Top-Rated Free Essay
Preview

Job Satisfaction

Powerful Essays
2272 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Job Satisfaction
Page 1
Job Satisfaction: What is it? Why is it Important? How
Can you Get it? by Kevin Scheid
The issue of job satisfaction, what it is and why it is important, brings with it a great deal of research and opinion accompanied by a vast store of written material.
However , the topic j ob satisfaction lacks clarity and is sometimes controversial. The term “job satisfaction” is understood to mean everything from “making all aspects of a job easy for employees” to “making the job meaningful, significant and challenging.” Research on the importance of job satisfaction can be equally confusing with some research clearly indicating no correlation between job satisfaction and job effectiveness while other research indicates there is a definite connection between the two. The likely reason for this confusion, beyond a lack of understanding on the topic, is that all factors associated with job satisfaction are not understood, agreed upon, measured or correlated.
Moreover, all the factors contributing to employee motivation and effectiveness are not captured in any one of the single ambiguous concepts of job satisfaction. Thus, much of the qualitative research has not been verified by qualitative data.
Research conducted by
Schleicher, Watt and Greguras
(2004) indicates that individuals with identical responses to questions on job satisfaction often possess entirely different behaviors relating to job performance. Additionally, differing factors relating to job satisfaction hold varying degrees of importance to individuals.
Thus, a proven model showing the relationship between job satisfaction and performance has been elusive despite the vast quantity of qualitative data supporting the relationship. These issues are very complex and have simply not been fully deciphered by researchers.
Dispositional Theory
Some of the theories relating to job satisfaction may further illustrate the complexity of the issue and help the understanding of how management may positively affect job performance through job satisfaction. The first theory is the dispositional theory.
The idea that people who are happy in life are happy in their job is called the dispositional theory and there is significant research to support this idea. Heller(2002) connects three behavioral theories to aid in the understanding of the dispostional theory. These three theories include research on positive affectivity and negative affectivity, the big five personality attributes and core self evaluations.
Positive affectivety is a personality charact e r i s t ic described as high energy, enthusiastic and pleasurable engagement while negative affectivety is a personality type characterized as distressed, unpleasurable engagement and nervousness (Heller, 2002).
Research has shown that people with positive affectivity are happier in their work and happier in life than those with negative affectivity. The big five personality attributes introduced by Goldberg (1990) have a near consensus agreement from behavioral experts as the comprehensive personality taxonomy. According to Heller (2002) these five traits include: “extraversion (or surgency), neuroticism (or emo t i o n a l i n s t a b i l i t y ) , a g r e e a b l e n e s s , conscientiousness, and openness
The idea that people who are happy in life are happy in their job is called the dispositional theory and there is significant research to support this idea.
Page 2
(or culture).” Research has shown a strong correlation between these five factors and job satisfaction. The third facet of dispositional theory, core self evaluation theory, developed by Judge,
Locke, and Durham (1997) is gaining acceptance as a model for determining job satisfaction and job performance. Core self evaluation theory has four facets i n c l u d i n g : s e l f - e s t e e m , generalized self-efficacy, locus of control, and emotional stability
(low neuroticism). This theory again links personality attributes and practices with motivation, job satisfaction and job performance.
All three dispositional theories recognize the connection between job satisfaction, motivation and performance but focus on the attributes of the person entirely. Thus, the dispositional theory suggests that some people will be satisfied, motivated and high performing at work regardless of how poorly managed while other people will not be happy no matter how great an organization. However, the data indicates that despite the correlation, personality can only explain less than half of the level of job satisfaction. This tells us that there are likely some elements within organizational control which can affect employee job satisfaction.
Hygiene Theory
Fredrick Hertzberg developed the hygiene theory on job satisfaction and employee motivation which can tie the principles of the disposition theory together with the influence management has on job satisfaction, performance and motivation. According to Herzberg
(1974) there are two factors relating to satisfaction and motivation in the workplace; satisfiers and dissatisfiers.
Satisfiers relate to the content of the work such as “achievement, recognition for achievement, interesting work, increased responsibility, growth, and advancement. Herzberg (1974, p18).” Dissatisfiers are related to how employees are treated and include such items as “company policy and administration p r a c t i c e s , s u p e r v i s i o n , interpersonal relationships, working conditions, salary, status, and security. Herzberg (1974, p18).” If we combine this theory with the disposition theory we can more clearly see a model for job satisfaction in which some satisfaction or dissatisfaction is inherent in the nature of each individual worker, some satisfaction comes from the content of the work and some dissatisfaction comes from the way they are treated. Managers have some influence on the level of satisfaction by fostering achievement, recogni z i ng achievement, making the work interesting, giving employees responsibility and providing for opportunities for growth and advancement. More importantly, m a n a g e r s c a n c r e a t e dissatisfaction with inequitable pay, poor company personal policies, working conditions or job security. The importance of each of these job dissatisfiers relates to the frequency it occurs and the intensity of the shortfall. In other words a policy that treats employees poorly every day is a bigger dissatisfier than a policy which treats them poorly only once per month. Moreover, the severity of the dissatisfier affects the importance of that dissatisfier.
Therefore, if pay is at such a level that people cannot meet their basic needs, then pay would overshadow all other dissatisfiers and eclipse job satisfiers.
How do you improve on job
The first step in improving job satisfaction might be to hire people who are satisfied with their life.
