Early warning signs: Analyzing behavioural indicators of employee turnover intentions in organizations

Employee turnover poses significant challenges to organizational sustainability, imposing both direct and indirect costs. While traditional research has focused on demographic and job-related predictors, emerging evidence highlights behavioural indicators, such as declining engagement, withdrawal behaviours, weakened interpersonal relationships, and performance changes, as early warning signs of turnover intentions. However, limited empirical work has systematically examined how these observable behavioural indicators interact with attitudinal mechanisms such as job satisfaction within a unified predictive framework, particularly in Sub-Saharan African contexts. This study examines how these behavioural constructs, alongside job satisfaction as a mediating factor, influence turnover intentions among employees in medium-to large-scale organizations in Ghana. Using a cross-sectional quantitative design, data were collected from 302 employees across Accra, Kumasi, Takoradi, and Cape Coast. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was employed to test hypothesized relationships. Findings indicate that withdrawal behaviours, weakened interpersonal relationships, and performance declines significantly predict turnover intentions, while work engagement has an indirect effect mediated through job satisfaction. Although the study draws on established organizational behaviour theories, the specific causal ordering and mediational pathways tested here are not yet well-established in the literature; therefore, given the cross-sectional nature of the data, all mediation results should be interpreted strictly as associative pathways rather than definitive causal processes. Job satisfaction partially mediates the relationships between work engagement, interpersonal relationships, performance changes, and turnover intentions, highlighting its central role in retention. The model explained 79.2% of the variance in turnover intentions, demonstrating strong predictive power. The study contributes theoretically by integrating behavioural and attitudinal predictors into a comprehensive framework and offers practical insights for managers to proactively identify and address early behavioural signals of potential turnover, fostering sustainable employee retention.