The importance of work conditions and health for voluntary job mobility: a two-year follow-up

Voluntary job mobility and work conditions

Within occupational health, voluntary job mobility has mainly been studied in terms of the intention of employees’ to leave their jobs. In contrast to actual job mobility, turnover intentions are not definite. Intention to leave is an attitude that reflects the individual’s propensity to change jobs [2, 3]. High turnover intentions are related to negative factors at work, such as high work load [4], job dissatisfaction [5], and limited opportunities for advancement [6]: i.e., bad work conditions seem to affect peoples’ willingness to change jobs. For example, Brannon, Barry, Kemper, Schreiner, and Vasey [7] found that low skill variety was related to an increased intention to leave the job. Other studies have found associations between high turnover intentions and low autonomy, low feedback [8, 9], and a low level of social support [10]. Although turnover intentions are often considered to be a strong predictor of future job mobility [3, 11, 12], a direct association between turnover intentions and job mobility is only weakly supported, possibly because of the cross-sectional design of most studies.

Changing jobs increases job satisfaction [13] and health [14], but few studies have investigated causes of actual job mobility. In a study by Jaros [12], job satisfaction and organizational commitment were found to be negatively related to voluntary job mobility. Among nurses leaving their jobs, Skytt, Ljunggren, and Carlsson [15] found that lack of social support from supervisors and heads of department was a common reason for leaving, and changing jobs increased job satisfaction. The traditional view is that people change jobs due to dissatisfaction [16], and Castle and Engberg [17] claim that the decision to quit a job consists of cognitive stages where job dissatisfaction is the initial state. In addition to job dissatisfaction, Mobley, Griffeth, Hand, and Megliano [18] suggest that job mobility may also be due to the opportunity to change to a more attractive job. According to Mitchell, Holtom, Lee, Sablynski and Erez [16], the combination of job attitudes and job alternatives predicts intention to leave, and if an alternative job is better than their current one, people will change. Thus, according to present knowledge, changing jobs may increase job satisfaction, but knowledge is essentially lacking concerning what work conditions predict voluntary job mobility in a longitudinal perspective.

Although job mobility is often seen as an opportunity to find a better job [13], employees do not always choose to quit even if they are dissatisfied with their present job and have the opportunity to change. This means that additional factors may affect job mobility and the relationship between turnover intentions and job mobility may vary [2]. Thus, job dissatisfaction does not necessarily lead to actual job mobility [19]. Individual characteristics such as age, education level and having a family are well-known indicators associated with job mobility [20–22]. Having a family is also negatively related to job seeking behaviour, as found by van Hooft, Born, Taris, van der Flier and Blonk [23]. These factors should therefore be taken into consideration when studying voluntary job mobility. Naturally, opportunities for changing jobs are dependent on additional factors such as recession, high unemployment rates [24], and geographic factors [25].

Voluntary job mobility and health

Voluntary job mobility seems to improve job satisfaction [13, 15] and reduce physical and mental strain [26, 27], possibly because this type of mobility may involve career development or positive choices. Poor health, on the other hand, may increase the risk of downward mobility to lower qualified jobs and unhealthy employees are also more likely to be redundant than healthy employees [28–30]. At the structural level, low mobility in the labour market may be a possible explanation for ill health and long-term sick leave [31], due to a mismatch between job demands and individual capacity. However, a low degree of job mobility is not necessarily predictive of job satisfaction or a healthy organizational environment, as pointed out by Strolin-Goltzman [32].

Compared with other countries, Sweden has low job mobility and a possible explanation may be found in the Swedish labour market regulations [31]. The Employment Protection Law [33] protects employees with long employment tenure from being laid off. According to von Otter [34], the law may also lock people into permanent but not preferred jobs because it makes employees hesitate to change jobs due to the risk of being first in line to be redundant at the new workplace due to short work tenure. Low job mobility may also increase the risk of becoming embedded or in a locked-in position, which increases the risk of ill health [35, 36].

Materials

A questionnaire was sent by post to all employees (N = 1010), including those on sick leave and on leave of absence, at three different regional organizations of the Swedish National Labour Market Administration (AMV). Of the 1010 employees, 602 (60%) were women and 408 (40%) were men. The average age was 48.7 years (SD 9.28 years), ranging from 25 to 65 years, and most of the respondents were working as employment officers in different local employment agencies. A total of 792 employees (78%) responded to the questionnaire. Forty-five percent of the respondents had a university degree and 43% had graduated from upper secondary school. Most (80%) were married or living with a partner and 46% had children living at home.

Information regarding job mobility for the two years after the baseline questionnaire was provided by the organization where the respondents were employed. Respondents who had retired between baseline and the follow-up (n = 15) were excluded from the analysis.