Page 3 satisfaction? Now that you may have a feel for the complexity of the issue you may better understand how improving job satisfaction in your organization can be an illusive goal. The first step in improving job satisfaction might be to hire people who are satisfied with their life. This step should be fairly easy if you are hiring Christians who are putting
Christ at the center of their lives.
One school superintendent who led a school certified as a Best
Christian Workplace told his staff that he wanted people who wanted to work at the school, liked the kids and were happy with the work. If they were not happy then they owed it to themselves to move on and find a job where they were happy. This might not have been the singular policy making this school a great place to work, but the job satisfaction theories certainly support the idea that this policy would have a significant impact on the overall positive culture of the workplace.
Of course there is more management must do to make a great workplace. Management must minimize dissatisfiers and maximize satisfiers. Although there is not a single instrument developed to measure and guide management in creating a satisfied workforce, the Best
Christian Workplace survey provides some excellent insights.
Taking a look at the survey instrument, we see there are several questions in the survey which are lagging indicators of job satisfaction. These lagging indicators include:
Table 1. Job satisfaction questions So they measure job satisfaction but not necessarily what creates higher levels of job satisfaction.
Essentially all the questions in the rest of the survey have some correlation to job satisfaction, but to help us focus in a few areas concentrating on the work satisfaction dimension in the survey is in order. The questions related to work satisfaction include: Table 2. Work satisfaction questions Admittedly, these questions represent only a portion of the work related question possibilities and do not include the dissatisfiers. However, limiting the scope to these six questions will allow a concise view of Christian organizations’ motivators which r e l a te dir e c t l y to the characteristics of the work.
Expanding the study to a more comprehensive examination of job satisfaction could possibly be the subject of a future book but is beyond the scope of this paper.
Chart 1 shows average scores of the six questions in table 2 from over 16,000 surveys of employees in Christian organizations. We can see overall there is little difference between men and women on these work
1 I would rate my organization as an exceptional place to work.
2 All in all, I am satisfied with my job.
3 In general, I like working for this organization.
19 I have fun at work.
20 The mission and goals of my organization make me feel my job is important.
21 There is clear consensus on my organization 's goals. 22 I have the decisionmaking authority I need to do my job effectively.
23 I receive the training needed to do my current job effectively.
24 I am very satisfied with the opportunities I have to use my skills in my job.
Page 4 satisfiers and the strongest areas for Christian organizations appears to be connection with the mission and the work is fun.
“Opportunities to use skills” is also strong, but the connection with the mission is definitely a strength managers should be aware of and on which they should build. The two areas most lacking is goal consensus and having adequate training. Goal
Page 5 consensus appears to be the only question lacking in consensus between men and women. As goal consensus is overall a communication process, Christian organizations might want to spend more time in ensuring there is consensus on the goal especially for male staff. Although
“I have the proper decision making authority” is marginally strong, there is room for improvement in this area.
Looking deeper into the
Page 6 demographics of these six questions, we can see in Chart 2 that tenure in an organization generally follows a standard pattern of newer people being the most positive next to the longest tenured people and the people in the middle being less satisfied until 4-6 years have passed. After
4-6 years people generally become more satisfied. From
Chart 2 we can see the challenge for management is to maintain the positive attitude of a new hire.
We can also see that goal consensus continues to decrease as time goes on and increases only slightly for people over 15 years in the organization.
Understanding that this last group likely includes a higher percentage of top management, we can see that goal consensus becomes increasingly dispersed as tenure increases. Possibly weighting the inputs on organizational goals relative to tenure may be a technique to balance out this perception.
Chart 3 shows the questions in table 2 relative to employee age.
An interesting pattern arises from this chart where satisfaction increases as people get older.
With the exception of a minor blip with the youngest group it appears this increase is almost linear. The observation that older people are the happiest people working in Christian organizations may be significant. However, we do not know why older people are more satisfied. It could be because they are wiser and have learned to appreciate work, or it could be that they are more senior, get paid more, are more secure or simply do not have as many expectations from their work. Satisfaction related to age may be an area warranting future research. The final demographic relating to employment status shows some surprising results. Full time employees are the least satisfied in every area. Possibly the most surprising is the significantly lower score for goal consensus of full time employees. This again shows the importance of including your most important and committed people in developing organizational goals and creating consensus. Although job satisfaction, employee motivation and productivity are complex and confusing issues, management should not back away from facing them. Understanding that some parts of job satisfaction and motivation is simply an attribute of the employee over which you have no influence should temper your approach to improving job satisfaction. Managers should focus on two areas to improve job satisfaction, motivation and productivity: how employees are treated and the content of their work. A good employee survey should help management focus in on areas which are creating dissatisfaction or which are not providing adequate motivation.
References:
Goldberg, L. R. (1990). An alternative ‘description of personality’: the Big-Five factor structure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 1216–
1229.
Herzberg, F. (1974). Motivation-
Hygiene Profiles. Organizational
Dynamics 3(2) 18-29
Heller, D. J. (2002). The confounding role of personality and trait affectivity in the relationship between job and life s a t i s fact io n . Journal of
Organizational Behavior, 815-
835.
Judge, T. A., Locke, E. A., &
Durham, C. C. (1997). The dispositional causes of job satisfaction: a core evaluations appr oac h . Research in
Organizational Behavior, 19, 151
–188. http://www.bcwinstitute.com/Learningcenter/Press/Job%20Satisfaction.pdf

