How do work motivation aspects impact software developer turnover? A quantitative study with brazilian developers.

Abstract

With the fast increase of the software market, the demand of professionals is also increasing, so there are studies that indicate a high rate of staff turnover, since many professionals move to other companies in a short time. Due to this reason, the companies are concerned to keep their professionals as long time as possible, avoiding costs with new hires, training and loss of good professionals, since some software professionals have specialized intellectual skills, and to train others for the same purpose, it may take a long time until the new hire becomes productive. In addition, also there are studies showing evidence that motivation has an influence on the success or failure of projects, as well as, others relate the motivation to staff turnover in software development, so the professionals look for jobs less stressful, more significant, with more appreciation and better working conditions. This study relates motivation aspects to staff turnover of software companies in Brazil, using an adaptation of the model Job Characteristics Model (JCM) of Hackman and Oldham. Through a survey instrument based on the model, we collected answers from 102 software development professionals in Brazil that generated results through motivational potential score (MPS). Thus, we could collect data of motivation of professionals over the last job. The data show that more than 76% of professionals, exactly 78 left the last job voluntarily, suggesting a high staff turnover rate. Also, we observed some most critical motivation aspects, we identified that 73% of the professionals presented high level of exhaustion in their last job, 71% had low Autonomy, and 69% felt low satisfaction in the job. This study can help software companies to understand which are the most motivation problems in software development to improve the work environment and culture to motivate employees, and so, reduce staff turnover rate.