The Relationships among Emotional Demand , Job Demand , Emotional Exhaustion and Turnover Intention

The objectives of this paper are to assess the levels of job demand, emotional demand, emotional exhaustion and employee turnover intention and to examine the relationships among these concepts in the context of three selected apparel manufacturing firms in Eastern region of Sri Lanka. Employee absenteeism and turnover are key issues of apparel firms in Sri Lanka. In order to achieve the objectives of this paper, a questionnaire based survey was conducted among 153 employees of apparel firms and collected data were analyzed by using univariate and bivariate techniques. The findings of this paper revealed that there is a strong positive relationship between emotional demand and emotional exhaustion, emotional demand and turnover intention, job demand and turnover intention, and emotional exhaustion and turnover intention. At the same time, there is a moderate positive relationship between job demand and emotional exhaustion. The findings of the study have various managerial implications for the apparel manufacturing firms to prevent or control employee stress, absenteeism and turnover related issues and to develop good labour-management relationship.


Introduction
, stated that "the textile and clothing industry is one of the industrial sectors which affect the global economies in the world, employing over 25 million people and consumers spend around $1.3 trillion on textiles every year, most of it on clothes".This statement emphasizes the influence of apparel industry in global economy.In Sri Lanka, apparel sector is playing a key role and significantly influencing the Sri Lankan economy.The Central Bank Annual Report of Sri Lanka (2017) stated that, Sri Lankan economy grew at a moderate pace of 3.1 percent in 2017.Agricultural sector, industry sector and service sector are the main contributors of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country.Industry accounted for almost 26.8 percent of GDP.Largest industrial subsector, manufacturing accounts for 15.7 percent contribution of GDP.Under the manufacturing sector, manufacturing of wearing apparel accounted 19.8 percent out of 100 percentage of manufacturing accounts.Additionally, manufacture of textiles, wearing apparel and leather related products, which grew by 5.7 percent in 2017.
Apparel industry provides significant support to strengthen the economy by providing higher employment opportunities in Sri Lanka.According to Labour Force Survey (2016, p. 21), the unemployment rate in Sri Lanka is 4.4 percent.Further, the Labour Force Survey Report (2016, p. 22), stated that "Sri Lanka female unemployment rate remains higher than that of males".In addition, "Apparel industry provides direct employment opportunities to over 300,000 to 600,000 people which include a substantial number of women in Sri Lanka" (Industrial Capability Report, 2017, p. 4).As the apparel is one of the employment providing sector, it enriches the economy by utilizing the available manpower from the youth population to increase the nation"s overall productivity via increasing the GDP.
Over the past three decades, the apparel industry has been focusing on innovation, competent workforce, international reputation for quality and environmental accountability.In considering the above situation, employees are important resource to an organization as a production factor.It is not enough for a company to recruit the best employees -it also has to find a way to retain those employees for as long as possible in order to get the most value out of its recruitment effort.Yet, holding on to top talent is something virtually every employer, regardless of industry, struggles to do.The apparel industry also faced deficiency of workforce.This human resource factor is adversely affecting the organizational growth.Labour Demand Survey (2017, p. 29), reported that "higher labour demand in the industry sector, the occupation, "sewing machine operator" represents more than 40 percent of total demands and it was the highly demanded occupation in industry sector in Sri Lanka".Further, the newspaper article written by Dias (2017) in Sunday Times of Sri Lanka, indicated that apparel industry is going through a hard time to attract approximately 10,000 employees and today find that is a struggle to retain employees in the face of stiff competition from other sectors especially budding industry.Above situation clearly explain that apparel industry is facing demand for machine operators and other production workforce.In addition, employee absenteeism and turnover among the machine operators are key issues of apparel sector in Sri Lanka.
