What Do Employees Actually Want? Leveraging Employee Value Proposition (EVP) Preferences to Improve Employee Retention
Date of Award
Summer 2025
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Business Administration (DBA)
Committee Chair
Leo Sedlmeyer
Committee Member
Abigail Scheg
Committee Member
Alex Akulli
Abstract
This quantitative research study sought to determine the predictive influence of one’s unique individual attributes on employee value proposition (EVP) preferences so that organizations might use those findings to devise more effective talent retention strategies. Researchers have published abundant scholarly literature shaping a broad perspective of what drives an employee to leave their organization (Bolt et al., 2022; Hur, 2022). However, the disjointedness of study foci and conclusions drawn from the collective research has not yet definitively improved human resource strategists’ ability to generate actionable insights that methodically enhance employee retention outcomes (Rubenstein et al., 2018; Tenakwah, 2021). Remediating this issue by introducing a systemic employee retention and turnover model thus seemed a natural next step. The subject research achieved this by designing a quantitative, cross-sectional, correlational study to investigate the predictive relationship that unique employee attributes have on employee experience and voluntary turnover decisions. The researcher leveraged a compound survey instrument to capture demographic, socioeconomic, psychological, EVP preference, EVP satisfaction, and turnover intention self-assessment data on a sample of 216 full-time professional employees between the ages of 20 and 59 who live and work in the United States. Five stepwise multiple regression analyses determined that individual attributes can predict EVP domain preferences; one standard multiple regression analysis determined that EVP domain preferences and satisfaction interactions can predict turnover intention. The subsequent findings and insights could help organizations optimize their employee value proposition framing and delivery in a manner implicitly congruent with each employee’s needs and wants, thus improving employee retention outcomes via systemic minimization of voluntary turnover rates.
Recommended Citation
Jackson, Maurice, "What Do Employees Actually Want? Leveraging Employee Value Proposition (EVP) Preferences to Improve Employee Retention" (2025). All Doctoral Student Dissertations. 229.
https://fuse.franklin.edu/docpub/229
