In today’s era, the proactive, aggressive, and goal-oriented nature of business requires active involvement and thorough dedication from employees that can increase turnover intention. However, this study argued that work-life balance can contribute to higher levels and more stable states, that is, from a life satisfaction lens. In addition, the researcher proposed a job incentive because, in various literature studies related to human resource management (HR), the incentive was an aspect that plays a central role but can also attract, motivate and retain the workforce. Furthermore, the authors developed the theory of interpersonal love to construct employee engagement as a mediator variable that implements the conceptual model among work-life satisfaction, job incentive, and turnover intention. Questionnaires were distributed to 133 respondents who worked in startup companies and were tested with Structural Equation Modeling. The outcomes depicted that employee engagement is vital in the linkages between work-life satisfaction and job incentives toward turnover intention. Theoretically, the theory of interpersonal love revealed that they can engage in creativity and autonomy with their jobs and realize steady will benefit the employee and stay with the company. The mediating variable hypothesis was a novelty from a theoretical aspect. At the same time, practical benefits can use mediation as an approach.
Keywords: theory of interpersonal love, work-life satisfaction, job incentive, employee engagement, turnover intention