The employee turnover refers to as voluntary terminations of members from the organizations.It is also observed that staff turnover is the proportion of staff leaving in a given time period but prior to the anticipated end of their contract (Hom, Griffeth, & Gaertner, 1994).Facing the high labour turnover is a major issue for the apparel industry because employee turnover is a serious problem for the organizations in terms of the need to recruit and train employees (Thanacoody, Newman, & Funchs, 2014).
Further, employee turnover is serious issue especially in the field of human resources management (Chan, Foon, Leong, & Osman, 2010).Turnover impacts operations in several ways and most of these are negative impacts such as compromised service quality and productivity, direct and indirect cost involved for replace departed employees, lower morale and diminished profitability are some of the possible outcomes of turnover (Hinkin & Tracey, 2008).The constantly high turnover rate in employees has a great impact on the operation and ultimately influences the performance of the organizations.Therefore, the research needs arise to learn thoroughly about the major causes of turnover before designing effective retention strategy for employee"s turnover.Thus, it is a requirement for the researchers to focus on employee absenteeism and turnover issues of machine operators in apparel sector in Sri Lanka.
In Sri Lanka, many researchers (Saman, 2004;Liyanage & Galhena, 2014;Rajapaksha, 2015;Amarathunge, 2016;Rathnasooriya & Jayatilake, 2016) studied the reasons for turnover of machine operators.According to them: poor working environment and worker-stress are the main reasons for the employee turnover; residency, civil status, recognition, work load, social image, job alternatives and work life balance are the important causes for the turnover intention; work life balance, upward mobility and routinization are the main factors while pay does not become a core factor to set a felling in the mind of employees to exit from the job; better working conditions, opportunities for training and higher salary and other benefits were identified as the major reasons of employees intention to stay.In addition, gender, age and educational qualifications were identified as moderators that do influence the employees" intention to leave or stay; and working conditions, workload, promotional opportunities, remuneration are the significant predictors of the employees" turnover intention.These are the main reasons for labour turnover of machine operators.
Moreover, study by Sewwandi, and Perere, (2016, p. 228) found that "there is a positive relationship between the job stress and the turnover intention of machine operators".Their study recommended to carry out similar research studies for other industries and indicated to explore the impact of other dimensions of job stress on turnover intentions of employees.Also by Fernando, Selvam, and Bennet (2010), the study has found that majority of stress related factors are inter correlated and significantly influenced stress in apparel industry Sri Lanka.
Emotional exhaustion defines as stress related cause and it refers to feelings of being emotionally drained out and feelings of extreme fatigue resulting from the chronic demands placed on a person (Maslach & Jackson, 1984).Emotional exhaustion is particularly influenced by workload, time pressure, lack of social support and role stress (Schaufeli & Enzmann, 1998).Once an employee got into a place where he or she is emotionally collapsed then it could also lead them to increase the job turnover as well as reduction of the overall productivity.
Employee job demand is important factor in the context of employee turnover.Job demand refers to physical, psychological, social or organisational aspects of the job that require sustained physical and psychological effort or skills (Bakker, Demerouti, Boer, & Schaufeli, 2003).The causes are due to the project-driven nature of the industry, work pressure and long working hours that this entails.Throughout the years, several models were evolved that explored mechanism underlying stress in a workplace.Among many findings, researchers identified that an increase of job demands is associated with negative job outcomes (e.g.burnout) (Bakker, Demerouti, Taris, Schaufeli, & Schreurs, 2004).High job demands are likely to result in strained reactions which in turn may lead to increase in emotional exhaustion.
