Voluntary turnover rate of IT professionals within defense contracting organizations has increased by 12.6% since 2003 (Hedden, 2006). The purpose of the qualitative phenomenological study was to explore the perceptions and lived experiences of IT professionals in the defense contracting industry to better understand the precipitating events, or shocks, that led to their decision to voluntarily leave an organization. Twenty IT professionals at a small, service-based, government contracting organization supporting the intelligence community in Ft. Meade, Maryland were interviewed until the point of data saturation. Analysis of interview responses revealed three individual constituents indicating that managing relationships at multiple levels between employees, corporate management, and the direct supervisor or manager is one way that organizations can decrease their overall voluntary employee turnover. The results of the current research study may provide business leaders with information to create innovative retention plans and enact positive organizational change to reduce the voluntary employee turnover of IT professionals.