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Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to investigate why professional workers actually remain in their organisations.Design/methodology/approach– The design of the study was cross-sectional. A number of factors important for the retention of professional workers were identified from the literature. A 19 item "retention scale" was developed based on the identified retention factors and their characteristics. It was proposed that the retention factors could be divided into two levels: organisational and job. The retention scale was completed by 138 workers form the UK site of a multinational Marketing company. The reliability of the scale was assessed using Cronbach'sαand was found to be 0.80.Findings– Factor analysis supported the division of the retention factors into organisational and job levels with a two factor structure in which organisational levels loaded strongly on component 1 and job level items loaded strongly on component 2. Scores on these two subscales predicted individual workers' intention to remain within their organisation using both MANOVA and logistic regression analysis.Research limitations/implications– This is a preliminary look at factors important for the retention of professional workers and as such has several limitations. A more comprehensive review of the literature on retention is required and further testing of the model is required with a larger sample size. Links with the literature on the psychological contract also need to be more fully explored.Practical implications– This research has practical implications for practitioners due to the importance of retaining top talent for increased competitive advantage. The factors that have been found here to be important for retaining professional workers have also been observed in high performing companies.Social implications– The retirement of the baby boomer generation means that there has to be a greater emphasis on retaining key employees in organisations to mitigate the loss of key skills and competences.Originality/value– Most previous studies and many HR managers concerned with the retention of professional and other workers tend to concentrate on those aspects of the job or of the organisation that make them leave. This study is concerned with why people stay with their employers.

A common assumption is that autonomy is crucial to professional workers. I examine this using survey data on a sample of public sector welfare professionals, viz. medical doctors, nurses, teachers, social workers. Comparisons are made with general population data from the International Social Survey Programme. Two methods of assessing the importance of work autonomy are employed; respondents' direct ratings and statistical associations between work autonomy (and other job characteristics) on the one hand and job satisfaction and organizational commitment on the other. Findings: Autonomy is not rated as more important among the professionals than in the general population, and neither is it more strongly related to job satisfaction. Interesting work and workplace social support appear to be more central.

Amidst projected shortages of skilled workers, policy measures to retain older workers in employment include increasing their participation in learning. However, the few studies produced to date examining older workers' learning suggest complexities not recognized in human capital conceptions of skill development and assumptions of declining seniors' participation. To build on these studies, particularly in older professionals' learning, which has received little attention despite concerns regarding professional transitions in a knowledge economy, this article examines older professionals' approaches to and conceptions of learning. The study involved 816 accountants' survey responses and 60 interviews with older (50+) Certified Management Accountants in Canada. Far from withdrawing from learning, these older professionals are particularly focused in what, when and how they engage. Their enactments are complex, and demonstrate ambivalences related to discourses of both age and learning. More fundamentally, they negotiate the various pressures associated with new capitalism strategically: deliberately complying with some, refusing others, and generally resisting subjectification either as excluded 'older workers' or as continuous learners.

Chapter CONSTRUCTING BELONGING -- chapter 1 Getting It Done -- chapter 2 Harlem in the Making -- chapter 3 Locating Class and Race in Anthropology and History -- chapter 4 Professionals, Entrepreneurs, and Artists -- chapter 5 Work, Income, Wealth, and Resources -- chapter 6 Ideology, Consumption, and Lifestyle -- chapter 7 Negotiating Difference in Kin Networks -- chapter 8 Negotiating Difference in Community Life -- chapter 9 Class, History, Race, and Identity.