Employee emotional demand is another important factor in the context of employee turnover.Employee emotional demand is defined by Johannessen, Tynes, and Sterud, (2013, p. 605) as dealing with strong feelings such as sorrow, anger, desperation and frustration at work.Further, the study found, "role conflict and emotional demand are most important risk factors for psychological distress in workers and has been linked to decreased job productivity and absenteeism".Also it is an emotionally charged interaction at work, which is considered as an important source of job strain.Also, in most of the studies, turnover intention used to predict the actual turnover because turnover intention is the critical antecedent of actual turnover behaviour (Lambert, Hogan, & Barton, 2001;Rizwan, Sajid, Kamran, Mohsin, Ali, & Sajid, 2013).Turnover intention refers employee"s withdrawal cognition process where they have thoughts of quitting, the job intention to search for a new job and intention to leave (Carmeli & Weisberg, 2006).Further, it is defined as an attitudinal (thinking of quitting), decisional (intention to leave) and behavioural (seeking for a new job) process (Khan, Nazir, Kazmi, Khalid, Kiyani, & Shahzad, 2014).
The researchers have discovered through their research works that emotional exhaustion significantly associated with turnover intentions in nursing service sector (Cropanzano, Byrne, & Rupp, 2003); restaurant service industry (Wang, 2014).Furthermore, emotional demand and job demand of the employees positively leads to emotional exhaustion in sales executive, customer service sector (Anitha & James, 2016).
In this context, there is a need to explore the relationships among the emotional demand, job demand, emotional exhaustion and turnover intention empirically because, emotional demand, job demand and emotional exhaustion are crucial factors to determine the employee"s turnover.Apparently on service sectors, most of the research that have been focused on the relationships among these concepts.There are lacunas in empirical studies undertaken in apparel manufacturing firms in Sri Lankan context regarding emotional demand, job demand and emotional exhaustion together with employee"s turnover intention.In order to fulfill this empirical knowledge gap, this study was conducted empirically in three selected apparel manufacturing firms in Eastern region of Sri Lanka.
The selected apparel organizations for this study are always selecting and training young employees.The employees are one of the main stakeholders in the context of employee turnover and absenteeism and employee"s turnover is a serious issue which also leads the community to loss the employment opportunities.Employee turnover is a costly problem and further, that cost related to the labor turnover can be classified as separation cost, replacement cost, training cost, and hidden cost.Therefore, it is vital for the decision makers to focus on the preventive factors in order to identify the reason for employees" turnover.Hence, this study focuses on the preventive mechanism in order to avoid the employee"s psychological and stress oriented employees" turnover of the selected apparel organizations.
Hence, the objectives of this paper are: to assess the levels of job demand, emotional demand, emotional exhaustion and employee turnover intention, and to explore the relationships among job demand, emotional demand, emotional exhaustion and employee turnover intention.The empirical findings of this paper may support the practitioners to understand how employee"s psychology and emotions influence on turnover intention of machine operators and to develop the strategies to reduce the turnover among them.
The article is structured as follows: Section 1 presents insights of the study variables and its current needs, section 2 presents the literature review about the emotional demand, job demand, emotional exhaustion and turnover intention with proposed hypotheses, section 3 deals with conceptual model, section 4 gives methodology, followed by analysis and interpretation of results and findings contain in section 5 and section 6 deals with discussion, implications, limitations and future directions.Finally, section 7 indicates conclusions.

