IT Staff turnover in Sri Lanka : a case of large-scale software companies

Abstract

This research concerns the turnover of Information Technology (IT) employees in Sri Lanka. It is observed that the rate of staff turnover in this industry is increasing gradually. After mid 1990s an expansion in the IT industry has been witnessed with many local and international companies setting-up operations to cater international market. As IT companies build on knowledge workers, absorbing qualified such employees is the focal point. In the competitive IT labor market, companies make substantial investment by adopting various strategies to recruit qualified skilled workers creating a high IT labor turnover rate in the industry. This not only influences performance and stability of the IT industry but also increases the costs of recruitment and selection of knowledge workers. In this context, arising IT labor turnover issues should be addressed. This research investigates the IT Staff turnover problem in large-scale software development companies in Sri Lanka. It involved five software development companies having more than 150 IT professionals (at the end of year 2003). All five companies have been in operation for more than 5 years in the IT industry by that time. In the study, survey questionnaire was used and the findings were based on 158 responses received from randomly selected knowledge workers in software development departments in respective organizations. The findings gave an insight into the IT professional's turnover behavior including their job satisfaction, turnover intentions and their level of job-fit. The findings can be generalized as applicable to all software development companies that can be categorized as large-scale organization