actually remain with it longer (Chatman, 1991).

On the reverse side, lack of value-goal congruence reduces employee job satisfaction and commitment, most likely through violation of employee expectations, which in turn causes employee

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turnover (Kristof-Brown et al., 2005; Verquer, Beehr & Wagner, 2003). Holland (1992) also stated that incongruence will be resolved by seeking a new environment or by changing personal behaviour and perceptions. The research on organizational fit has been extensive and clear: the more

individuals fit with their jobs, coworkers, and larger corporate cultures, the lower the turnover. Perceptions of fit are especially important during the early stages of adjustment to a job (Mitchell, Holtom, Lee & Sablynski, 2001). For example, work socialization theory (Feij 1998; Fisher 1986), assumes that people, especially in the early phases of their career, strive to establish

consistency between their own characteristics and their work environment, by changing one or both of these. The young team leaders at Albert Heijn are full-time students as well. Most team leaders choose not to fulfil the job of (A)SM and make the decision to work in the field they studied for. During the career orientation phase, young people are generally in search for values that suit their vision best and are creating more expectations and desires about their future jobs. Since these young talents spend a lot of time and effort on their studies beside their jobs, it might be the case that they perceive a large fit with their study. A perceived large fit with their studies rather than with the job of (A)SM could provide an explanation why these young talents choose to leave the jobs of (A)SM behind.

Based on the relation between fit and turnover intention and the reasoning above, the following are hypothesized:

H2: Job satisfaction (a) and organizational commitment (b) mediate the negative relationship between P-J fit and turnover intentions.

H3: There is a positive relationship between person-study fit and intention to leave.

Perceived alternative job opportunities. A recurrent theme in the turnover literature is that the availability of alternative jobs influences turnover intentions and behavior. Perceived alternative job opportunities (PAJO) is defined as the perception of a person regarding the availability of external alternative jobs. Historically, turnover researchers viewed two variables as key to understanding why employees voluntarily leave organizations: job satisfaction and perceived job alternatives (Hulin Roznowski & Hachiya, 1985). March and Simon’s model (1958) also suggests that certain factors (e.g. dissatisfaction) may "push" the employee to look for alternative employment, while other factors (e.g. the perception of attractive alternative job opportunities) may "pull" the employee to consider alternative employment.

Mattila (1974) suggests that most people do not quite one job without first lining up another one. Josephson and colleagues (2008) also found that when PAJO are plentiful, the likelihood of

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leaving is higher. As Michaels and Spector (1982) suggest: "If a person intends to quit a job, he or she most likely would quit when another job became available" (p. 58).

The fact that the young talents of Albert Heijn are in the early stages of their career,

alternative job opportunities play an important role in deciding whether to continue a career within Albert Heijn. Since these team leaders are student-workers, the opportunity to advance their career in the field they study for is present. If young talents perceive more opportunities and better careers prospects outside the organization, they have higher intentions to leave Albert Heijn. Therefore, the following is hypothesized:

H4: There is a positive relationship between perceived alternative job opportunities and intention to leave.

All hypotheses formulated above and their expected relationships are displayed in the conceptual model in figure 1.

Figure 1. Conceptual model

Methods

Design

For this research, a survey design is used. First, the team leaders at Albert Heijn (in general) do not have much time to participate in a research due to the dynamics on the work-floor. Therefore, participating in the survey should be made as easy and accessible as possible. Surveys are relatively easy and quick to administer (Bryman, 2012). Second, conducting the survey through E-mail will prevent geographical dependence and makes collecting data from a large number of respondents possible. Albert Heijn has stores all over the Netherlands and therefore this way of collecting data is

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seen as most time- and cost-effective. The survey was an online self-report questionnaire and is created with the online survey tool Qualtrics.