References: Goldberg, L. R. (1990). An alternative ‘description of and Social Psychology, 59, 1216– 1229. Herzberg, F. (1974). Motivation- Hygiene Profiles

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Job satisfaction has often been described as employees’ emotional response to the current job position. When an employee decides to remain with a company or organization that is called job satisfaction. When employees speak about job satisfaction, another factor for consideration is motivation in the workplace. For companies or organizations to be successful and sustain a competitive advantage, a partnership with employees is needed. Job satisfaction has several factors: “Relationships with direct reports, workplace environments, fulfillment or personal fulfillment in job duties.”(McNamara, 2009)…

    • 2201 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Job satisfaction can be known to some people as an important element in their lives. Other parts of their lives can be affected, if an individual is unhappy with their occupation. Job satisfaction can be viewed as what one has in a job as to what one wants in their current job. Job satisfaction can be defined as an attitude or feeling one can have toward ones job. Job satisfaction can also be defined as "the extent to which people like (satisfaction) or dislike (dissatisfaction) in their jobs” (Specter, 1997). Job satisfaction is positively affected in a variety of ways including pay, perks, fringe benefits and perks. Job satisfaction can be affected by a sense that pay does not reflect work, lack of pay, or a lack of belief the organization values him or her. Worker dissatisfaction can lead to a lower level of organizational commitment. Job satisfaction is a key to employee retention. Employees yearn to know the work he or she provides has value to the organization he or she works for. All these different factors can affect ones job satisfaction.…

    • 738 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Job Satisfaction

    • 900 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In the following essay I will discuss how I motivate myself and others to be productive. Further I will also describe how I keep myself satisfied in my job.…

    • 900 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Employee Satisfaction

    • 3616 Words
    • 15 Pages

    Discuss about older adult in society and policy issues in an aging society Discuss about continuity and change in PD as well as discontinuity in PD Discuss about Life Review and Wisdom Discuss about Age Stratification approach Discuss about theories of Successful Aging Secret Discuss about Social Support and Grandparenting Discuss about Retirement and issues related to it Discuss about Life satisfaction of Late Adulthood…