Relationship between Emotional Demand and Emotional Exhaustion
In recent days, works expected more sustainable emotional requirement from the employees because they may feel even greater pressure and may be more likely to experience exhaustion during their work.Brotheridge & Grandey (2002) identified emotional demands are related to emotional exhaustion across various occupations.
Further studies stated that emotional demands of a job are an important reason for exhaustion (Hochschild, 1983;Schaufeli & Maslach 1993).A study conducted by Peng (2017), based on six major types of occupations identified by the Holland (1959).Results revealed that incumbents of social and enterprising jobs face higher emotional demand and employees face more emotional demands that lead to exhaustion at work.Tuxford and Bradley (2014) found that general (non-emotional) job demands, emotional demands, social support and self-efficacy uniquely predicted emotional exhaustion in the context of teaching service.
According to previous literatures, this review establishes that emotional demand has a positive relationship with emotional exhaustion of the employee.Therefore, this review proposes the first hypothesis as: Hypothesis 1: There is a positive relationship between emotional demand and emotional exhaustion.

Relationship between Job Demand and Emotional Exhaustion
A study conducted among the Dutch managers revealed that increase in job demands and decrease in job resources predicted burnout across a one year period, whereas increase in resources predicted work engagement (Schaufeli, Bakker, & Rhenen, 2010).Bakker, Demerouti and Euwema (2005) tested and refined the job demands-resources model, demonstrating that several job resources play a role in buffering the impact of several job demands on burnout.Schaufeli, Salanova, Roma, and Bakker (2002) suggest that job demands could cause job burnout.
According to Bakker, Demerouti, Taris, Schaufeli, and Schreurs (2003), job demands are the most important predictors of burnout.The high job demands lead to emotional exhaustion is modeled as a key assumption in the job demands-resources (JD-R) model of burnout (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007).According to previous literature, this review establishes that job demand has a positive relationship with emotional exhaustion of the employee.Therefore, this review proposes its second hypothesis as: Hypothesis 2: There is a positive relationship between job demand and emotional exhaustion.

Relationship between Emotional Demand and Turnover Intention
The study by Hulsheger and Schewe, (2011), demonstrated that emotional demand often lead to feelings of inauthenticity and exhaust self-regulatory resources, which negatively impact on employees" well-being.Further, elevated risk of depression was related to high emotional demands in women (Wieclaw. Agerbo, Mortensen, Burr Tuchsen & Bonde, 2008).A study conducted by (Younes, Riviere, Plancke, Leroyer, Blanchon, Da Silva, Melchior, 2018) to identify whether the work related factors partly contribute to suicide risk or not?Their findings show that out of six work related factors, emotional demand was significantly associated with suicidality of women employees.A study conducted by Johannessen et al., (2013) found that, role conflict and emotional demand are most important risk factors for psychological distress in workers and has been linked to decreased job productivity and absenteeism.
Employees who faced high emotional demand faced negative consequences and it could lead them into deviation from the work operation as well as losing of the individual productivity.Consequently, this emotionally charge interaction at the work may foster the intention to leave from the organization.According to previous literature, this review establishes that emotional demand has a positive relationship with turnover intention of the employee.Therefore, this review proposes its third hypothesis as: Hypothesis 3: There is a positive relationship between emotional demand and turnover intention.

Relationship between Job Demand and Turnover Intention
According to Bon and Shire (2017), the turnover intentions of employees are high if the employees have high job demands in telecommunication sector.In nursing service sector also found positive relationship between job demands and turnover intention (Cortese, Gatti, & Ghislieri, 2014).
A study conducted by Daderman and Basinska (2016), shows that, only high job demands and low vigor were significantly associated with turnover intentions among the nurses.According to previous literatures, this review establishes that job demand has a positive relationship with turnover intention of the employee.Therefore, this review proposes its fourth hypothesis as: Hypothesis 4: There is a positive relationship between job demand and turnover intention.

Relationship between Emotional Exhaustion and Turnover Intention
A study conducted among the organisational leaders, revealed that there is a positive relationship between emotional exhaustion and turnover intention (Knudsen, Ducharme, & Roman, 2009).Another study conducted by Ducharme, Knudsen, and Roman (2007) among human services occupational employees also revealed there is a positive relationship between emotional exhaustion and turnover intention.
Another research study conducted by Cropanzano, et al. (2003), found that emotional exhaustion has been linked to the turnover process in nursing service sector.According to Omer & Ahmed (2016), emotional exhaustion significantly related with turnover intention among the faculty of universities.According to above literature, this review established that emotional exhaustion of the employee is positively associated with turnover intention.Therefore, this review proposes its fifth hypothesis as: Hypothesis 5: There is a positive relationship between emotional exhaustion and turnover intention.

Conceptual Model
Based on the theoretical background and review of the previous literature, the conceptual model of this paper was developed to examine the relationships among the emotional demand, job demand, emotional exhaustion and turnover intention.Figure 1 presents the research model.