Ethics

Ethical principles for social science have been observed, in that the purpose of the research was explained, informed consent was received, confidentiality was maintained, no individual response could be recognized etc. The questionnaires were sent by post to each individual; they were returned by the respondent in an enclosed response envelope and were only read by the researchers.

The study was approved by the Ethics Committee at Linkoping University.

Measurements

Statistical analysis

Mobility and non-mobility were examined with cross-tabulation and the chi-squared test. The distribution of the means and standard deviations for work conditions and self-rated health and burnout in relation to non-mobility and mobility were calculated using the t-test. To investigate how demographic variables, work conditions and health predict voluntary job mobility, logistic regressions were performed. The results are presented as odds ratios (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI). SPSS version 17.0 was used for the statistical analyses.

Non-response

The response rate was 78%. Non-responders and dropouts were analysed with the available data (sex and age). The response rate did not differ significantly between the sexes. The responders were older than the non-responders (p < .01).

Individual characteristics

Work conditions, health, burnout, and voluntary job mobility

In Model 1, work conditions were adjusted for each other to determine the association with voluntary job mobility. Low variety (OR 0.62, CI 0.42–0.91) and high autonomy (OR 1.71, CI 1.00–2.89) were associated with voluntary job mobility.

In Model 2, the associations between work conditions and voluntary job mobility were adjusted for health variables. Low variety and high autonomy remained associated with voluntary job mobility. The associations between health and voluntary job mobility were not significant, but burnout was close to significance (OR 1.02, CI 1.00–1.04).

Work conditions and voluntary job mobility

The results showed that work conditions were related to voluntary job mobility. Low variety (i.e. a low degree of variety in work tasks or procedures) was associated with high voluntary job mobility. According to the activation theory, stimulation by variety and complexity of tasks increases the activation level, which is suggested to improve motivation and job satisfaction [41]. Repetitive tasks may decrease motivation, job satisfaction, and performance [42, 43]. Low variety has been associated with increased turnover intentions in several studies [7, 8], and according to Castle and Engberg [17] job dissatisfaction is the first step towards the decision to change jobs. Thus, as high variety is related to job satisfaction [44], low variety may be assumed to predict voluntary job mobility due to job dissatisfaction.

Employees scoring high on autonomy, i.e. the extent to which employees have a major say in planning, performing, and controlling their work, had higher voluntary job mobility. In previous research, low autonomy was associated with high turnover intentions [8, 9] and decreased job satisfaction [45]. It is reasonable to assume that respondents who scored high on perceived autonomy in this study changed jobs for other reasons than dissatisfaction with their current job, such as career development and advancement to higher skilled jobs. This confirms the statement by Mobley, Griffeth, Hand and Megliano [18], that in addition to job dissatisfaction, voluntary job mobility may be related to the decision to change to a more attractive job. According to the gravitational theory [27, 46, 47], people move to a job that matches their ability level, but some people may have higher goals and strive for advancement that matches their future goals and career plans. Changing jobs seems to be triggered by individual motives and people change jobs in the expectation that the new job will be an improvement on their current job, in terms of better work conditions, career development, etc. [27]. This may also gain support from the expectancy theory, which perceives individuals as rational beings who choose between action options in order to maximize outcomes and minimize costs [48], or to maximize pleasure or minimize pain [49]. The expectancy theory also proposes that individuals’ choices about a certain act depend on their beliefs in their own capabilities and the reward from it [50]. Thus, voluntary job mobility may be due to different reasons: job dissatisfaction but also career development and new challenges.

Voluntary job mobility and health

Despite using instruments that were expected to capture the spectrum from good health to bad health, the associations between health and voluntary job mobility did not quite reach significance. One possible explanation for the null results is that the instruments for measuring global health are too coarse for a healthy, working population. Furthermore, they are also designed to capture symptoms. As the respondents in this study were all white-collar workers with no physically demanding work tasks, this may also have affected the null results.

Voluntary job mobility is most likely due to two forces for mobility: job dissatisfaction and career development. These forces may, in turn, define individuals who are able to act and mobilize themselves to a new job. According to a holistic approach to health, health is related to an individual’s ability to act, and an individual has full health if, in a given standard situation, he or she has the ability to fulfil vital goals [51]. Drawing on this health approach, work itself may be important for health, which, in turn, may be important for voluntary job mobility.

Study limitations

A weakness of this study is the homogeneous population. The respondents were all well-educated white-collar workers and worked in the same organization with similar work tasks. This may have caused imprecise estimation of associations, compared with a more heterogeneous population.

The strength of this study is the two-year follow-up data and the high response rate.