This study investigates why employees choose to move away from their company triggered by the discomfort they felt, and the desire to get a better job. Because of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the companies had to implement Work-from-Home (WFH) for their employees, which allows them to seek outside opportunities. For example, bank employees move to start-ups because of the salary and flexible work time.

There is a possibility where occupational stress could influence turnover intentions. Turnover intentions tend to increase when stress is not handled well by employees, which leads to frequent absenteeism and decrease in productivity of the employees. Therefore, several studies have proposed the need to manage stress and even maintain it; companies can facilitate this through efforts that are expected to minimise the bad impacts of stress (Bhui et al., 2016; Salama et al., 2022). Most employees contemplate quitting their work and believe that the company does not pay much attention to them, and this is reflected in huge dissatisfaction that unquestionably decreases job satisfaction. Interpersonal factors, role demands, task demands, organisational structure, leadership style, organisational work culture, and many others are some of the causes of occupational stress. Interpersonal causes arise from interpersonal relationships at work, such as when employees encounter an unsupportive work environment or receive a personal remark from others. Low ability to consciously control, time spent on specific activities, imprecise job descriptions, feelings of ineptitude and indecision, incompetence, lack of communication skills, low interpersonal skills, quality, and complexity of duties are all listed as reasons for stress by Michac (1997).

Employees, particularly married employees, face work-life balance issues in addition to professional stress. Work-life balance emerged from the idea that there is autonomy, which bears the level to which a job permits an employee’s free will to arrange his or her work or make a decision (Hackman & Oldham, 1976). When women have to take permission from their spouses to work, they face extra challenges.

Occupational stress and work-life balance are important aspects that might influence an organisation’s employee job satisfaction. According to empirical findings, employees’ happiness with co-workers improves job performance by boosting the influence of work-life balance on psychological well-being (Haider et al., 2018). Specifically, many employees are buckling under the burden of the target’s intricacy in the financial service industry, and this leads to insecure job positions – a warning letter or even worse, job termination (Balz & Schuller, 2018). However, job satisfaction is a common behaviour in a profession that demonstrates the disparity between the number of recognitions workers get and the quantity they believe they should earn (Robbins, 2003).

Turnover intentions are always an interesting issue, and several studies have been conducted to investigate the factors that influence turnover intentions. However, majority of the studies have focussed on the mediating role of job satisfaction in the relationship between flexible working arrangements (FWAs) and turnover intentions (Berber et al., 2022).

In today’s competitive and fast-paced work environment, employees are usually confronted with substantial issues connected to occupational stress and maintaining a good work-life balance. These variables can have an impact on their overall job satisfaction and possibly contribute to turnover intentions, which has a significant impact on organisational success and employees’ well-being. While Berber et al. (2022) looked at the role of job satisfaction as a moderator in the relationship between FWAs and turnover intentions, Asmi et al. (2021) looked at the role of job satisfaction as a moderator in the effect of work-life balance and work passion on turnover intentions. Nonetheless, few research have investigated occupational stress and work-life balance as they relate to turnover intentions, with job satisfaction playing a moderating role; nonetheless, studies on Indonesia’s financial services industries are scarce. As a result, these factors have yet to be investigated together.

We propose the following research questions as deduced from the research problem identification: How does job satisfaction influence turnover intentions? How does occupational stress influence turnover intentions? How does work-life balance influence turnover intentions? How does job satisfaction mediate the relationship between occupational stress and turnover intentions? How does job satisfaction mediate the relationship between work-life balance and turnover intentions?

The sample consisted of 427 respondents who worked at 14 commercial banks, 8 insurance companies, and 3 securities firms during the course of 2 months, beginning in January and ending in February 2023. However, the decision to accept the factor loading as validity should be more than 0.7 (Hair et al., 2014). According to the validity test results, there were 38 valid questions, 9 measuring occupational stress, 12 measuring work-life balance, 12 measuring job satisfaction, and 5 measuring turnover intentions. The results of the validity and reliability tests are shown in Table 1.

Based on the findings from the assessments of convergent validity and composite reliability as presented in Table 1, a total of 55 items were subjected to scrutiny. This scrutiny led to the identification of 17 items characterised as lacking validity within the context of the study. These non-valid items encompassed two items within the domain of occupational stress, five items within the domain of work-life balance, eight items within the domain of job satisfaction, and two items within the domain of turnover intentions. The rationale for their exclusion rested upon the criterion that each item’s factor loading failed to attain a threshold of 0.7, signifying a suboptimal level of correlation with its underlying construct.

