Attrition amongst new professionals in student affairs has been cited as high as sixty-percent Holmes, Verrier, & Chisholm 1983; Ward, 1995). High rates of employee turnover are problematic for institutions and result in work inefficiencies, costly rehiring processes, and overburdening current employees with increased load (Kantor, 2016). Studies of attrition within student affairs have found several factors that contribute to these high rates of departure including but not limited to heavy workloads, working long and unusual hours, lack of opportunities for advancement, low levels of pay compared to the private sector, difficulty keeping tasks and emotions that originated at work with those at home (and vice versa), and emotional stress due to being personally invested in the lives of students (Evans, 1988; Lorden, 1998; Marshall, Gardner, Hughes, & Lowery, 2016; Ward, 1995). Within the discussion of meeting combating turnover, the topic of workplace flexibility has emerged. Employees are requiring more latitude to deal with issues such as childcare, elder care, as well as other day-to-day needs. While studies have often referred to policies and formal mechanisms regarding workplace flexibility and the impact it has on retention, there has been a lack of discussion around the role flexstyle plays in employee performance and satisfaction. Flexstyle refers to a way of thinking about the relationships between work and personal life (Kossek & Lautsch, 2008). The purpose of this study was to understand the potential relationship between work-life flexstyle amongst new student affairs professionals and the variables of job satisfaction and turnover intention. To examine the relationship between flexstyle, job satisfaction, and turnover intention, an electronic survey utilizing Kossek, Ruderman, Braddy, and Hannum's (2012) work-nonwork boundary management assessment, Judge, Locke, Durham, and Kluger's (1998) shortened version of Brayfield and Rothe's (1951) Job Satisfaction Schedule, and Bothma and Roodt's (2013) Turnover Intention Scale - 6 (TIS-6) was administered to those who identified as new professionals to members of the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) Knowledge Community for Graduate Students and New Professionals, the American College Personnel Association (ACPA), and the Southern Association of College Student Affairs (SACSA). A total of 287 members provided usable data for use in analysis. Results from the data that utilized ANCOVA showed that significant differences in means existed for behavior factor groups in relation to both job satisfaction and turnover intention. Results from the data that utilized multiple regression showed that significant positive relationships existed between the flexstyle factors of boundary control and work identity with job satisfaction. In addition, data that utilized multiple regression showed that a significant negative relationship existed between the flexstyle factor of boundary control and turnover intention. Implications for student affairs practitioners and researchers and recommendations for future research are also discussed.
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