Sample and procedure

In order to use a sample, the sampling frame should be known beforehand. Within this study, it is not possible to map and track all individual team leaders that work for Albert Heijn. Therefore, a list of all existing Albert Heijn stores in the Netherlands is used. This means that the unique opportunity of including the whole sampling frame was present in this study. This list is available on the Albert Heijn intranet called ‘SAM’. The headquarter updates this list every Monday, so the data in this list is very recent. Albert Heijn makes a division of 4 large regions: Noord-Oost, Noord-West, Zuid-Oost and Zuid-West. These 4 regions consist of 37 ‘winkelgroepen’ in total. All 885 stores of Albert Heijn, are divided unequally across the 37 ‘winkelgroepen’. The stores all have their own store number, consisting of four digits, which were indicated in the Netherlands store list. This number is used for composing the store e-mail address. For example, if a store has number 1385, the e-mail address would be mt.1385.ah@ahold.com. The survey-link with explanations and a request to fill in the survey was sent to these store e-mail addresses. Using e-mail is fast and has relatively low costs. However, it should be kept in mind that the response rate could be moderate. In this case, by including the whole sampling frame, it is still not sure if all research units (team leaders) were reached since survey links could not be personalized due to shared e-mail addresses used in the organization.

Within this research, the population, which are all individuals possessing the attributes of interest, are the young team leaders of Albert Heijn (under 30 years). There are also older team leaders, people in the mid-stage of their careers and performing the job on a full-time basis. These team leaders will be excluded from the study based on their age and career-phase. All e-mails sent to the store e-mails will be in the personal inboxes of team leaders, but also in those of the

supermarket managers and assistant supermarket managers. The mail made clear that the

questionnaire is meant for team leaders. A control question is included to check the function of the participant in order to exclude managers and assistant managers.

The organization works with four different formulas: ‘wijkwinkel’, ‘XL’, ‘To Go’ and ‘Online’. Since there are no team leaders in Albert Heijn To Go’s and at Albert Heijn Online, these stores are excluded from this study. In ‘wijkwinkel’ and ‘XL’, there are two kinds of team leaders: ‘verkoopklaar’ (stocking) and ‘verkoopafhandeling’ (check-out). This research did not make a distinction between these two since they both operate on the same hierarchical level within the organization.

After distributing the survey through the internal mailing system, 273 completed

questionnaires have been registered. Uncompleted questionnaires have been registered as partial data. All (assistant) supermarket managers have been excluded from data analysis (N=5) as well as

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team leaders above 30 years (N=28). The sample consisted of 55,5% males and the mean age was 23,3. (N=240). 59,2% of the team leaders worked at verkoopklaar (stocking) and 38,8% worked at verkoopafhandeling (check-outs).

The survey is conducted in English, even though Albert Heijn is a Dutch company. Translating, even with test and re-test procedures, would affect the reliability of the measures. Therefore it has been chosen to keep the original measures. It can be assumed that most students in the Netherlands master the English language sufficiently, since most young talents are enrolled in higher educational programmes. The participants entered the study with informed consent, where at the same time the topic of the survey is introduced, confidentiality is stressed and the possibility to ask questions about the survey is provided. The survey contained measures for the dependent, independent and mediator variables, following some questions about demographics (serving as control variables). One of them was education (measured on a scale from 1 (LBO/VMBO) to 8 (WO, Master), M=5.64, SD=1.43). After completion of the survey, the participants were thanked for their participation and got debriefed. Lastly, it is worth to mention that none of the participants did receive an incentive for participating.

Measures

Intention to leave. A four-item measure (Kelloway, Gottlieb & Barham, 1999) was used to assess turnover intentions (i.e., "I am thinking about leaving this organization," "I am planning to look for a new job," "I intend to ask people about new job opportunities," and "I don't plan to be in this organization much longer"). Each item was rated along a 5-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree, M=3.53; SD=1.06 and α = .837). The items were slightly modified by adding a time-span of five years in the question. Since it is about future plans about leaving the organization, an example question is: ‘I am planning to look for a new job within 5 years’.

Perceived external occupational prestige. This measure is based on Mael and Ashforth’s ‘Perceived Organizational Prestige’ scale (1992). The scale originally consists of eight items, but since 2 of them were not relevant for this study (e.g. ‘Alumni of all (conference schools) would be proud to have their children attend (name of school)’ and ‘When other (conference schools) are recruiting new students, they would not want students from (name of school)’), six items were used to measure perceived external prestige. The items were originally used to assess prestige concerning a university. Here, this measure is applied to the job of (assistant) store manager. Example items are: ‘It is considered prestigious in the community to be an (A)SM.’ and ‘People from other occupations look down at the job of (A)SM.’ Each item was rated along a 5-point scale (1= strongly disagree, 5= strongly agree, M=3.61; SD=.98 and α = .795).

