Turnover intention among relationship managers in selected local banks in Malaysia

Employee turnover is a topic that generates much interest in the academia and the industry alike. Since employee turnover is a costly problem for any organisation, it needs to be addressed. This study investigated this issue by considering the turnover intention and not the actual turnover because the former is argued to be a precursor to the latter. Hence, to address turnover, the management needs to understand why employees develop turnover intention. This study was conducted on the Relationship Managers (RMs) of selected local banks in Malaysia. To investigate the turnover intention of the RMs, the push-pull model was used. The push factors included role conflict, work overload and licensing status while the pull factors included career advancement and salary. Both an online and an offline survey were carried out to collect the data. A total of four hundred and fifty-two survey questionnaires were distributed, but only 136 valid questionnaires were returned, yielding a response rate of 33.2%. Descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis were used to analyse the data. Of the push factors, only workload was found to be positively associated with turnover intention. Career advancement, one of the pull factors, was shown to be negatively related to turnover intention. Of the overall factors, work overload was found to be the best predictor of the RMs’ turnover intention to leave. The study recommends that the bank management revisit the current practices of establishing workload and implement effective career paths for RMs. The limitations and suggestions for future research are also discussed.