A fundamental change in society in the coming years will probably be the fact that the babyboom generation is reaching retirement age which will create a shortage of workers in business and industry. This demographic development is said to create a so-called “war for talent” (Robertson et al., 2002). Next to the forthcoming battle for talented labour force, also retaining your current empolyees will become an important issue. Moreover, the traditional view on one’s career characterised by job certainty and a fixed long-term job is disappearing in favour of a new view where employees constantly look for new challenges, show a flexible attitude and learn constantly. This new era of talent development and a battle for talent leads us to the question whether the learning climate (i.e. the perceived learning climat as a gap-approach or an appreciative approach) is related to (or a predictor for) the intended retention by employees.

After these recent developments, a concrete empirical study will be presented. A questionnaire was administered from a sample of 300 workers in the profit sector. The purpose of the study was to get more insight in the relations between the learning climat, talent development and the retention of workers in profit organisations. Both the influence of learning climat and personal variables such as age on workers’ rentention were investigated. The results indicate that the learning climate in profit organisations is affecting the workers’ perceptions on retention. By means of 15 in-depth interviews with key workers in these organisations, a qualitative analysis of these data was performed, aiming at finding further explanations for our findings.

The contemporary economy has drastically changed. Social developments like continuing globalisation, technological innovations and a growing global competition, place pressure on companies (Burke & Ng, 2006). Companies have to be able to anticipate the technological innovations and to compete with other companies worldwide. This makes it important for a company to evolve by learning and developing continuously. It is important that employers give employees the opportunity to develop and learn (Arnold, 2005; Bernsen, Segers, Tillema, 2006; Herman, 2005).

            Besides the economic pressure, companies also face some worrisome demographic evolutions. The average age of the employees in Western countries increases constantly. In addition, the baby boom generation is gradually retiring (Burke & Ng, 2006; Frank, Finnegan & Tailor, 2004). A lot of talent goes lost and it is this talent which is so essential in the current knowledge economy (Brown & Lauder, 2006) for companies to be able to compete (Hiltrop, 1999).

            Besides the identifying and selection of talented employees, it is also essential for a company to be able to retain these employees. A large number of employees nowadays do not want a traditional career within one company; they are less loyal and more opportunistic. The relation between employer and employee is transforming into a short term transactional relation. It is obvious that companies have to make extra efforts to retain their employees. The investment in that employee goes lost and a new employee has to be recruited en trained. Moreover, the ex-employee takes a lot of know-how with him, as a result of which the company is at risk of loosing confidential information to the competitors (Frank, Finnegan & Taylor, 2004; Walker, 2001).

It is essential for companies to make sure that their employees keep on working for them. In this study we are going to focus on this retention, investigating which elements within the company contribute to the intention to stay of employees.

One of the main concerns in the ‘war for talent’ is the retention of employees. Organisations want to know how they can keep their employees as long as possible. We translated this concern into the question: ‘which factors within the company have an influence on the intention to stay of employees?’ Based on the theoretical background, we divided this main question into three research questions.

1.      What is the relationship between the perception of the learning and working climate and the intention the stay of the employee?

2.      What is the relationship between being a high potential and the intention to stay of an employee?

3.      What is the relationship between the personal characteristics: level of education, seniority and gender, and the intention to stay?

The sample in this study consists of 349 employees from 57 different companies. For the qualitative part of the research study, 11 respondents were interviewed

This investigation shows that the perception of the learning and working climate is a strong predictor for the intention to stay of an employee. An appreciative learning and working climate has a strong positive influence on the intention to stay. This is in line with earlier findings regarding the intention to stay of Cotton and Tuttle (1986), Muchinsky and Morrow (1980), Tett and Meyer (1993), Trevor (2001), and Walker (2001). An important additional finding was found by the qualitative analyses. It is important to make a difference between the commitment to the company and the commitment to the field of work. Both are positively related to the intention to stay, but when the commitment is mainly towards the field, employees can switch within the field to a company with better conditions. Pressure of work was found to have a significant negative relationship with the intention to stay. This finding was expected since earlier research indicated that a healthy balance between the professional and personal life is important for the intention to stay of an employee (Hytter, 2007; Walker, 2001). A high pressure of work and a healthy balance do not go well together.

The answer to the second research question on the relationship between being a high potential and the intention to stay of an employee is less univocal. On one hand no clear and explicit differences were found between high potentials and non-high potentials. On the other hand a significant positive relationship was found between leadership skills and the intention to stay while these leadership skills are often associated with high potentials.

            Finally, the relationship between different personal variables; age, gender, seniority and level of education was investigated. As expected, we found a negative relationship between the level of education and the intention to stay. This is inline with the findings of Angle and Perry (1983) and Glisson and Durick (1988). The qualitative part of the research was complementary to the quantitative part, it confirmed and / or clarified some results.