An investigation of the factors that influence the retention of physiotherapists in the South African public sector
Date
2008-07-16T13:31:05Z
Authors
Rakgokong, Lintle Idlett
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Abstract
ABSTRACT
Every year, physiotherapists leave the South African public sector in large numbers,
citing reasons such as low salaries and unsatisfactory working conditions as the main
contributing factors. However, despite this, there are some physiotherapists who
continue to choose to stay for the duration of their careers, and it is the aim of this study
to investigate the factors that influence these choices. The author has tried to achieve
this by trying to predict those factors that cause physiotherapists to stay at their current
work places and by finding out if these physiotherapists share any common
characteristics and motivations which contribute to their decisions to stay. The
participants were also asked to rate their current job satisfaction, rank the importance of
given motivation factors for retention and what they knew about their own institutions’
retention strategies.
The study population was made up of all the qualified physiotherapists working for the
South African public sector in Gauteng between January and December 2006. There
were 93 physiotherapists who met these study criteria, 76 (82.0%) of whom completed
the questionnaire.
The research revealed that characteristics such as gender, age, race, marital status,
having children and being the family breadwinner played a significant role as
determinants of whether physiotherapists left or stayed at their current public sector jobs
in 2007. For example, the female participants and those who had children were twice as
likely to stay as the male participants and those who did not have children, respectively.
Similarly, the white participants and those who were family breadwinners were three
times more likely to stay than those of other racial groups and non-breadwinners,
respectively. Physiotherapists over the age of thirty-one were almost five times more
likely to stay than their younger counterparts. On the other hand, factors such as
professional rankings, having postgraduate qualifications and the type or level of
institution seemed to play relatively insignificant roles.
According to the results, the respondents’ main source of dissatisfaction was their
salaries, followed by what they felt were poor opportunities for promotion. Feeling
unappreciated and undervalued in their workplaces, as well as poor recognition for their
professional status, were also rated as contributors to dissatisfaction. They felt that more attention needed to be given to improve on these factors if the retention of
physiotherapists was to be achieved successfully.
The factors which received the highest importance rating and ranking as retention
factors, included, once again, better salaries, promotion opportunities, career
development and training opportunities, as well as receiving the scarce skills allowance.
In terms of knowledge of the existence of retention strategies for physiotherapists in
their institutions, only 29% responded positively, the most commonly cited one being the
scarce skills allowance.
The main conclusion that was drawn from this study is that in addition to better salaries,
improved working conditions and more promotion opportunities, there are more
characteristic features that are shared by those physiotherapists that stay in the South
African public sector. These, as mentioned earlier, include being a female, being over
the age of 31, being married, having children and carrying the financial responsibilities of a family breadwinner.
Finally, in terms of some of the key recommendations made, the findings of this study
reveal a heightened necessity for the government of South Africa to review the salary
structure of public sector physiotherapists in an effort to motivate them and encourage
them to stay. Furthermore, it is recommended that physiotherapy managers improve
their human resource record keeping, particularly worker flow and turnover data, and
that they encourage more evidence-based research in the field of physiotherapy human
resources.
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Keywords
physiotherapists in South Africa