ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a leaver-centric account of voluntary turnover decision-making in the context of a major disaster. The data is grounded in first-person accounts of 32 leavers from four organisations that were affected by the ongoing sequence of earthquakes between September 2010 and December 2011. The chapter offers a rich and nuanced view of the process of decision-making associated with voluntary turnover in a post-crisis context. It shows that shocks play an important role in turnover decision-making. The chapter expands the traditional definition of shocks beyond their initial and direct impact on turnover deliberations. From a crisis management perspective, sustained turnover of staff following a disaster can significantly erode the recovery of the organisation and its ability to restore its performance to pre-disaster levels, ultimately threatening the survival of the organisation Finally, crises are likely to have differential impacts on labour markets; employers should understand how labour supply is affected in their specific industry and adapt retention strategies accordingly.
