Occupational Stress and the Risk of Turnover
Stress precedes departure. The signal appears before the decision.
Summary
A large-scale prospective cohort study published in BMC Public Health followed nearly 10,000 employees over four years, using actual company turnover records rather than self-reported intentions. The findings were significant: employees identified as high-stress were nearly three times more likely to leave than lower-stress counterparts among male workers, and 52% more likely among female workers.
Critically, occupational stress was measurable before departure occurred. The study concluded that stress functions as a precursor to turnover — not a correlate — and that measures to detect and address it earlier may be effective in preventing departure before it happens.
This is the structural gap Motionwave is designed to close. Not by predicting individual behaviour, but by surfacing aggregate conditions that indicate whether the workforce environment is stable, drifting, or becoming more volatile.
Source: Inoue, A., et al. (2020). Occupational stress and the risk of turnover: a large prospective cohort study of employees in Japan. BMC Public Health, 20, 174.