While public sector organizations provide support essential to sustaining society, many feature significant gaps in infrastructure, agility, compensation, and change management. With both attrition concerns within these organizations and a desire for autonomy among workforce entrants on the rise, what factors are most likely to retain public sector workers in the coming years? Most retention research focuses on members' reasons for leaving institutions. In the spirit of positive organizational scholarship, we investigate the reasons for which members who exited the United States Coast Guard from 2013 through 2022 with 4 to 43 years of service remained for as long as they did. Using a unique mixed-methods approach, we affirm the effectiveness of traditional retention tools such as retirement benefits, while uncovering factors that have received less emphasis in retention efforts. This work has important implications for public sector institutions seeking to forestall the transition of members out of their ranks even as they welcome Gen Z workers in the coming decades.