From the initial set of 55 items, subsequent analysis revealed that 38 items remained robust and exhibited strong construct validity across all assessed domains. The retained items achieved a factor loading exceeding the prescribed threshold of 0.7, indicating a notable level of alignment with their respective constructs. Furthermore, the assessment of internal consistency reliability provided favourable results, with the values of Average Variance Extracted (AVE) exceeding 0.5 for all constructs and the measure of Composite Reliability surpassing the accepted threshold of 0.7. This outcome further bolstered the confidence in the dependability of the measurement instrument employed in the study.

The Fornell and Larcker criterion (Fornell & Larcker, 1981), where the square root of all AVE scores is greater than the correlation between the constructs, was used to test discriminant validity, as shown in Table 2.

The results show that the R² for turnover intentions is 0.191. Based on this, the turnover intentions fall in the category of weak determination, which indicates that the effect of occupational stress, work-life balance and job satisfaction on turnover intentions is 19.1% with the remaining 80.9% being influenced by other variables outside the study. Meanwhile, job satisfaction has R² value of 0.380 which indicates that the effect of occupational stress and work-life balance on job satisfaction is 38% with the remaining 62% influenced by other variables outside this study. The R² value of 0.380 indicates that the impact is moderate (Table 3).

Based on the results shown in Table 4, it can be concluded that the influence of the occupational stress variable on job satisfaction falls in a category of small effect (F² value of 0.079) or it can be concluded that there is no substantive effect of the occupational stress variable on job satisfaction. Also, the influence of the occupational stress variable on turnover intentions falls in the category of small effect (F² value of 0.001) or it can be concluded that there is no substantive effect of the occupational stress variable on turnover intentions. Meanwhile the effect of the work-life balance variable on job satisfaction is medium effect (F² value of 0.269) or it can be concluded that there is a substantive effect of the work-life balance variable on job satisfaction.

Furthermore, the effect of the work-life balance variable on turnover intentions is small effect (F² value of 0.016) or it can be concluded that there is no substantive effect of the work-life balance variable on turnover intentions. Lastly, the influence of the job satisfaction variable on turnover intentions is small effect (F² value of 0.080) or it can be concluded that there is a low impact of the job satisfaction variable on turnover intentions.

Table 5 and Table 6 show the result of the hypotheses test. According to the result, six of the seven hypotheses were supported, while one (Hypothesis 2) was not supported:

Based on the results of the hypotheses testing, the first hypothesis is supported. It means that job satisfaction has negative significant effect on turnover intentions. Therefore, the higher the level of job satisfaction, the lower the employees’ desire to move. These findings were consistent with earlier research by Randhawa (2007) which shows the same result that job satisfaction has a prominent and negative connection to turnover intentions. This means that the more the employees are satisfied with their job, the lower is employees’ turnover intentions.

Moreover, Sheraz et al. (2014) also reported that job satisfaction is significantly negatively related to turnover intentions. Majority of respondents agree that good relations with co-workers will boost their satisfaction working in the company as shown by high mean value of 4.227. When they feel satisfied, it will lead to lower turnover intentions. Majority of the respondents also agree that they often think to start their own business as shown by high mean value of 3.593. It means that if they do not feel satisfied, they will look for another oportunities. Therefore, the banking industry provide several methods to reduce occupational stress within employees. Findings specifically point out the necessity for financial institutions to urgently make sure that their organisational policies are beneficial to employees and strategically connect them with the organisation’s overall objective:

Based on the results of the hypotheses testing, the second hypothesis is not supported. It means that occupational stress unnecessarily effects turnover intentions. The respondent’s answer reflect occupational stress does not affect the turnover intentions positively. This finding is consistent with Griffin et al. (2010, as cited in Lambert et al., 2018), that occupational stress can develop when a person experiences harshness, pressure, restlessness, disillusionment, and other office challenges. Thus, how much workload staff received and caused occupational stress, but they chose to stay in the company, and they do not want to leave their job.

