Job satisfaction, job stress and nurses’ turnover intentions: The moderating roles of on‐the‐job and off‐the‐job embeddedness

AIM: Using an interactionist perspective to test on-the-job embeddedness and off-the-job embeddedness as possible moderators for the predictive effects of job satisfaction and job stress on nurses' turnover intentions. BACKGROUND: As turnover worsens nurse shortages across the globe, researchers needs to find ways to work out and reduce nurses' turnover intentions. By exploring contributory factors, namely on-the-job and off-the-job embeddedness as two distinctive forms that both act as moderators, we add to the literature on effective nurse retention and highlight that incorporating off-the-job factors can provide a more realistic understanding of why people consider leaving their organization. DESIGN: Survey of 361 nurses of the United Kingdom's (UK's) National Health Service, in 2016. METHOD: We conducted hierarchical multiple regression and simple slope analyses. RESULTS: Job satisfaction was negatively associated with turnover intentions, and this negative relationship was stronger when off-the-job embeddedness was high (vs. low). Job stress was positively related to turnover intentions, yet high (vs. low) off-the-job embeddedness buffered this relationship. In contrast, when on-the-job embeddedness was high (vs. low), the relationship between job stress and turnover intentions were even stronger. CONCLUSION: Results showed that using an interactionist perspective is useful in predicting nurse turnover. Nursing management should be made aware of the importance of being embedded off-the-job to prevent nurse turnover. This paper issues guidelines to form a more comprehensive staff retention programme for the healthcare sector.