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Person-job fit. Items designed by Saks and Ashforth (1997) were used to measure

person-organization fit as well as person-job fit. An example item for P-O fit is: ‘To what extent are the values of the organization similar to your own values?’. All items of P-O fit, P-J fit and P-S fit can be found in table 1, together with all means, standard deviations and Cronbach’s Alpha’s.

Table 1. Constructs, items, means, standard deviations and Cronbach’s Alpha’s.

Constructs and Items M SD α

Person-Organization fit 3.46 .71 .826

To what extent are the values of the organization similar to your own values? To what extent does your personality match the personality or image of the organization?

To what extent does the organization fulfill your needs? To what extent is the organization a good match for you?

Person-Job fit 3.40 .78 .797

To what extent do your knowledge, skills, and abilities match the requirements of the job?

To what extent does the job fulfill your needs? To what extent is the job a good match for you?

To what extent does the job enable you to do the kind of work you want to do?

Person-Study fit 3.61 .89 .809

To what extent do your knowledge, skills, and abilities match the requirements of your study?

To what extent does your study fulfill your needs? To what extent is your study a good match for you?

To what extent does your study enable you to do the kind of work you want to do?

Perceived alternative job opportunities. Stumpf and colleagues (1993) developed a three-item measure for expected certainty for careers. For the question ‘how certain are you that you will start a job related to your (current) education within the next 5 years?’ participants could indicate their certainty level on a five-point Likert scale (1= very uncertain, 5= very certain) for: (a) the specific job they prefer, (b) the specific company or organization they prefer and (c) the specific occupation they prefer. Here, M= 3.61; SD=.98 and α = .861.

Job satisfaction. For measuring job satisfaction, the job satisfaction subscale of the Michigan Organizational Assessment Questionnaire (Cammann, Fichman, Jenkins & Klesh, 1979) is used. This

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is a three-item scale about general job satisfaction. The items of this scale include ‘All in all I am satisfied with my job’, ‘In general, I don’t like my job’ and ‘In general, I like working here’ (M= 3.93; SD=.73 and α = .825).

Organizational commitment. Lastly, the Organizational Commitment Questionnaire designed by Meyer and Allen (1993) is used. The scale contains three subscales which are affective (M= 3.54; SD=.60 and α =.788), normative (M= 2.93; SD=.58 and α = .661) and continuance commitment (M= 3.13; SD=.62 and α = .698). Each of the subscales consist of 8 items and are measured on a 5-point Likert scale (1= ‘strongly disagree’, 5= ‘strongly agree’).

Analysis

Before analyzing all data, the data have been checked for missing and odd values. Also the data of the participants who should be excluded (like older team leaders and (assistant) supermarket

managers who also filled in the questionnaire) were not used during analysis. Reliability for the items have been checked and questions have been recoded where necessary. After conducting reliability analyses and constructing the variables, the assumptions for regression have been checked. First, the data has been checked for linearity by composing scatterplots. Together with the frequencies and histograms, normality has also been checked. The variables were all quite normally distributed. Third, the tolerance and VIF values have been checked for multicollinearity. No strange values have been discovered, since the tolerance values were all >1 and VIF values were <10. Lastly, the data has been checked for homoscedasticity. The plots for the residuals showed that the variance was constant with different values for the predicting variable. All variables have been checked for correlations by creating a correlation table. In order to test the mediation hypotheses (H1 and H2), model 4 in Process by Andrew Hayes (2013) is used. In order to test the direct effects and relationships,

regression analyses in SPSS were conducted (H3 and H4). During hypothesis testing, control variables gender, education and function were held constant.

Results

The correlations among all measures are presented in table 2. As expected, perceived external prestige was positively related to job satisfaction (.42) and negatively related to intention to leave (-.45). Perceived external prestige also positively correlates with all dimensions of commitment (.31, .22, and .21, respectively). The correlation with education is also interesting, the higher the

education, the lower the perceived prestige towards the job (-.23).

Person-Job fit is positively correlated with job satisfaction (.52) and only the affective (.50) and the normative dimension of commitment (.24). PJ fit was negatively correlated with intention to

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leave (-.42) as well. Job satisfaction and all dimensions of commitment were negatively related with intention to leave (-.49, -.22, -.31 and -.39 respectively).

