20 Job Satisfaction

Dr. Pooja Mehta

1. Learning Outcome

2. Introduction

3. Meaning and Definitions of Job satisfaction

4. Sources of job satisfaction

5. Consequences of Job satisfaction

6. Responses to job dissatisfaction

7. Summary

1. Learning Outcome:

After completing this module the students will be able to: Understand the meaning of job satisfaction.
Describe variables factors influencing job satisfaction. Illustrate various consequences of job satisfaction
Understand the responses of dissatisfied employee

2. Introduction

3. Meaning and Definitions of Job Satisfaction

In simple words, job satisfaction can be described as the positive feelings or positive attitude an individual has towards his job. Job satisfaction includes the following three dimensions:

Job satisfaction refers to one’ positive feelings towards the job. Therefore, it can only be felt but, not seen.

As job satisfaction leads to increased willingness to invest time and energy in the job, it is usually determined by a how well an employee meets its goals and put efforts to achieve his outcomes

The terms job satisfaction refers to one’s attitude towards the job (as discussed in module 15). It indicates an individual’s orientation towards work and role profile.

Positive attitude results in job satisfaction and negative attitude leads to job dissatisfaction.

Few important definitions of job satisfaction are given as below:

According to E.A. Locke, “Job Satisfaction is a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or job experience.”

According to Andrew Brin, “Job satisfaction is the amount of pleasure or contentment associated with the job. If you like your job intensely, you will experience high job satisfaction. If you dislike your job intensely, you experience job dissatisfaction.”

“Job satisfaction is a set of favourable or unfavourable feelings with which employees view their work.”

4. Sources of Job Satisfaction

There are number of factors that influence job satisfaction. These factors can be categorised into four categories on the basis of their nature. These factors have been listed and discussed below:

A. Organisational Factors

Various organisational factors that affect job satisfaction are:

1) Wages: Wages and salary of an employee contribute a lot in deriving satisfaction from the job. Wages are important to person for three major reasons. Firstly, money is an important source for fulfilling one’s needs and desires. Secondly, management’s concern for its staff is reflected in the pay structure of the company. Thirdly, it is considered as a symbol of achievement. The one who receives higher pay than other is considered to contribute more in the achievements of the organisation. In addition to this, employees expect a pay system which is fair, simple and aligned with job demands, skills required to perform the job and salary structure prevailing in the market. Therefore, it can be said that it is not only pay which an employee receives matters, but employee’s perception about fairness of pay structure and pay equity also lead to job satisfaction.

2) Promotion chances: Opportunities of promotion at work also influence the feeling of job satisfaction of an employee. Generally every employee faces the strong desire to receive promotion. An employee in his career feels highly excited about the promotion, he treats promotion as his final achievement and when it is attained, he feels highly satisfied. Promotion leads to job satisfaction because: (a) promotion indicates a person’s worth to the organisation, (b) it reflects a person’s achievement in his career and (c) promotion involves positive changes in job profile, job content, salary, responsibility, autonomy and status etc.

3) Company policy: Organisational structures and company policy is another important organisational factor influencing job satisfaction. An autocratic and authoritative structure results in resentment among the employees as compared to open and democratic structure. In the similar way, employees will be highly satisfied if company policies are liberal, fair and favourable for the growth and development of employees. But, unfair and unfavourable company policies lead to frustration and dissatisfaction among the employees.

B. Work Environmental factors

Important work environmental factors influencing job satisfaction are:

Supervision: Style of leadership which is being practiced in the organisation moderately influence job satisfaction of employees. Following two dimensions of leadership affect job satisfaction:

Employee orientation: This dimension reflects leader’s orientation towards the employees. If leader is friendly and supportive for his employee, they will be highly satisfied. An employee oriented leader takes personal interest in the welfare of employees.

Participation: The leader who permits his subordinates to participate in the process of decision making, particularly those decisions which affect their own jobs is highly appreciable by the employees. Such leader establishes the work environment which is highly conducive and leads to satisfaction among employees.

Few supervisory actions for maintaining employee satisfaction are given as follows:

Maintain open lines of communication. Create a good physical environment.

Remedy sub standard conditions.

Transfer discontented or dissatisfied employees. Change the perception of dissatisfied employees.

Express concern for employees. Give ample recognition.

Give opportunities to participate Practice good management

Conduct morale building programmes.

2) Work Group: Work group to which an employee belongs serves as a source of satisfaction due to following reasons:

Work group provide an opportunity and platform for the group members to interact and share with each other. Group acts as a source of comfort, advice and assistance.

Work group includes members of similar attitudes. Working along with such colleagues cause less conflicts and frictions.

Smaller groups provide more chances to build mutual trust and understanding among each other.