Sampling and Data Collection
The objectives of this study are: to assess the levels and to explore the relationships among job demand, emotional demand, emotional exhaustion and employee turnover intention.This study depends on the primary data.The primary data were collected through self-administrated questionnaire.The five point Likert scale was assigned to measure the variables of the study and all are closed questions.
This survey was carried among the sample of 153 machine operators in three selected apparel manufacturing firms in Eastern region of Sri Lanka.The sampling method of the survey was simple random sampling, which enables to everyone in the sampling frame to have equal opportunity to be selected without bias in a systematic manner.The collected data were analyzed by using the computer based statistical data analysis package, and univariate and bivariate analyses methods were used.

Emotional Demand
The emotional demand variable measured through the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire (Kristensen, Hannerz, Hogh, & Borg, 2005) which consists of four question items.They are: (1) My work put me in emotionally disturbing situation, (2) My work is emotionally demanding, (3) I get emotionally involved in my work and (4) My work requires me to get personally involved.The instrument had Cronbach"s alpha of 0.717 which is higher than 0.70.Hence, the instrument had a good reliability.

Job Demand
The job demand was measured by using an instrument used by Demerouti, Bakker, Nachreiner and Schaufeli (2001) which consists of five question items.They are: (1) my work does not tax me too much physically, (2) I always have enough time to perform my task, (3) my contact with persons to whom I have to offer services demanding, (4) my physical working condition -climate, light, noise, design of the working place and materialare all right and (5) it is physically taxing for me to get used to my working time.The instrument had Cronbach"s alpha of 0.705 which is higher than 0.70.Hence, the instrument had a good reliability.

Emotional Exhaustion
The emotional exhaustion was measured by using an instrument used by Maslach & Jakson (1981).This instrument consists of nine question items.This nine-item scale measures how often one feels emotionally overextended and exhausted by one's work.The items are: (1) I feel emotionally drained from my work, (2) I feel used up at the end of the work day, (3) I feel fatigued when I get up in the morning and have to face another day on the job, (4) Working with people all day is really strain for me, (5) I feel burned out from my work, (6) I feel frustrated by my job, (7) I feel I am working too hard on my job, (8) Working with people directly puts too much stress on me and (9) I feel like I am at the end of my rope.The instrument had Cronbach"s alpha of 0.790 Emotional Exhaustion Emotional Demand Job Demand Turnover Intention which is higher than 0.70.Hence, the instrument had a good reliability.

Turnover Intention
The turnover intention was measured by using an instrument used by Mobley, Horner, & Hollingsworth, (1978) and Abid & Butt, (2017).This instrument consists of three question items.They are: (1) I often think about quitting my present job, (2) I will probably look for a new job in the next year and (3) As soon as possible, I will leave from my current organisation.The instrument had Cronbach"s alpha of 0.718 which is higher than 0.70.Hence, the instrument had a good reliability.

Profile of Respondents
This survey consists of 98% female and 2% male respondents.Most of them are fall into an age category of 16 -25 years and they are working for a period of 2-5 years in the selected apparel firms.In this survey most of the respondents have general certificate of education (ordinary level) qualifications.

Univariate Analysis
To achieve the first objective, this study has used univariate analysis each and every variables in the research model were analysed by using descriptive statistical method.For the most important measures of central tendency is mean value.According to Masri and Jaaron, (2017) rules thumb about mean value (̅ ) range from 1 to 1.8 is considered very low level, 1.8 to 2.6 is considered low level, 2.6 to 3.4 is considered moderate level, 3.4 to 4.2 is considered high level, 4.2 to 5.0 is considered very high level.Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics of the study.According to the Table 1, there is high level of turnover intention and emotional exhaustion, and moderate level of emotional demand and job demand exist in selected apparel manufacturing firms.
To achieve the second objective, correlation analysis was used to examine the relationship between the variables (Jahangir & Begum, 2008).Pearson correlation coefficient indicates the direction strength and significant of the bivariate relationship between the variables.According to Senthilnathan and Tharmi, (2012) rules thumb about correlation coefficient (r), correlation range 0.1 to 0.29 weak positive relationship, range 0.3 to 0.49 moderate relationship and range 0.5 to 1 strong positive relationship.Table 1 also shows the result of correlation analysis.The results imply that strong positive relationship between emotional demand and emotional exhaustion, emotional demand and turnover intention, job demand and turnover intention, and emotional exhaustion and turnover intention.And also, there is a moderate positive relationship between job demand and emotional exhaustion.
Table 1.Descriptive Statistics and Correlation Matrix (Source: Survey Data)