Lastly, we see that person-study fit is correlated with perceived alternative job opportunities (.39). So, when someone perceives his or her study as a good fit for his or her self, he or she will be more certain of the presence of alternative job opportunities. The perceived alternative job

opportunities are also positively correlated with intention to leave (.24). All correlations mentioned in this section are significant at p<.01.

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Perceived external

occupational prestige:

the mediating role of job

satisfaction and

organizational

commitment

In the theoretical framework, it is first hypothesized that job satisfaction and organizational

commitment mediate the negative relationship between perceived external prestige and turnover intentions (H1). To test this hypothesis, a mediation analysis in Process has been conducted (Hayes, 2013). Here, the analysis reveals that perceived external

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occupational prestige has a significant effect on the mediator job satisfaction, with b= .41,

t(243)=6.39, p<.01. The direct effect on the mediator organizational commitment has been tested on all three dimensions of the measure. The Process-output for affective commitment shows that perceived external occupational prestige has a significant effect (b= .26, t(243)=4.80, p<.01. For continuance and normative commitment, this relationship is also significant (b= .18, t(243)=3.29, p<.01 and b= .17, t(243)=3.00, p<.01 respectively).

All variables together explain 36,1% of the variance in intention to leave (R2 = .361).

For the dependent variable intention to leave, all direct effects are presented in table 3. The results show that affective commitment and perceived external occupational prestige have a significant and moderately strong effect on intention to leave.

Table 3. Outcome variable: Intention to leave

Variable b se t p LLCI ULCI

Job satisfaction -.0223 .0968 -.23097 .8178 -.2131 .1684

Affective commitment -.5430 .1129 -4.8100 .0000 -.7654 -.3206 Continuance commitment -.1613 .0900 -1.7923 .0744 -.3386 .0160

Normative commitment -.1439 .1008 -1.4279 .1546 -.3424 .0546

Perceived external occupational prestige -.4048 .0775 -5.2215 .0000 -.5575 -.2532

For testing our mediation hypothesis, the indirect effect of perceived external occupational prestige on intention to leave, through job satisfaction and dimensions of commitment is checked. The analysis shows that the confidence intervals for affective commitment and continuance commitment do not contain zero, which means that organizational commitment on these dimensions mediates this relationship. This is not the case for normative commitment and job satisfaction, here the confidence interval does contain zero (table 4). Based on these results, only affective commitment and continuance commitment mediate the relationship between perceived occupational prestige and intention to leave. Job satisfaction and normative commitment do not play a significant role within this relationship. The effect is not significant for all forms of commitment. As the direct effect of perceived external occupational prestige on intention to leave remains significant with the mediator, a partial mediation can be confirmed. Therefore hypothesis H1b is partly supported, while hypothesis H1a is not.

Table 4. Indirect effect of perceived external occupational prestige on intention to leave.

Variable Effect Boot SE BootLLCI BootULCI

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Affective commitment -.1416 .0417 -.2367 -.0726

Continuance commitment -.0293 .0194 -.0772 -.0002

Normative commitment -.0246 .0195 -.0756 .0044

Person-job fit: the mediating role of job satisfaction and organizational commitment

The second hypothesis is that job satisfaction and organizational commitment mediate the negative relationship between P-J fit and turnover intentions (H2). Process analysis shows that person-job fit has a significant effect on the mediator job satisfaction, with b= .48, t(243)=8.53, p<.01. The effect of person-job fit on the affective and normative dimensions of the mediator are significant (b= .41, t(243)=8.08, p<.01 and b= .19, t(243)=3.62, p<.01 respectively). For the dimension of continuance commitment, the relationship with person-job fit was just not significant, b= .10, t(243)=1.93, p= 0.055. For the dependent variable intention to leave, all direct effects are presented in table 5. The results show that affective commitment, continuance commitment (at the 0.05-level) and person-job fit have a significant effect on intention to leave. All variables together explain 31,4% of the variance in intention to leave (R2 = .314).