Majority of respondents agree that they can avoid work stress as shown by mean value ranging from 1.951 to 2.234. Respondents do not feel stress if they can complete their work with the adequate work equipment, the workload is fair and reasonable, fairness of leader, no conflict with supervisor and co-workers, fairness of remuneration and fairness for the time to complete their work; therefore, if they do not feel stress, it will lower the turnover intentions. On the turnover intentions, although majority of respondents agree that they often think about starting their own business as shown by high mean value of 3.593, it does not result in them resigning from their job as reflected in responses where only 15.7% of respondent have intention to leave their job.

Furthermore, as most respondents are married with the responsibility to support their family, they may tend to stay although feel stressed. This result shows that occupational stress is not seen as something negative, but that occupational stress is considered as part of their work:

Based on the results of the hypotheses testing, the third hypothesis is supported. It means that work-life balance has negative effect on turnover intentions. Therefore, if employees feel balance in work and personal life, it will reduce turnover intentions. These findings were consistent with earlier research by Gachter et al. (2013) which stated that employees who feel more balanced in their job and personal lives are less likely to consider leaving. In addition, Surienty et al. (2014) also reported that work-life balance is proven to have a negative effect on the intention to leave. Majority of the respondents (94.1%) agree that good work and discipline have positive effect in their career as shown by high mean value of 4.351.

Meanwhile, the lowest mean value of 3.546 stated about set aside time for refreshing during busy work hours to avoid work stress. It means that if they feel balance in work and personal life, it will lead to reducing turnover intentions. Even though our respondents have some thoughts about opening their own business as shown by high mean value of 3.593, they still chose to stay on their job:

Based on the results of the hypotheses testing, Hypothesis 4 is supported. It means that occupational stress has negative significant effect on job satisfaction. These findings were consistent with earlier research by Sheraz et al. (2014) which stated that occupational stress has a negative impact on job satisfaction. In addition, Bemana (2013) also reported that a low level of stress will significantly affect the achievement of high employee job satisfaction. It meant if the employee does not feel stress, it turns out that they feel satisfied, so this finding answered our research question about the relationship between occupational stress and job satisfaction. Since majority of our respondent are female, the research result confirm Stroh et al. (1996). Furthermore, female employees struggled to fulfil all their tasks because they must fulfil many tasks, such as an employee, as a family member and as a mother when performing their duties (Assimaki et al., 2012). This suggests that occupational stress affects their job satisfaction. As a result, unmanaged stress can turn into distress, lowering an individual’s level of satisfaction:

Based on the results of the hypotheses testing, Hypothesis 5 is supported. It means that work-life balance has a positive significant effect on job satisfaction. These findings were consistent with earlier research by Maren et al. (2013) stating that work-life balance and job satisfaction are positively correlated. It meant if employees feel balance between work and personal life, it will lead to increasing job satisfaction. Majority of our respondents are already married (74.5%); therefore, work-life balance is very important for them as shown in their responses to the questionnaires where almost all the respondents agree with the indicators asked in the questionnaires. The result also revealed that male respondents respond to the pressure at work better than female respondents (77% compared to 71%). This argument is supported by previous findings of American Psychological Association (2010), which stated women are more likely than men (28% vs. 20%) to report having a great deal of stress (8, 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale). A study by Munyeka et al. (2022) found female facing more stress due to their overlapping roles, between personal and professional lives.

Therefore, the possible explanation is men can handle criticism better than women as shown in the responses (84% compared 80%). This study also found that job satisfaction is influenced by salary where less than 50% of the respondents feel that they are fairly compensated, and 50% feel that their salary is sufficient for personal and/or family needs. Moreover, promotion also influences job satisfaction whereas only 22% of the respondents feel that the promotion policy at their workplace is already appropriate. These findings also concur with the study by Alshitri (2013) that measured job satisfaction using four indicators: contentment with pay, satisfaction with perceived promotions, satisfaction with the work itself, and satisfaction with superiors:

Based on the results of the hypothesis testing, Hypothesis 6a is supported. It means that job satisfaction mediates occupational stress to turnover intentions. The findings are consistent with studies by Jaramillo et al. (2006) and Chiu et al. (2005) where they reported that job satisfaction mediates the relationship between occupational stress and turnover intentions. They argued that higher job satisfaction mechanisms will contribute to less stress and lower turnover intentions. When job satisfaction functions as a mediator, there will be a potent influence between occupational stress and turnover intentions. This influence is proposed to operate in a way where job satisfaction serves to enhance the link between occupational stress and turnover intentions. This is posited to occur through a dual mechanism: firstly, by mitigating job stress, which subsequently contributes to heightened job satisfaction, and secondly, by ultimately reducing the inclination of employees to leave their positions.

