This correlation table summarizes the results of a study¹ that looked at six variables: Employee intent to leave the company (measured on a scale of 1-7, where 7 indicates that an employee has high intentions to leave within 6 months), an employee’s number of sick days taken, the number of hours employees work in a day, employee age (in years), the length of an employee’s commute to work, and an employee’s level of job satisfaction (measured on a scale of 1-7, where 7 is “Highly Satisfied”) . Examine this data and complete the questions below.

   

Questions:

1. There are many numbers in the correlation matrix above—means, standard deviations, correlations, and reliabilities. How many correlations are there in the table?

2. Which variable has the highest level of reliability? How can you tell?

3. Which variable has the higher mean value—“Intent to leave the company” or “Job satisfaction”? Which variable has the most dispersion—in other words, which variable’s data is the most “spread out” from the mean? How can you tell?

5. Imagine this data was from an organization where you are the HR Analyst. The HR Director is interested in understanding what factors may be responsible for turnover in your organization.

a) Based on the correlation table above, what would be the most important factor to investigate in terms of its impact in influencing employee intent to leave the organization? What is the logic behind your recommendation?

b) What might the second and third most important factors you would recommend investigating to reduce turnover? What is the logic behind your recommendation?

Instructions: Questions 5 through 7 ask you to describe some of the correlations from the table. To help you with this part of the assignment, one of the correlations (Hours Worked and Sick Days Taken) has been completed as an example.

EXAMPLE:

Describe the relationship between “Hours worked” and “Sick days taken”:

Question:	Answer:
What is the correlation? (e.g., .10*, .25, etc.)	.31**
What is the direction of the correlation (is it positive or negative?):	Positive
Is the correlation statistically significant? (Yes/No):	Yes
What is the level of practical significance for the correlation? (e.g., Not useful, somewhat useful, etc.)	Highly useful
What does this correlation mean? (e.g., how are Hours Worked and Sick Days Taken related?)	There is a positive association between Hours Worked and Sick Days Taken—working more hours is associated with taking more sick days. This correlation can also mean that working fewer hours is associated with taking fewer sick days.

5. Describe the relationship between “Length of commute to work” and “Intent to leave the company”:

Question:	Answer:
What is the correlation? (e.g., .10, .25, etc.)
What is the direction of the correlation (is it positive or negative?):
Is the correlation statistically significant? (Yes/No):
What is the level of practical significance for the correlation? (e.g., Not useful, somewhat useful, etc.)
What does this correlation mean? (e.g., how are “Length of commute to work” and “Intent to leave the company” related?)

6. Describe the relationship between “Employee age” and “Hours worked”:

Question:	Answer:
What is the correlation? (e.g., .10, .25, etc.)
What is the direction of the correlation (is it positive or negative?):
Is the correlation statistically significant? (Yes/No):
What is the level of practical significance for the correlation? (e.g., Not useful, somewhat useful, etc.)
What does this correlation mean? (e.g., how are “Employee age” and “Hours worked” related?)

7. Describe the relationship between “Job satisfaction” and “Sick days taken”:

Question:	Answer:
What is the correlation? (e.g., .10, .25, etc.)
What is the direction of the correlation (is it positive or negative?):
Is the correlation statistically significant? (Yes/No):
What is the level of practical significance for the correlation? (e.g., Not useful, somewhat useful, etc.)
What does this correlation mean? (e.g., how are “Job satisfaction” and “Sick days taken” related?)

M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 1. Intent to leave the company 4.13 1.82 (.73) 2. Sick days taken (per month) 2.40 1.80 .15 (.92) 3. Hours worked (per day) 7.00 2.40 .24* .31** (.59) 4. Employee age 39.00 0.78 .07 .08 .02 (.95) 5. Length of commute to work 23.85 5.15 .38** .25* -.10 .08 (.62) (in minutes) 6. Job satisfaction 4.65 1.35 -.21* -.13* .07 .14 -.15* (.85)