Table 5. Outcome variable: Intention to leave

Variable B se t p LLCI ULCI

Job satisfaction -.0804 .4019 -.7343 .4635 -.2960 .1352 Affective commitment -.4825 .1095 -4.0230 .0001 -.7188 -.2463 Continuance commitment -.2224 .1199 -2.3674 .0187 -.4075 -.0373 Normative commitment -.1617 .0939 -1.5553 .1212 -.3665 .0431 Person - job fit -.2433 .0730 -3.3356 .0010 -.3871 -.0996

For testing the mediation hypothesis, the indirect effect of person-job fit on intention to leave is checked. The analysis shows that the confidence intervals for affective commitment and continuance commitment do not contain zero, which means that organizational commitment on these

dimensions mediates this relationship. This is not the case for normative commitment and job satisfaction, here the confidence interval does contain zero (table 6). Based on these results, affective commitment and continuance commitment mediate the relationship between person-job fit and intention to leave. Job satisfaction and normative commitment do not play a significant role here. As the direct effect of person-job on intention to leave remains significant with the mediator, a partial mediation can be confirmed. Therefore hypothesis H2b is partly supported, while hypothesis H2a is not.

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18 Table 6. Indirect effect of person-job fit on intention to leave.

Variable Effect Boot SE BootLLCI BootULCI

Job satisfaction -.0392 .0520 -.1337 .0763

Affective commitment -.1967 .0540 -.3156 -.1028

Continuance commitment -.0219 .0161 -.0657 -.0004

Normative commitment -.0303 .0213 -.0832 .0033

The mediation analyses above were performed while controlling for gender, education and function. None of the control variables did have a significant relationship with affective, continuance or normative commitment and job satisfaction. However, only education is significantly related to intention to leave b= .19, t(261)=5.92, p<.01. The correlations in table 2 show that education is also significantly and negatively related to perceived external prestige. This means that workers with higher education levels perceive the prestige levels lower and are more intended to leave the organization.

The role of person-study fit and perceived alternative job opportunities

It has been hypothesized that a high fit between the person and the study is positively related to one’s intention to leave (H3). The analysis showed that person-study fit and intention to leave are positively correlated and that this relationship is significant (B=.15, t(243)=1.97, p=.050). While controlling for gender, education and function, the relationship between person-study fit and intention to leave is still significant (B=.17, t(232)=2.44, p=.015) and all variables together explain 11,6% of the variance in intention to leave. Thus, when a person perceives a large fit with his or her study, he or she will be more inclined to leave. Therefore, hypothesis 3 is supported.

Lastly, it has been hypothesized that perceived alternative job opportunities and intention to leave are positively related. (H4). Regression analysis shows that this relationship is indeed positive and significant (B=.37, t(283)=6.71, p<.01). R2=.137, which means that 13,7% of the variance in intention to leave can be explained by perceived alternative job opportunities. This relationship has also been tested while controlling for education, since education also has a significant effect on turnover intentions. While holding education constant, perceived alternative job opportunities still have a significant effect on intention to leave (B=.29, t(276)=5,35, p<.01). Therefore, hypotheses 4 is supported.

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The main aim of this study was to examine the antecedents of young talent’s intention to leave Albert Heijn. The findings presented in this study support the notion that perceived external occupational prestige, person-job fit, person-study fit and alternative job opportunities indeed play an important role in employee’s intention to leave Albert Heijn.

Within this study, job satisfaction was expected to mediate the relationship between perceived external occupational prestige and intention to leave as well as the relationship between person-job fit and intention to leave. Literature has been quite consistent that job satisfaction plays a significant role when it comes to predicting turnover intentions (e.g. Griffeth et al, 2000). However, in contrast to previous findings, job satisfaction does not seem to predict turnover intentions of team leaders at Albert Heijn. This suggests that employees might leave the organization regardless of their job satisfaction. The only cases found in literature when satisfied employees leave are cases of involuntary turnover (for example a reorganization) (Allen, 2008). This study shows that these findings also apply to voluntary turnover in the context of student workers in the retail sector. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed in the following paragraphs.

Theoretical implications

This research has investigated the antecedents of turnover intentions in a different context than most of the previous research has been conducted. A large part of the literature about work-attitudes, concern knowledge workers or office jobs on a full time basis. This research however, focuses on young talents during their pre-career. Until now, work has been a small part of their lives, but is becoming bigger since career-orientation is starting to become more relevant. There is much to gain within this area of young talents when it comes to retaining them: today’s young employees might be essential for the company’s future.

