Capitalising on employee’s psychological wellbeing attributes in managing their retention: The adverse influence of workplace bullying and turnover intention

Abstract

This chapter explores the role of a broad array of wellbeing dispositional attributes (i.e. self-esteem, emotional intelligence, hardiness, work engagement and flourishing) in the retention context and evaluates the relationship dynamics between these attributes and employees’ perceptions of workplace bullying and turnover intention. Although workplace bullying and turnover intention are well-researched in the retention context, the role of employees’ psychological wellbeing attributes in explaining turnover intention and workplace bullying and vice versa is not clear. Building on the theoretical premises of broaden-and build theory, we propose that employees’ perceptions of workplace bullying and turnover intention reflect negative retention-related attitudes that adversely influence their psychological wellbeing resources. Canonical results of a study conducted on a convenience sample of (N = 373) employees in the South African work context suggested that negative feelings (i.e. low levels of work engagement and hardiness commitment) generally create the urge to escape (i.e. high turnover intentions). Perceptions of workplace bullying and turnover intention further seem to lower the propensity to create personal resources to cope with difficult work circumstances (i.e. resulting in stronger perceptions of falling victim to workplace bullying and person-related bullying). The results substantiate that employees’ turnover intention and perceptions of workplace bullying are important to consider in retention strategies because of their link with employees’ psychological wellbeing, engagement and commitment levels in the workplace. The new insights derived from the study findings indicate that for organisations to capitalise on employees’ wellbeing attributes for retention purposes, leadership and human resource practices should counteract perceptions of workplace bullying and turnover intention.