The Role of Voice in Retention of IT Workers: Paving the Higher Road

When dissatisfied, an employee has two discreet options: exit or voice [19]. While exit is defined as leaving the organization, voice represents an effort to gain correction of the dissatisfying situation. As managers, we want our valued IT professionals to communicate their dissatisfaction and give us an opportunity to correct the situation, rather than move directly to exit. To increase the likelihood of this, we need to better understand factors that influence an employee´s decision to voice. Preliminary results from a field survey of 112 professionals indicate that a proactive personality and perceived psychological safety of voice contribute to a propensity to voice, while psychological futility of voice contributes to turnover intention. Managerial openness was associated with higher psychological safety of voice and with lower perceptions of psychological futility of voice.