3) Working conditions: Working conditions that provide for comfort and facilitate the increased performance of employees lead to job satisfaction. Temperature, humidity, ventilation, lighting, noise, cleanliness, hours of work, adequate tools and equipments are the variables of working conditions that influence job satisfaction. Relationship between working conditions and satisfaction was very nicely explained by Herzberg’s two factor theory. According to the theory, good or desirable working factors do not cause satisfaction among employees but poor working conditions definitely lead to job dissatisfaction.

C. Work itself

Variables related to work that influence job satisfaction are:

1) Job Scope: Job scope includes the responsibility, pace of work and feedback required for the job. Higher the degree in which these variables are present in the job, higher is the job scope and higher will be the level of job satisfaction.

2) Variety of tasks: If the job involves variety of tasks to be performed and variety of skills, the job results into job satisfaction.

3) Autonomy and freedom: It reflects the degree to which autonomy or freedom is given to the job holder. Greater is the autonomy and freedom to take own decisions, more will be the job satisfaction.

4) Nature of work: A work which is interesting, challenging and provides the status, provides great amount of satisfaction to the employees.

D. Personal factors

Personal factors that account for job satisfaction are:

1) Age and Seniority: With the growing age people tend to become more mature, realistic and therefore they accept available

resources and rewards with their own willingness. Moreover, with age people usually move up in the ladder of their career

and occupy more challenging positions. Such people are more likely to be satisfied from their jobs. Therefore, level of

satisfaction tends to increase with age and seniority.

2) Tenure: Employees with longer tenure in the organisation are generally more satisfied as compared to those with shorter

tenure. This is because, as tenure increases, employees start having a sense of security in the organisation. In addition to

these, older employees are aware of company policies and procedures, they are more familiar with the customs, culture and

norms of the organisation. Therefore, their level of comfort increases with their tenure.

3) Personality: Some personality traits are directly related to job satisfaction. These are self esteem, self assurance, maturity,

decisiveness, self efficacy, openness etc. Higher is the degree in which these traits are available in the individual, more will be

the job satisfaction.

5. Consequences of Job satisfaction

Research has established the relationship between job satisfaction and performance of employees. The relationship of job satisfaction with various dimensions of employee performance viz. productivity, turnover, absenteeism, union activities, safety and stress are discussed as below:

a) Satisfaction and Productivity: A definite and direct relationship between satisfaction and productivity has not been

established till now. However, many research studies pointed out that job satisfaction does lead to increased productivity.

This relationship can be illustrated with the help of following generalisations:

The relationship between job satisfaction and productivity is weak.

There are more evidences to advocate that job satisfaction leads to increased productivity. Porter and Lawler in their performance-satisfaction model explained the relationship between performance and satisfaction. This relationship can be seen in the following exhibit. It is clearly indicating that performance leads to intrinsic and extrinsic rewards, which further lead to job satisfaction.

In some conditions a positive relationship between productivity and satisfaction can be clearly established. Firstly, when employees feel that intrinsic and extrinsic rewards are contingent upon their productivity. Secondly, fair distribution of extrinsic rewards.

Though the relationship between productivity is not supported by the research, yet the saying “Happy worker is a productive worker” is not wrong.

b) Satisfaction and Turnover: The relationship between job satisfaction and employee turnover has been clearly established by the past studies. High turnover should be a matter of concern for the management because, high turnover disturbs the normal operations of organisation, decreases level of morale of other employees and increases the cost involved in HR operations like recruitment, selection and training etc. In order to resolve the issue of turnover, employer must do whatever he can do. One best method to curb the problem of turnover is increasing the level of satisfaction of employees. Workers who are dissatisfied from their jobs are more likely to quit their jobs than those who are highly satisfied.

c) Satisfaction and Absenteeism: Just like the relationship between satisfaction and turnover, absenteeism also has an inverse relationship with job satisfaction. When level of satisfaction is higher, rate of absenteeism will be low and when level of satisfaction is lower, rate of absenteeism will be higher. Highly satisfied employees tend to be regular on the job than those who are less satisfied. The degree to which the employees perceive their jobs as important influences their rate of absenteeism. Less satisfied employees are more likely to remain absent from work largely due to no reasons or avoidable reasons. This phenomenon is also called voluntary absenteeism.

d) Satisfaction and safety: The degree to which safety policy and safety practices are observed by the employees are also influenced by their level of satisfaction. When people are continuously discouraged by their supervisors and are dissatisfied with their company and work, they are more likely to face accidents in the organisations. The reason behind this is dissatisfaction takes one’s attention away from the task in hands and leads directly to accidents. In opposite to this, a satisfied worker will always be careful for safety rules, safety clothes and safety policy to be followed while on work. Hence, the chances of accidents will be very low.