Discussion
This study investigates the relationships among emotional demand, job demand, emotional exhaustion and turnover intention.Over the years, human resource management practitioners and researchers are focusing on reducing the employees" turnover.Therefore, this study brings to light five important findings concerning the employee"s turnover and absenteeism issues in the context of apparel manufacturing firms in Eastern region of Sri Lanka.
The first finding of the study indicates there is a significant and strong positive relationship exists between emotional demand and emotional exhaustion (r = 0.57, p < 0.05).This result provides a support to the first hypothesis of the study.The result of the current study suggests that when employees received emotional demand it directly contributes to increase the emotional exhaustion.Emotional demand provides vital role to create the emotional exhaustion by enhancing the feelings of inauthenticity and exhaust self-regulatory resources of the employees.In addition, emotional demand foster the emotional exhaustion of the employees.This research suggests that, when an organization reduced the negative impact of emotional exhaustion, it needs to seriously consider more about the emotional demand creating factors and by controlling these factors, employees can be able to work with emotional satisfaction.This finding of the study consistent with the findings of previous studies, such as emotional demand positively related with emotional exhaustion (Brotheridge & Grandey, 2002;Tuxford & Brandley, 2014;Peng, 2017).
The second finding of the study indicates that there is a significant and moderate positive relationship between job demand and emotional exhaustion (r = 0.49, p < 0.05).This result provides a support to accept the second hypothesis of this study.The result of the present study suggests that, employee are emotionally exhausted when they perceive high job demands beard by them that mean emotional exhaustion created by job demand when the workers physiological and psychological resources are dramatically decreases.This research suggests that, when an organization reduced the negative impact of emotional exhaustion consider the employees long working hours, demanding work shifts, high time pressure, work load and unpleasant physical conditions.This finding of the present study is consistent with the findings of previous studies.That means the job demand positively associated with emotional exhaustion (Schaufeli, Salanova, Roma & Bakker, 2002, Bakker, Demerouti, & Euwema, 2005;Shaufeli, Bakker, & Rhenen, 2010).
The third finding of the study indicates that there is a significant and strong positive relationship between emotional demand and turnover intention (r = 0.53, p < 0.05).This finding provides a support to accept the third hypothesis of this study.The result of the current study suggests that one of the causes for employees" turnover intention is emotional demand.In addition, considerable attention is required by decision makers in order to manage the individuals" emotion to create positive outcomes from it.If the organization could not manage the emotions of employees, it could result with negative outcomes such as strain, job dissatisfaction, emotional exhaustion and these outcomes are ultimately affect the well-being and health of the employees".The effects have a relationship with employees" intent to quit from the organization.The finding from the current study provides the new knowledge on the relationship between emotional demand and employee"s turnover intention.Therefore, finding of the study contributes to HRM practitioners to prevent the turnover intention in emotional point of view and organizational psychology literature.
The fourth finding of the study indicates that there is a significant and strong positive relationship between job demand and turnover intention (r = 0.60, p < 0.05).This result provides a support to accept the fourth hypothesis of this study.The result of the current study suggests that one of the causes for employees" turnover intention is job demand.In addition, the job demand becomes essential to be aware at the beginning itself, especially in work situation.As the job demand increases, they may face negative consequences such as work-related strain and inter-role conflict, time pressure, those may lead to employee"s intention to leave from the organisation.Further, the prevention of turnover intention point of view, the job demand must be balanced or reduced to certain extent and it should be maintained in a manageable levels.This finding is also consistent with the findings of previous studies.That means, job demand is positively associated with turnover intention (Cortese, Gatti, & Ghislieri, 2014;Daderman & Basinska, 2016;Bon & Shire 2017).
In addition to these findings, fifth finding of the study found that there is a significant and strong positive relationship between emotional exhaustion and turnover intention (r = 0.66, p < 0.05).This finding provides a support to accept the fifth hypothesis of this study.The result of the current study suggests that one of the causes for employee"s turnover intention is emotional exhaustion.Moreover, when the individual is exhausted emotionally and develops negative attitudes and feelings towards his or her job and organization and finds less self-efficacy in performing duties.On the other hand, when an employee got into a point where he or she is emotionally collapsed then it could also lead them to increase their job turnover as well as reduction of the overall productivity.Further, the prevention of turnover intention point of view, the emotional exhaustion must be reduced to certain extent and it should be maintained in a manageable levels.This finding is also consistent with the findings of previous studies.That means, emotional exhaustion is positively related with turnover intention of employees (Cropanzano, Byrne, & Rupp, 2003;Kunudsen, Ducharme, & Roman 2009;Wang, 2014).
One of the main challenges faced by the human resource management is managing the employees" turnover.It is essential to understand the reasons for the employees" turnover and associated factors with employee turnover in a specific context.Hence, the findings of this study will help to develop the preventing mechanism towards employee turnover.In order to find the reasons for employee"s turnover, these empirical findings could support to solve the problem and to develop the good labour -management relationship.

