Do Employee Personality Traits Affect Employees’ Intention to Stay? A Study on Sales Force of Pharmaceutical Industry in Bangladesh

In this regard, this study differentiates the employee retention factors based on employee personality traits.This study focuses on the big five personality traits, as identified by Fiske [18], which include openness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, agreeableness, and extraversion [72].These traits have been used to analyse their impact on employees' intention to stay.The findings will help pharmaceutical companies develop employee selection policies based on these personality traits.Despite the introduction of various managerial approaches to employee retention, the field has continued to evolve [31].Turnover remains a dynamic area of research, with numerous studies addressing this topic [1].The focus on employee turnover and intention to stay has emerged as a significant research area [13].Some studies have found that certain human resource strategies can enhance employee retention [2].Additionally, career development opportunities, training, compensation, and rewards have been shown to support employee retention [40].Though retaining employees is a serious challenge for many organizations, yet there is a lack of research on this topic, particularly regarding the impact of employee personality traits on the intention to stay.Furthermore, no study has explored employees' perspectives on retention within organizations.To the best of the knowledge of the researchers of this study, this is going to be the first attempt to examine how employee personality traits affect employees' intention to stay.At least, it will be making a ground-breaking contribution in designing strategy for retaining talent in the pharmaceuticals industry of Bangladesh.Hence, the broad objective of this study is to investigate the impacts of employee personality traits on employees' intention to stay in their current organization.This broad objective will be achieved with the support of the following specific objectives which contain five dimensions of employee personality traits as independent variables (openness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, agreeableness, and extraversion).a.To assess the impact of openness on employees' intention to stay.b.To evaluate the impact of conscientiousness on employees' intention to stay.c.To examine the impact of emotional stability on employees' intention to stay.d.To investigate the impact of agreeableness in employees' intention to stay.e.To analyse the impact of extraversion on employees' intention to stay.The achieving the above five specific research objectives will basically answer the following five specific research questions respectively.i. Does openness have any impact on employees' intention to stay? ii.Does conscientiousness have any impact on employees' intention to stay? iii.Does emotional stability have any impact on employees' intention to stay? iv.Does agreeableness have any impact on employees' intention to stay? v. Does extraversion have any impact on employees' intention to stay?Review of Literature: Employee turnover often results in valuable human assets being transferred to competitors [47].It is a final outcome that employees face in any organization [5].Turnover is inevitable, as employees may leave their jobs, retire, become disabled, pursue new opportunities, or be dismissed by their employers [57].According to Thirupathy and Dhayalan, employee turnover refers to the number of employees leaving the organization before completing their service agreements [68].However, a high turnover rate can lead to performance inefficiencies, negative consequences, and significant costs [15].When employees leave, valuable knowledge, skills, and experience are lost [65].Thus, retaining qualified and talented employees is crucial and more cost-effective for an organization than hiring new ones [23].Employee intention to stay involves creating an environment where employees are engaged and committed to staying until the end of their service [19].Organizations can gain a competitive edge by managing their employees effectively [7].Retaining talented employees should be a priority, as failure to do so can negatively impact productivity and service delivery [58].Therefore, it is essential to encourage employees to stay longer and contribute to the organization's success [5].Employee retention involves steps to ensure employees remain with the organization for an extended period [37].Ramya et al. described employee intention to stay as a strategy where organizations maintain an effective workforce by motivating employees and meeting operational requirements [57].Literature highlights competitive salaries, a positive work environment, opportunities for promotion, and job security as key factors influencing employees' intention to stay [65].Empirical studies also identify attractive pay and benefits, favourable workplace conditions, and good relationships with peers and supervisors as motivators [15].Factors such as compensation, supervisory relationships, promotion, training, and work assignments influence employees' decision to stay [1].Additionally, development opportunities, flexible work arrangements, rewards, supervisor support, and career growth are studied as determinants of employee retention [40].Retention is only possible when employees have a genuine intention to stay [45].An organization can invest significantly in retention strategies, but if employees do not wish to stay, no strategy will be effective [36].Ultimately, the goal of an organization should be to foster employees' intention to stay [21].Personality traits of an employee are defined as their different tendencies of them that make their stable pattern of opinions, feelings, and actions.In general, personality trait is the human characteristic incorporated with cognitive, biological, and social factors that make someone different from others [66].These personality traits are natural by psychology and justified as an individual's behaviour [46].Personality traits reflect any person and their thinking style, emotion, and possible initiatives [6].In recent years, the management of organizations has been taking employees' personality traits more seriously than before [16].Previously researchers argued that personality traits could bring various negative emotions, such as fear, anxiety, frustration, depression, and sadness [54].However, it can be an effective way to measure a person through identifying his personality traits