The purpose of this thesis is to examine the attraction of employees to the civil sector, as well as what factors can retain the employee or lead to a change of job.
This thesis is a case study of two different cases.

The empirical material is produced by 7-9 job advertisements from the civil, private- and public sectors, 1 expert interview and 11 employee interviews with current and former employees.

The theoretical framework involves two theories. One is the nonprofit public service motivation, which explains the individual's motivation based on doing something good and helps to understand attraction mechanisms. The second theory is person-organization fit or misfit, which is about a match or mismatch between the organization and the employee. The theory illustrates the mechanisms of retention and forgiveness.

The main analytical findings of the thesis are that large organizations in the civil sector with a stable source of income have better working conditions and prerequisites for the employee's working environment than medium and small organizations with unstable sources of income. The thesis concludes that attraction mechanisms in the civil sector are primarily about mission and value, and that is mainly also what maintain the employees. Factors leading to a change of job are: work pressures and stress, the performance of too many tasks and thus a lack of fulfilment of professional ambition and a value mismatch between, on the one hand, the cause and, on the other hand, growth and the economy.