Introduction
Employees comprise the movers of business firms. The contribution to organisational performance of individual employees comprise overall organisational performance. Attitudes of employees towards work affect individual contributions. The discussion explains employee attitudes, particularly job satisfaction, and identifies the drivers and causes by considering an actual work experience.
Literature Review
Individual employees develop various beliefs, dispositions, emotions or perspectives towards different aspects of work, such as task assignments, physical workspace, working relations, and business organisation. Employee attitudes have three components, which are cognitive, affective and intentional/behavioural. The cognitive component pertains to the mental or intellectual processing of work-related factors. The affective component pertains to the emotional regard for work. Intentional/behavioural component refers to translation of the cognitive and affective components towards concrete actions.
(1998) Job satisfaction is one form or manifestation of employee attitude. (2001) defined job satisfaction as the affirmative and gratifying appraisal of job experiences. Job satisfaction affects job performance. (2001) explained that the extent of job satisfaction depends on personality traits, self-evaluation. Optimistic personality and relaxed disposition supports job satisfaction while pessimistic personality and stressful disposition towards work thwarts job satisfaction. Job satisfaction depends on individual and work factors. (2002) added that perceptions towards the job itself affect job satisfaction. Positive perceptions towards work lead to job satisfaction and negative regard for work lowers job satisfaction. Improving job satisfaction is through the development of a good personal and work attitude. (1988) explained the relationship of job satisfaction with job performance in terms of important cause-and-effect behaviours. and (1995) links job satisfaction and job performance through behaviours constituting organisational citizenship. However, while the concept of job satisfaction has been able to explain the attitudinal factors determining job satisfaction and the link to job performance, it fails to explain the manner that these factors lead to job satisfaction. This makes empirical application important.
Example
I have a pessimistic attitude towards life that I carried in the workplace. Working in the service industry also supported my positive attitude towards work because service delivery enables me to build confidence in my ability to address the varying needs of customers. Being able to understand the problems of customers and provide them with satisfactory solutions are the things I like about work. When I think about work, my cognitive aspect tells me that it is good because the pay is good and the work suits my knowledge and skills. When I assess my feelings towards work, my emotional aspect tells me that work gives me a sense of pleasure because although work is sometimes tiring, I like my work, I have a good relationship with my co-workers, and the work environment is not constricting or stressful. In going to work, I always have the intention to come to work on time, complete my assigned tasks for the day, and do my best for the customers I serve.
As an employee, I experience the concept of job satisfaction or that optimistic regard for work and my role as a contributor to the achievement of organisational goals. I observe that my different colleagues do not always carry a similar attitude towards work. This meant that job satisfaction depends on personalities. I have a co-worker who was very pessimistic and had low self-esteem making her upset every time she takes a complaint call from customers. When upset, she also tends to focus on the negative remarks from the customers instead of focusing on understanding the problem and identifying solutions. She moved to another department after three months to fill a work not involving direct contact with customers. Job satisfaction also depends on the work itself relative to individual employees. This means that a better fit between work and individual employees supports job satisfaction. In the case of my colleague, it was apparent that the work involving customer service did not fit her personality or her work skills. As such, she exhibited lesser satisfaction with her job.
Job satisfaction has stark impacts on performance. My colleague received some constructive criticism for her performance during the regular performance assessments. This means that by having a low level of job satisfaction, my colleague’s performance also suffered. However, organisational citizenship or the belongingness to the company remained even with low job satisfaction since my colleague welcomed the change in department and work in the same company.
Recommendations
Based on the discussion of the theory and its empirical application, a number of recommendations for managers emerge. One, managers should focus on determining fit between employee personalities and attitudes with the rigors of work. Fit between employees and the work supports positive job satisfaction and significant degree of performance (2005). Work-related skills include hard and soft skills (2005) with hard skills pertaining use of tools and engagement of systems and soft skills referring to factors linked to dealing with people and relationships. The manager could have initially assigned my colleague to another department because her strength is not into the soft skills. Personality observations, psychological tests, or skills tests during the engagement and assignment of employees should have shown match or mismatch between the employee and the work (1998). Doing so would prevent the onset of job satisfaction. This highlights the importance of human resource management function in the hiring and selection of employees. Another, managers should also evaluate the work requirements, conditions, relationships and environment because these influence the level of job satisfaction of employees ( 2005). These work-related factors create a pleasant atmosphere for employees to enhance job satisfaction.
Conclusion
Job satisfaction as one work-related attitude explains that personality and work environment are factors determining the differences in the level of job satisfaction of employees. Managers can improve job satisfaction by supporting the fit between personality and work as well as improving the work environment to foster optimistic attitudes of employees towards work.
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
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