On the theoretical level, these results might make us rethink the current models of employee retention as they mostly focus on keeping employees happy (seeing satisfaction as a direct as well as indirect predictor) (Farkas and Tetrick (1989); Hom and Kinicki (2001); Jamal (1990); Porter et al. (1974); Tett and Meyer (1993); Van Dick et al. (2004); Williams and Hazer (1986)). So far, job satisfaction has been treated as an important indicator of staying within an organization. However, the models which focus on employee satisfaction, do not apply for workers in the pre-careers: people may be very satisfied but still may choose to leave the job. This research showed that in the case of young talents in their pre-career phases, other alternative explanations like person-job fit, prestige perceptions and alternative job opportunities are more important to consider when it comes to their intention to leave.

The findings of this study are in line with the study conducted by Rathi and Lee (2015), where the impact of perceived external prestige on turnover intentions among retail employees is

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significant. This research also showed that employees’ prestige perceptions toward the job of ASM (especially among the higher educated employees) are related to one’s intention to leave. Prestige perceptions are somewhat hard to influence and change by the organization, since general ideas about certain occupations are social constructions that are embedded in society. Firemen, pilots and astronauts are awesome, whereas garbage collectors, janitors and retailers are not. Higher educated students in retail may have some norms about desired jobs and incomes that are influenced by social norms. These social norms and perceptions could not be easily changed by an organizational

intervention. To a certain level, it might be wise to more or less accept the turnover of these workers. However, Albert Heijn still has a lot of possibilities to keep part of the young talents within their organization as well, which will be discussed next.

Practical implications

To measure job satisfaction, Albert Heijn annually sets up a large national survey among all employees. Of course it is still good to do this as an organization, since job satisfaction has a lot of benefits as it is related to productivity for example (Judge et al., 2001). However, when it comes to employee retention, the findings of this study imply that the organizations’ efforts to keep

employees happy do not contribute to the retention of the group of young talents within this study. Linked to the findings concerning prestige perceptions, Albert Heijn might want to try to introduce and offer more prestigious jobs which suit the desires of the student workers more. These jobs with a somewhat more positive image might keep the talented employees within higher levels of the organization. More opportunities may also generate a greater chance for person-job fit, since the employee has more choice to select what suits him or herself best.

However, this still does not solve the problem of the shortage on the store-level concerning ASM’s and SM’s. Part of the student workers still might want to work as ASM or SM after graduation, but then the job offer should be timely and relevant. This means that the organization should know when their young talents and student-workers are about to graduate so that they can offer

alternatives timely. Albert Heijn needs to make sure that they can compete with other alternatives outside the organization and emphasize that actually a lot of different study fields are applicable for the jobs that are offered. The offers should fit the ambitions and studies of the young student-workers.

Additionally, the current business model of promoting highly educated student worker to the position of team leader, is obstructing the way of non student workers to advance their careers to higher position. This might be problematic as these workers could be more likely to have long-term careers in the stores. The non-student workers remain under the radar of management and become a group of hidden-talents, an underutilized potential. This means that on the store level, the smart

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and young students with low wages are keeping the spots occupied and that the undiscovered talents do not get the chance to grow. The problem is that the higher educated young talents eventually have the need to develop themselves further and move on towards other alternatives that suit their studies and ambitions better, and therefore leave the organization. The undiscovered talents with perhaps some lower levels of education however, might not see it as a problem to work in the store during their whole career. These hidden talents are actually more important for the continuity of the organization on the store-level.

When it comes to prestige perceptions, there might be differences between people from lower and higher social environments and how they are affected by certain images. The kind of workers that do not mind working for a supermarket for the rest of their career probably do not even have negative perceptions concerning the job of ASM or SM and therefore would be not or less affected by the somewhat negative prestige perceptions concerning this job. Intuitively and based on the principles of social psychology, people’s social environment has impact on how prestige

perceptions are determined. The correlation table in the results section also showed that education and perceived external prestige were negatively related to each other.

An article by Peterson (2005) about Walmart, one of the largest grocery retailers in the world, stresses the importance of successful HR policies in employee retention. Walmart also had trouble with retaining their employees. Their program with the key elements ‘getting good people’, ‘keeping good people’ and ‘growing good people’, turned out to reduce the turnover rates. Besides providing good working conditions for the people they got, Albert Heijn may want to focus on keeping and growing employees more by giving undiscovered talent a chance and offering other talents a timely and suitable alternative.