    • 3616 Words
    • 15 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Employee Satisfaction

    • 1296 Words
    • 6 Pages

    To motivate and develop a source of enjoyment in work through better knowledge and skills.…

    • 1296 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Career Satisfaction

    • 599 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Human beings possess the unique psychological ability to self-reflect. Few human experiences and behaviors define the self and allow us to characterize ourselves within the social world more than work and career. Career choice affects socioeconomic status, friends, political values, residence location, childcare, job stress, and many other aspects of life. And while income is important in both career selection and career longevity, so are achievement, recognition, satisfaction, security, and challenge.…

    • 599 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Yip, P., Goldman, A., & Martin, A. (2009, January 1). JOB SATISFACTION. I/O Psychology: Job Satisfaction. Retrieved May 14, 2014, from http://www.u.arizona.edu/~ctaylor/chapter9/jobsat.html…

    • 1445 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Job Satisfaction

    • 6457 Words
    • 26 Pages

    IMPACT OF DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS ON JOB SATISFACTION OF LECTURERS OF BUSINESS MANAGEMENT FACULTY OF UiTM (PERAK)…

    • 6457 Words
    • 26 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Job satisfaction

    • 430 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Employees are more satisfied with their current job if they see a path available to move up the ranks in the company and be given more responsibility and along with it higher compensation. Many companies encourage employees to acquire more advanced skills that will lead to the chance of promotion. Companies often pay the cost of tuition for employees taking university courses, for example. During an employee's annual performance review, a supervisor should map out a path showing her what she needs to accomplish and what new skills she needs to develop in order to be on a track to advancement within the organization.…

    • 430 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    3. Aziri B. (2011). Job Satisfaction: A Literature Review. Management Research And Practice, Vol. 3…

    • 4603 Words
    • 20 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    First Day on the Job

    • 2093 Words
    • 9 Pages

    Job satisfaction has been defined as a pleasurable emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job; an affective reaction to…

    • 2093 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    From the perspective of research and practice, job satisfaction has received significant attention from the fields of management, social psychology, and practical operations in recent years. Formally defined, job satisfaction is a psychological disposition resulting from one’s tasks as well as attitude to the physical and social conditions of the workplace. Meanwhile, it also indicates the degree to which employees’ expectations are fulfilled (Wood, J. M., 2013, p. 60). Today, as business faces tough economic conditions, employee satisfaction is still crucial to the success and competitiveness of any organization due to the correlation between satisfaction and employee behaviour. A high rate of job satisfaction is directly related to a lower turnover and absenteeism rate. Nonetheless, Rynes, Colbert, and Brown (2002) indicated in a study of HR professionals, the major practitioner knowledge gaps in this area are: the causes of employee attitudes and the results of job satisfaction. Thus, managers should gain a more in-depth understanding of the importance of job satisfaction and take actions to improve job satisfaction levels.…

    • 2080 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    job satisfaction

    • 6973 Words
    • 29 Pages

    However, inspite of these things, turnover and absenteeism are still very rampant in this industry. Employees would seldom last long in a certain BPO company for some reasons. Absenteeism has also been inevitable. Both turnover rate and absenteeism affects the profitability and the overall performance of a BPO company. Most likely, absenteeism will cause struggle to the Human Resource Department in looking for another employee who can temporarily fill-in the duty hours of the absentee.…

    • 6973 Words
    • 29 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    job satisfaction

    • 9627 Words
    • 39 Pages

    Chapter 6 Perception and Individual Decision Making 6 CHAPTER Perception and Individual Decision Making LEARNING OBJECTIVES After studying this chapter, your students should be able to: 1. 2. 3.…

    • 9627 Words
    • 39 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Research Paper

    • 6610 Words
    • 27 Pages

    Attainment of a high level performance through productivity and efficiency has always been an organizational goal of high priority. In order to do that highly satisfied work force is an absolutely necessity for achieving a high level of performance advancement of an organization. Satisfied worker leads to extend more effort to job performance, then works harder and better. Thus every organization tries to create a satisfied work force to operate the well- being of the organization. However, the total organizational performance depends on efficient and effective performance of individual employees of the organization. Therefore, every organization places a…

    • 6610 Words
    • 27 Pages
    Powerful Essays

Related Topics