Turnover chez les sapeurs-pompiers volontaires français : étude qualitative des profils de maintien et d’abandon de l’activité

Abstract

Several studies sought to understand why firefighters quit, although much fewer were concerned with the identification of the reasons of staying. The purpose of the present research consists in establishing the antecedents explaining both the intention to stay and to quit the volunteer activity in accordance with the Proximal Withdrawal States Model (Hom et al., 2012) followed by the further formulation of recommendations for French fire centres. In this regard, 33 semi-structured interviews were conducted with volunteer firefighters belonging to one French fire centre. The empirical material was processed via the method of thematic analysis and the principles of researcher triangulation. Our findings show that staying and quitting are explained by different factors including affective, constitutive and normative forces, as well as human resource management practices. Thanks to the establishment of the four profiles - 1) enthusiastic stayers, 2) reluctant stayers, 3) enthusiastic leavers, and 4) reluctant leavers – we were able to suggest certain recommendations in order to prevent quitting and increase the number of enthusiastic stayers in French fire centres.