In short, first Albert Heijn really should compete with other job alternatives in a timely manner and offering alternatives that fit the ambitions and study background of their young talents. Second, Albert Heijn should not ignore the undiscovered talents that might be important for the continuity of the stores. By allowing other talents (that are less higher educated but are willing to stay much longer) to grow, the risk of choosing for another alternative (after finishing a study for example) will be reduced. Working towards the position of team leaders and eventually ASM or SM would be a great challenge for them. It might be helpful for Albert Heijn to map when their team leaders will graduate and invite them to career events and offering challenging opportunities and possibilities to grow. These offers might be challenging for this target group when it is higher than the store-level. On the store-level, it might be helpful to incorporate HR policies and trainings for store-managers on how to recognize and discover new talent on the work-floor and also how to supervise them together with the current team leaders.

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Limitations and directions for further research

As with every research, it should be kept in mind that this research has some limitations. One issue concerns the external validity of this sample. This research only researched Albert Heijn. It is not clear whether these findings also do apply for other retail organizations or typical student jobs.

Another limitation concerns the measurement of the perceptions about job of (A)SM. This research did not make a distinction between ASM and SM within measurement, whereas in practice, the job of SM is higher in the hierarchical order. Albert Heijn also makes a distinction in several orders of supermarket managers, ranging from SM1 to SM6. Managers of large stores have higher salaries than managers of smaller stores. Within this study it is not clear if young talents would perceive and SM 6 as more prestigious than ASM or SM1. It is also not clear whether it is more about the prestige or more about the salaries. Therefore, to get a more accurate view on this, all salaries for the functions of ASM and SM1-SM6 could be identified and be measured among young adults which ‘scales’ appeal to them most. Additional questions then, could identify which levels of salary triggers young talents to stay.

On the methodological level of this research, it is not clear how many team leaders saw the mail-invitation, so despite the clearly defined target population, it is hard to calculate a response rate as respondents were not contacted individually. Language barriers may have reduced the response rate of this study because after distributing the survey, some participants replied the mail and said that they chose not to participate because the survey was in English. A survey in Dutch may solve this problem.

Lastly, and perhaps most important, in order to discover the undiscovered talent, research could identify how many people working in the stores actually have the ambition in becoming a team leader and how long they have been working at Albert Heijn. By mapping the potential team leaders in the stores, something can be done about their guidance and growth towards team leader.

Regarding the hierarchy of the organization and the fact that team leaders automatically receive indefinite contracts, it is most straightforward that team leaders eventually become an ASM or SM. In this way, Albert Heijn takes into account the ambitions of their workers and prepare themselves for long-term developments concerning the in- and outflow of personnel.

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Appendix A

Subject: Een toekomst binnen Albert Heijn? Beste teamleider,

Jouw kwaliteiten, talenten en doorzettingsvemogen hebben jou gebracht tot waar je nu staat. Je doet hard je best om een mooie afdeling of een mooie winkel neer te zetten, elke dag weer. Als

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collega-teamleider, begrijp ik dat als geen ander. In het kader van ‘samen winnen’ en ‘iedere dag beter’ wil ik jou vragen om een paar minuten tijd vrij te maken en jouw meningen en ervaringen met mij te delen. Zo kunnen samen ons mooie bedrijf Albert Heijn weer een stukje beter maken.

Ik ben Merve Renda, een collega- teamleider VKA uit Albert Heijn XL 1385 te Alkmaar en tevens masterstudente aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam. Momenteel doe ik voor mijn afstudeerscriptie onderzoek onder alle AH teamleiders en hun toekomstige carrièreplannen.

Hiervoor maak ik gebruik van een korte enquête, die zo’n 8 minuten in beslag neemt om in te vullen. Jouw mening en ervaring wordt gewaardeerd, laat van je horen!

Graag aan jou het verzoek via onderstaande link mijn enquête in te vullen. Indien er vragen zijn over de enquête, kunnen deze altijd gemaild worden naar merve.renda@student.uva.nl of renda.merve@ah.nl.

Bij voorbaat dank.

