Turnover intentions among South African IT professionals : gender, ethnicity and the influence of pay satisfaction

Abstract

The South African ICT industry is struggling with high turnover despite the relatively high remuneration packages it offers to its gender and racially diverse IT professionals. This study explored pay satisfaction levels and its relationship with job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and turnover intentions. Survey responses from 158 IT professionals were subjected to descriptive, correlation and regression analysis. The results show that, irrespective of gender or race, employees generally have low pay satisfaction, low organizational commitment, and only moderate job satisfaction levels. However, black ethnic groups did show a difference in their appraisals of pay satisfaction, expressing slightly lower pay satisfaction than white males. Organizational commitment and job satisfaction were the most important predictors of turnover intentions, and they partially mediated the influence of pay satisfaction on turnover intentions. Employers can reduce IT turnover due to low pay satisfaction by investing in interventions that raise the levels of organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and distributive and procedural justice. Future IT research on the continent needs to include race and gender as distinct analytical categories to better understand turnover intentions.