Employees' satisfaction with retention factors: Exploring the role of career adaptability

•Career adaptability is explored in the retention context.•Career adaptability significantly explained satisfaction with retention factors.•Career concern predicted career opportunities and work–life balance satisfaction.•Career concern also predicted training and development and job characteristics satisfaction.•Black and white employees differed regarding the variables.

Given the rising concerns about staff retention and the increased importance attached to individuals' career adaptability, the present paper explored how career adaptability relates to employees' satisfaction with factors that organizations regard important for their retention. A canonical correlation analysis was conducted on a sample of 321 employees in a South African automotive industry. The results showed that career adaptability, especially career concern, significantly explained the participants' level of satisfaction with their experiences of the career opportunities, work–life balance, training and development opportunities and characteristics of the jobs offered by the company. The study findings suggest that employees' career concerns, goals and plans and how these relate to retention practices are important for retaining them. Black and white participants also differed significantly regarding the variables. This study extends prior research on career adaptability by adding insights about the usefulness of the construct in the retention context.