JOB SATISFACTION
Introduction
A company which must meet competition and maintain its leadership in their field or industry needs people who can contribute to the company’s business – people with progressive ideas for new products, services, or methods. One could definitely say that it is the people within that make any organization tick. However, what makes up an employee is not a guarantee that he or she will perform well with the job assigned. To be taken in to consideration is also the satisfaction of the employee in doing the job. In many customer-focused industries, employee satisfaction may be the leverage that helps them beat out its competition.
Logic will tell us that any employee who loves his or her job is likely to succeed and perform well compared to equally qualified and able employees who do not love their jobs or are not satisfied with their jobs. No matter how smart and capable an employee is, if he or she is not satisfied with the job, the most likely he or she will not be able to perform well. Because of this notion, increasing emphasis is given by organizations to promoting job satisfaction in their employees. Employee satisfaction has always been an important issue for organizations. The equation seems to be simple. An employee plus job satisfaction would equal to an organization’s success.
1. What is Job Satisfaction?
Job satisfaction is the overall attitude of liking or disliking a job. (2005) defined it as “a collection of feelings that an individual holds toward his or her job.” Job satisfaction refers to both general and specific work satisfactions. The specific satisfactions included both intrinsic and extrinsic satisfactions, as well as satisfaction with pay, job security, peers and co-workers, supervision, and opportunities for personal growth on the job (, 1984). It is a significant aspect that is essential for career development as well as the success of an organization.
Job satisfaction is therefore the key ingredient that leads to rewards of recognition, income, promotion, and other goals that provide an employee with the ongoing sense of fulfillment. Job satisfaction is a key work attitude. An attitude is a predisposition acquired through experience to respond to people to objects or institutions in a positive or negative way.
But employee satisfaction with the job that they do is not something that organizations can predict. Job satisfaction is an attitude of the employee towards the job he or she does. No matter how interesting or challenging a job is, there is still room for job dissatisfaction. Not even a high pay can guarantee job satisfaction. Levels of employee dissatisfaction exist in many organizations.
Employees typically experience a lack of job satisfaction when (1) they don’t receive the outcomes they want, (2) they receive outcomes they don’t want (like more work), or (3) they don’t find their work rewarding enough. Employees are particularly vulnerable to this problem during times of change, because the number and types of rewards that organizations in transition can offer are frequently limited or curtailed ( & , 1999).
A job entails more than just what is written in its job description. Say for example, the job is to get coffee everyday, one could expect that but that doesn’t mean that is all it is going to be. Every job would require an interaction between the employee doing the job with other workers and even with other high ranking officials of the organization. One would also need to follow company policies and laws, along with all the other members of that organization. Additionally, one works in a working environment whose conditions vary according to perceptions of each employee and each individual worker gets affected by this. The working environment could be suited to some yet unacceptable to others (, 2005). Thus one could say that the concept of job satisfaction is relative from individual to individual. And thus the measurement of job satisfaction or dissatisfaction levels is a very complex task.
The concept of satisfaction has been linked to various job dimensions. There are studies that link job satisfaction and perceived closeness of supervision, performance feedback, and other job dimensions. Task variety and autonomy were significantly related to satisfaction with work. Skill variety, task identity, feedback from the job, and autonomy were also positively related to work satisfaction and satisfaction with supervision. Other studies also found out that stronger relationships between skill variety, task significance, autonomy, and feedback from the job and more emotional responses from workers than between these job dimensions and behavioral responses.
One of the most important areas of employee satisfaction (or not) is that of monetary compensation. There are two types of compensation philosophies, entitlement and performance-oriented. Under the entitlement philosophy, all employees receive the same standard increase each year, while the performance-oriented way of thinking ties job performance to compensation (, 2004). Many employees generally feel dissatisfied with their jobs because of discrimination in the paying scheme of the company. Companies should therefore see to it that if differences exist in monetary compensation, it should be a reasonable cause, like a certain amount of work or factor is responsible for it.
2. Complete and Score the Questionnaire
How Do You Feel About Your Present Job?
A
B
C
D
E
SCORE
1.
My job is like a hobby to me.
X
5
2.
My job is usually interesting enough to keep me from getting bored.
X
4
3.
It seems that my friends are more interested in their jobs.
X
4
4.
I consider my job rather unpleasant.
X
5
5.
I enjoy my work more than my leisure time.
X
2
6.
I am often bored with my job.
X
4
7.
I feel fairly well satisfied with my present job.
X
4
8.
Most of the time I have to force myself to go to work.
X
4
9.
I am satisfied with my job for the time being.
X
4
10.
I fell that my job is no more interesting than others I could get.
X
4
11.
I definitely dislike my work.
X
5
12.
I feel that I am happier in my work than most other people.
X
4
13.
Most days I am enthusiastic about my work.
X
4
14.
Each day of work seems like it will never end.
X
4
15.
I like my job better than the average worker does.
X
4
16.
My job is pretty uninteresting.