e) Satisfaction and Job stress: Job stress is defined as body’s response to the changes occurring in the environment surrounding him. Any change in the variables related to the job which tend to disturb the equilibrium of the employee leads to stress. Prolonged stress may cause serious illness in the employee such as heart disease, blood pressure, sleeplessness, muscle ache, blurred vision, ulcer etc. Constant dissatisfaction also leads to stress. Therefore, a dissatisfied employee is more likely to be caught by stress than the satisfied employee.

f) Satisfaction and unionisation: It is very obvious fact that dissatisfaction leads to powerful union activities in the organisation. Dissatisfaction due to unfair wages, insecurity of job, fringe benefits, chances of promotion and unfair treatment by the supervisors are the popular reasons which may provoke an employee to join the unions. Another view point of job dissatisfaction explains that dissatisfaction can increase the intentions of employees to file complaints or call strikes in the organisation. If the issues leading to dissatisfaction are not resolved by the employers for a longer period, they may take the form of violence at work place.

g) Satisfaction and Organisational citizenship behaviour: Job satisfaction is very important determinant of organisational citizenship behaviour. Satisfied employees tend to talk positively about the organisation, cooperate with other members in the organisation and perform beyond their role profile and expectations of the management. They do so because of their desire of reciprocating their positive feelings towards their job.

h) Satisfaction and Workplace deviant behaviour: There is an inverse relationship between job satisfaction and workplace deviant behaviour. Increased satisfaction leads to decreased deviant behaviour and decreased satisfaction leads to increase in deviant workplace behaviour. Dissatisfied employees tend to involve in antagonistic behaviours at workplace such as hostile relationships with co-workers, unionisation, substance abuse, stealing or theft at work, undue socialising and tardiness.

6. Responses to Job Dissatisfaction

What happens when employees dislike their jobs or they are dissatisfied with their jobs/company? In the simple words, how do employees express their dissatisfaction? This question is addressed to a great extent by a ‘exit-voice-neglect-loyalty’ theoretical framework. This framework proposes that there are four possible ways in which dissatisfied employees can respond. These responses vary along two dimensions of job viz. constructive/destructive and active/passive.

These responses are discussed as follows:

Exit: This is an active but destructive response of a dissatisfied employee which is directed towards leaving the organisation. It also includes decision to leave the job and search for a new job.

Voice: Voice indicates the behaviour directed towards improvements in the conditions leading to dissatisfaction. It includes active and constructive attempts to improve the conditions such as giving suggestions, discussing problems with superiors and undertaking some union activities.

Loyalty: Loyalty represents that employee passively but constructively waits for the conditions to improve. It also includes defending the organisation in front of external parties criticising the organisation and expressing trust in the management and the organisation to take right actions.

Neglect: It is the passive response of an employee which permits the conditions to worsen. It includes chronic absenteeism, decreased efforts and increased faulty performance.

The model is shown in the following exhibit:

This model explains that exit and neglect are destructive behaviours which include turnover, absenteeism, decreased productivity and reduced interest in the organisation. On the other hand, voice and loyalty are constructive responses that stimulate an employee to tolerate nasty situations till they become acceptable and satisfactory.

Summary

Job satisfaction is the overall positive feeling that employees have towards their job. It is a pleasurable or positive emotional state which a person derives from the positive experiences on the job. Job satisfaction has several implications for the individual behaviour, particularly aspects related to one’s performance. An understanding of the factors influencing job satisfaction and consequences of job satisfaction help the managers in better evaluating the problems faced by the employees. A study of job satisfaction is very important for the management to understand how employees feel about their jobs, on which aspects of their jobs these feelings are focused on, which departments are affected particularly and whose feelings are affected (executives, supervisors other staff). Job satisfaction includes three dimensions (a) one’ positive feelings towards the job, (b) It is usually determined by a how well an employee meets its goals and put efforts to achieve his outcomes as job satisfaction leads to increased willingness to invest time and energy in the job and (c) The terms job satisfaction refers to one’s attitude towards the job. It indicates an individual’s orientation towards work and role profile. Positive attitude results in job satisfaction and negative attitude leads to job dissatisfaction. Various factors which influence satisfaction of employees are categorised as organisational factors, work environmental factors, work itself and personal attributes. Research has established the relationship between job satisfaction and performance of employees. The relationship of job satisfaction with various dimensions of employee performance viz. productivity, turnover, absenteeism, union activities, safety, stress, organisational citizenship behaviour and organisational deviant behaviour have been discussed. To conclude with, we can say that Satisfaction leads to positive work related behaviours and dissatisfaction leads to negative work related behaviours. Responses of a dissatisfied employee are explained by ‘exit-voice-neglect-loyalty’ theoretical framework. This framework proposes that there are four possible ways viz. exit, voice, neglect and loyalty in which dissatisfied employees can respond.

Learn More:

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