Implication of the Study
This study contributes to understand the relationship among emotional demand, job demand, emotional exhaustion and turnover intention of the employees.Even though, there are many studies being conducted regarding the relationships among these variables in the context of manufacturing sector, this study exclusively focused on machine operators of apparel manufacturing firms in the context of Eastern region of Sri Lanka.Hence, the findings of this study may uniquely contribute to fulfill empirical knowledge gap in context of apparel manufacturing sector particularly for the job category of machine operators.
This study has searched and explored some of the key variables which are operating behind the scene of labour turnover of machine operators in the context of apparel manufacturing firms in Eastern region of Sri Lanka and also provides a signal to managers of apparel manufacturing firms in finding efficient and productive ways to control the emotional demand and job demand as well as emotional exhaustion from the employees" in order to reduce the employees" turnover.Further, this study proposes that decision makers must prevent employees from being indirectly forced into performing jobs with extreme work demands or workloads.Specifically, there must be policies that prevent employees from being over demanded and highly emotionally exhausted, as these employees cannot simply perform their best, thereby leave from the organization.In addition, by understanding the emotional demand, job demand and emotional exhaustion, the organization can reduce employee turnover and prevent the negative consequences of it.Hence, employee"s emotional and psychological attachment with the organization is necessary for the organization to retain the competent workforce.

Limitation and Future Studies
This study involves only main hypotheses and did not include any sub dimension and hypotheses, so future researchers can develop and test the sub hypotheses by involving the sub dimensions of the variables.Further, this study was conducted among the three selected apparel manufacturing firms and limited machine operators by using survey strategy from the Eastern region of Sri Lanka.And therefore, further expansion of this study into the other regions of Sri Lanka is also needed.Future studies must consider large sample size as well as both quantitative and qualitative approaches in order to overcome the limitation of the present study.

Conclusion
Based on the findings of the study, this research concludes that emotional exhaustion and turnover intention are in a higher level, emotional demand and job demand are in a moderate level.In addition, there are strong positive and significant relationship between emotional demand and emotional exhaustion, emotional demand and turnover intention, job demand and turnover intention, and emotional exhaustion and turnover intention.And this study also conclude that there is a moderate positive relationship between job demand and emotional exhaustion.