Employees who are more satisfied with their jobs are more likely to stay with the company, so if the employees in the financial services industry had a high level of job satisfaction, their stress level would reduce, and their possibility of leaving would decrease.

Despite the heavy workload and work pressure, the employees do not intend to leave because they regarded their job is important for them. Employees will feel satisfied if they are comfortable with their work environment, so this finding answered our research question about how job satisfaction mediates occupational stress and turnover intentions. Majority of our respondents agree that they can avoid work stress because the work equipment provided is adequate as shown by high mean of 2.234. The respondents feel stress if they cannot complete their work. When occupation stress is reduced, it will lead to increased job satisfaction that, in return, will lower the turnover intentions.

Majority of respondents also agree that good collaboration with their co-workers will increase job satisfaction as shown by high mean value of 4.227. Thus, lowering stress will raise job satisfaction and reduce turnover intentions. Therefore, it will help the financial industry in reducing the occupational stress by making policies to keep employees satisfied and committed to the organisations. This finding thus answered our question about how job satisfaction mediates between occupational stress and turnover intentions:

Based on the results of the hypotheses testing, Hypothesis 6b is supported. It means that job satisfaction mediates work-life balance to turnover intentions. These findings were consistent with earlier research by Sismawati and Lataruva (2020) who conducted research in the Syariah banking industry stating that the job satisfaction variable was proven to negatively mediate the relationship between work-life balance and turnover intentions. However, Gadzali and Sondari (2020) reported a partial mediation of job satisfaction in the relationship between work-life balance and intention to resign. Majority of respondents agree that good work and discipline have a positive effect on their career development as shown by high mean value of 4.351.

The respondents feel that their work-life balance is achieved with their self-discipline. When the work-life balance is achieved, it will lead to job satisfaction that, in return, will lower the turnover intentions. On turnover intentions, majority of respondents also agree that good relationship with co-workers will increase job satisfaction as shown by high mean value of 4.227, and this result is also in accordance with previous research findings where if employees are dissatisfied with co-workers, it can cause employees wanting to leave the company. Thus, the higher the job satisfaction, the lower the turnover intentions. The achievement of work-life balance increases job satisfaction and reduces turnover intentions. Therefore, it will provide the financial industry company the opportunities to retain their best employees by improving the work-life balance of its employees. Thus, this finding answered our research question about how job satisfaction mediates between work-life balance and turnover intentions.

This study is intended to identify the effects of occupational stress and work-life balance on turnover intentions through job satisfaction as the mediating role in the financial services industry. Work-life balance has been shown to have a considerable positive effect on job satisfaction. It means that employees’ work-life balance will have a similar influence on job satisfaction, while occupational stress has been shown to have a positive effect on turnover intentions and a negative significant effect on job satisfaction. Job satisfaction was found to have a considerable negative impact on turnover intentions. Therefore, out of seven hypotheses proposed in this research only one (Hypothesis 2) is not supported. The job satisfaction negatively mediates the relationship between work-life balance and turnover intentions.

This suggests that work-life balance affects employees’ attitudes towards their jobs and makes them disinterested in their job. As a result, people with poor levels of job satisfaction choose to leave their current jobs in the hope of finding ones that are more fulfilling and permit them to maintain a better work-life balance. This study concludes that occupational stress does not have influence on turnover intentions. The occupational stress is not seen as something negative but as part of their work and employees can manage their stress level.

There are several limitations from the results of this study including point of view this research is just only from employees and has not been confirmed from point of view management, moreover demographics respondents are too varied or not specific also from the result of R square turnover intentions which is still low so there are other aspects besides occupational stress, work life balance, and job satisfaction that can be explored more deeply which is have strong relation to turnover intentions. Some of the indicators as follows: (1) I behave well at work, (2) I feel the company treats me well, can be considered as weak indicators in work life-balance and turnover intentions.