Met vriendelijke groet, Merve Renda

Appendix B

Beste collega en deelnemer,

Deze enquête is opgesteld door Merve Renda, een collega teamleider werkzaam in Albert Hejin XL 1385 te Alkmaar en tevens masterstudente aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam. Het onderzoek wordt uitgevoerd onder verantwoordelijkheid van onderzoeksinstituut ASCoR,

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onderdeel van Universtiteit van Amsterdam. Dit afstudeeronderzoek richt zich onder andere op de carrièreplannen van teamleiders. Je wordt verzocht een aantal vragen in te vullen en de totale duur van de vragenlijst wordt geschat op 8 minuten. De vragenlijst zal worden afgenomen in het Engels.

Omdat dit onderzoek wordt uitgevoerd onder de verantwoordelijkheid van ASCoR, Universiteit van

Amsterdam, heeft u de garantie dat:

1. Uw anonimiteit is gewaarborgd en dat uw antwoorden of gegevens onder geen enkele voorwaarde aan derden zullen worden verstrekt, tenzij u hiervoor van tevoren uitdrukkelijke toestemming hebt verleend.

2. U zonder opgaaf van redenen kunt weigeren mee te doen aan het onderzoek of uw deelname voortijdig kunt afbreken. Ook kunt u achteraf (binnen 24 uur na deelname) uw toestemming intrekken voor het gebruik van uw antwoorden of gegevens voor het onderzoek.

3. Deelname aan het onderzoek geen noemenswaardige risico’s of ongemakken voor u met zich meebrengt, geen moedwillige misleiding plaatsvindt, en u niet met expliciet aanstootgevend materiaal zult worden geconfronteerd.

4. U uiterlijk 5 maanden na afloop van het onderzoek de beschikking over een onderzoeksrapportage kunt krijgen waarin de algemene resultaten van het onderzoek worden toegelicht. Voor meerinformatie over dit onderzoek en de uitnodiging tot deelname kunt u te allen tijde contact opnemen met de projectleider Merve Renda, ASCoR, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Roetersstraat 166, 1018 WV te Amsterdam; merve.renda@student.uva.nl (AH mail mag ook, renda.merve@ah.nl). Mochten er naar aanleiding van uw deelname aan dit onderzoek bij u toch klachten of opmerkingen zijn over het verloop van het onderzoek en de daarbij gevolgde procedure, dan kunt u contact

opnemen met het lid van de Commissie Ethiek namens ASCoR, per adres: ASCoR secretariaat, Commissie Ethiek, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Roetersstraat 166, 1018 WV Amsterdam; 020- 525 3680; ascor-secr-fmg@uva.nl. Een vertrouwelijke behandeling van uw klacht of opmerking is daarbij gewaarborgd.

Ik hoop u hiermee voldoende te hebben geïnformeerd en ik dank u bij voorbaat hartelijk voor uw deelname aan dit onderzoek.

Met vriendelijke groet, Merve Renda

o

I agree in participating in this study, I have been informed about the study and I have been given the opportunity to ask questions.

Please read the statements about organizational commitment carefully. Indicate your agreement or disagreement with each statement.

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28 Strongly

disagree Disagree

Neither agree nor

disagree Agree

Strongly Agree I would be very happy to spend

the rest of my career with this

organization

o

I enjoy discussing about my

organization with people outside it

o

I really feel as if this organization’s

problems are my own

o

I think that I could easily become as attached to another

organization as I am to this one

o

I do not feel like ‘part of the

family’ at my organization

o

I do not feel ‘emotionally attached’

to this organization

o

This organization has a great deal

of personal meaning for me

o

I do not feel a ‘strong’ sense of

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Strongly disagree Disagree Neither agree nor

disagree Agree

Strongly agree I am not afraid of what

might happen if I quit my job without having

another one lined up

o

It would be very hard for me to leave my organization right now,

even if I wanted to

o

Too much in my life would be disrupted if I decided to

leave my organization now

o

It wouldn’t be too costly for me to leave my

organization now

o

Right now, staying with my organization is a matter of

necessity as much as

desire

o

I feel that I have very few options to consider leaving

this organization

o

One of the few serious consequences of leaving this organization would be

the scarcity of available alternatives

o

One of the major reasons I continue to work for this organization is that leaving