Factors effecting job satisfaction

In today’s competitive environment organisations thrive and survive on their human resources. Values, attitudes, perceptions and behaviour, which form these resources, influence employee performance. It is a key factor in realising organisational and individual goals that in turn greatly depends on individual’s self-motivation and job satisfaction.

What is job satisfaction?

Job satisfaction is one’s attitude towards his job (positive or negative). Satisfaction in work and the work environment is the basic constituent of employee job satisfaction. Employee attitudes and values influence their behaviour. Positive outlook and backup from HR helps modify behaviour resulting in higher performance levels.

Crucial

HR must ensure pursuance of right assignment by the employee at the recruitment and selection stage itself. HR should consider value systems as key credentials along with abilities and experience to be compatible with that of the organisation.

Organisations, which give due recognition to the perceptions, attitudes, motivation and learning abilities of employees, successfully create an efficient workforce. Efficient workforces identify themselves with the organisation’s mission and aid in its success.

How to achieve?

Attitudes influence behaviour and are the indicators of potential problems an organisation might encounter. HR must help employees to cope with frustrations and sustain job satisfaction.

Motivated employees stay on for long to achieve their goals. Job responsibilities, achievements, growth, self-fulfilment and recognition enhance job satisfaction levels. A candid interaction of managers with employees helps develop good relationships. Continuous coaching and genuine appreciation by the managers also enhances job satisfaction.

To cultivate an attitude of excellence in their employees, managers must provide a certain degree of autonomy. Organisations and managers desirous of excelling must therefore, work toward ensuring employee job satisfaction.

‘A happy worker is a productive worker’. The Hawthorne studies conducted at an electrical plant in Chicago from 1924-1932 revealed that employee morale and satisfaction increase productivity. Since then, management has pursued the topic of job satisfaction, as it is believed to enhance performance, reduce absenteeism, retain qualified workers and establish smooth employment relations.

Job satisfaction is a ‘pleasurable or emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job and experience.’ (Locke: 1976).. It is important to realise that these attitudes vary according to individual experiences and expectations and hence there is no single unitary concept of job satisfaction.

Measures of job satisfaction

Unlike other psychometric tools, used to test a sample of behaviour, measures of job satisfaction are prone to subjectivity. However a battery of tests can be conducted to make accurate predictions. One approach is the Global Measure, which measures the overall satisfaction of the job. The second approach is the Facet Measure where satisfaction is measured on each aspect of the job.

Causes of job satisfaction/dissatisfaction

Since job satisfaction is subjective to individual experience and expectation, personality often plays an influential role. Stable personality traits could influence satisfaction or dissatisfaction at work. Type A’ personalities tend to be more aggressive, set high standards for themselves and therefore are more susceptible to job dissatisfaction. In contrast, Type B’s seem to be more relaxed and, this may reflect on their attitudes towards work. Today, there is an increasing interest in the concept of the ‘person –job- fit’ theory. The managerial implications are that people who get themselves into the right job that fit their attitudes and personalities seem to be more satisfied.

The characteristics of the job may also influence one’ is attitude towards it. This could include the physical environment like lighting, temperature and space. Work, when too difficult or easy can lead to dissatisfaction. Reward is viewed as satisfactory only when it is equitable and is in line with expectations. A friendly and supportive group at work is conducive to job satisfaction.

Consequences of job satisfaction/job dissatisfaction

Work Performance:

Though job satisfaction leads to efficiency, recent findings indicate that other factors are responsible for work performance. Today, technological and market forces play a major role in organisational efficiency. Stockbrokers, for example, would depend on the results of the stock market where a rise in share prices would probably lead to satisfaction.

Absenteeism and Turnover:

This causes tremendous cost and loss of investment. An interesting finding is that absenteeism followed by negative feedback like, loss of pay might lead to dissatisfaction and in turn a high rate of absenteeism.

Commitment:

Organisations today have expressed a lack of loyalty and commitment from employees and hence are unable to retain qualified professionals.

Recent concepts of job satisfaction

There is a growing recognition that external environmental factors play an influential role in job satisfaction. Another concept is that performance depends on the overall effectiveness of the organisation.

In today’s competitive world, management needs to continuously emulate practices that will attract and retain a highly qualified and skilled workforce. Dissatisfied employees may be forced to work due to unemployment or insecurity, but this is not in the interests of the long-term success of the organisation. Dissatisfaction may be expressed in other forms like internal conflicts, poor interpersonal relations, low trust, stress leading to workplace conflict, violence and low productivity.

Though job satisfaction is difficult to measure and is dependent on a number of factors, management may reduce levels of dissatisfaction and control workplace conflicts through common objectives like career development, training, appropriate rewards and improvements in the quality of working life.

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