The relation of job satisfaction and stress on the retention of employees in the Saudi corporate organisations

Abstract

Executive Summary Employees are the cornerstone for organisations, and their well-being is crucial to succeeding and achieve organisational objectives. Several studies have been conducted to explore the factors that affected the well-being of the employees and employee retention. Employee dissatisfaction and job stress are considered the most frequent reasons for employee turnover. Employee turnover is measured to be costly for the employee and the organisation. Therefore, Human Resource Management practices have been emphasised as a potential key solution to preserve employee well-being in good standards to avoid employee turnover and increase employee retention. This study focused on the corporate organisations in Saudi Arabia private sector. The research used a qualitative method and deployed snowballing sampling technique. The data were collected using online semi-structured interviews with nine volunteer employees and managers from several sectors, including IT specialists, accounting, finance, and law in the Saudi private sector. In addition, the participants have three minimal years of experience at work. The study concludes the factors that have a significant impact on the job satisfaction of Saudi employees, including co-workers relationships, healthy work environment, training and development opportunities and their essential role in employee retention. In contrast, long working hours, lack of appreciation, family-work conflict, difficulties to have vacation and coworkers conflict were factors that contributed to employee job stress and increased the chance of leaving the organisation. The research findings were consistent with some of the previous relevant studies. Also, the research has filled the gap of investigating factors that impact employee well-being in Saudi corporate organisations.