X
5
17.
I find real enjoyment in my work.
X
4
18.
I am disappointed that I ever took this job.
X
5
Total Score = 75
Legend:
A- Strongly Agree
B- Agree
C- Undecided
D- Disagree
E- Strongly Disagree
3. What do the results tell you (overall and based on your answers to the specific questions) about your present job satisfaction? Include some critical comment about at least one of the questionnaire completed and its scale.
After taking the test that measured job satisfaction, a score of 75 is obtained. This is a higher score compared to the mean score from others who took the test. This result indicates being fairly satisfied with the present job, although not completely satisfied. This means that although the author is satisfied with the job, some room for improvement is still needed. Perhaps the author is in an environment where the qualifications for the job matched the attitudes, values, and beliefs of the author.
A critical comment is voiced out on one of the questions presented in the questionnaire. This is on the question – Most days I am enthusiastic about my work. The answer provided to this question is “Agree.” Note that there is still an answer that has a higher degree or score – “Strongly Agree.” The reason why the superlative was not chosen as an answer is because the author feels that although there is enthusiasm for work on the part of the worker, this is not constant and is affected by many factors that mostly relates about work, work environment, and working conditions. Certain events in the workplace could trigger lack of enthusiasm on the part of the worker even if he or she is fit for the job and loves the job. These factors or events affecting a worker’s job enthusiasm could be the working condition of the office, co-workers, forms of discrimination, wage and compensation, or policies and programs of the organization.
4. What does the Research Evidence Indicate are the Major Effects of Job Satisfaction on Measures of Worker (and Student) Performance?
To ensure that employees’ output in his or her job is of high quality, the management usually provides guidelines specifying the standard of quality required. In some industries, standards are set by local, state or federal enforcement agencies. However, guidelines alone do not guarantee worker productivity. Other factors, most importantly job satisfaction, determine worker productivity and performance.
The assessment of employee attitudes towards their job has become a widespread activity in organisations in which management is concerned with both the physical and psychological well-being of people. Furthermore, employees who are satisfied with their jobs have also been a frontrunner in studies and researches which aim to measure if it has any effect at all in an employee’s performance.
Most researches indicate that when an employee is satisfied with his or her job, then he is likely to perform better than those who are not happy or satisfied with their jobs. Jobs differ and require a wide variety of skills, knowledge and ability. Workers also differ from one another in many ways. Individuals have a variety of changing, and often conflicting, needs and expectations which they attempt to satisfy in a number of different ways. If a person is assigned to a job to which his ability, character, and temperament are not suited, then he or she is likely to be unsatisfied with the job and fail, and thereby create a problem for management (, 2002). On the other hand, those who are suited for the job are more likely to be satisfied in the job and in effect work efficiently and succeed.
Feedback can be used to measure job satisfaction and performance. Feedback is the information people receive about their performance. It conveys an evaluation about the quality of their performance behaviors. Giving feedback is the activity of providing information to staff members about their performance on job expectations (, 2003). A feedback could be good or bad, depending on the quality of work done by the employee. A desirable employee, who accepts criticisms as part of growth and development within the job, will look at a mistake as feedback rather than as a failure, regard every job assignment as developmental, and seek out challenging opportunities where the pressure to learn will force them to grow professionally and stretch their capabilities (, 2000).
When an employee is dissatisfied with his or her job there are several measures that could be done to improve disposition of the employee towards the job. One of them is job enlargement or job enrichment. This is the term given to the reversal of a job specialization trend. The motive is to make jobs more interesting and promote job satisfaction by adding variety. Although the implementation of this goal may seem contrary to motion economy, it need not be. Adding variety to a job does not mean adding unnecessary motions. The enrichment is more mental than motor. Sequential tasks performed by, say, two or three workers can be grouped so that each worker performs all the tasks. The regrouping of jobs allows method changes that might otherwise be difficult to initiate. Job enrichment, if properly done, could provide opportunities for employees to be interested and satisfied with what they do. And like some cycle, this could improve employee performance.
Research on performance evaluation in relation to job satisfaction is alive and well in the psychological and management literatures. Perhaps the most stimulating areas of research are the development and elaboration around the notion of appropriate aspects of job performance. The concept that job satisfaction is more than just the execution of specific tasks satisfactorily and that it involves a wide variety of organisational activities has important implications for the understanding and measurement of job performance.
When employees know how to do their jobs and why they are doing them, they are inclined to do better. Since the ambitions, hopes, and goals of employees are sensitive to motivation, management and human resource personnel should encourage them to pursue their desires and try to gain satisfaction from their work. If management or any other people for that matter can inspire them, there should be practically no limit to the increase in productivity that can be achieved by an employee (, 2006).
Like a domino effect, it goes that an employee who finds that he or she is well compensated and the job matches his or her attitudes, beliefs and capabilities, job satisfaction will be manifested. And if that certain employee is satisfied with what he or she is doing, then more often than not job performance levels will be at a high.
References
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
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