Job Satisfaction

Job satisfaction is another important technique used to motivate the employees to work harder. It had often been said that “A HAPPY EMPLOYEE IS A PRODUCTIVE EMPLOYEE.” A happy employee is, generally, that employee who is satisfied with his job. Job satisfaction is very important because most of the people spend a major portion of their life at their working place.

Moreover, job satisfaction has its impact on the general life of the employees also, because a satisfied employee is a contented and happy human being. A highly satisfied worker has better physical and mental wellbeing. Though it is a debate able point as to which one is the cause and which is die effect but these are correlated to each other.

In simple words, job satisfaction can be defined as the extent of positive feelings or attitudes that individuals have towards their jobs. When a person says that he has high job satisfaction, it means that he really likes his job, feels good about it and values his job highly.

A few definitions of job satisfaction are quoted as follows:

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 Field man and Arnold, “Job satisfaction will be defined as the amount of overall positive affect or (feelings) that individuals have towards their jobs.”

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

According to Keith Davis and Newstrom, “Job satisfaction is the set of favourable or unfavourable feelings with which employees view their work.”

We can say that job satisfaction is a result of employee’s perception of how well their job provides those things which are viewed as important. In the field of organizational field, job satisfaction is considered the most important and frequently studied attitude.

Dimensions of job satisfaction

There are three important dimensions to job satisfaction:

(i) Job satisfaction cannot be seen, it can only be inferred. It relates to one’s feelings towards one’s job.

(ii) Job satisfaction is often determined by how well outcome meet the expectations or exceed the expectations.

If the employees working in the organisation feel that they are working much harder than others in the department but the receiving lower rewards, they will be dissatisfied and have a negative attitude towards the job, the boss and the co-workers. On the other hand, if they feel that they are being paid equitably and treated well by the organization, they will be satisfied with their jobs and will have positive attitudes.

(iii) Job satisfaction and job attitudes are typically used interchangeably. Positive attitudes towards the jobs are conceptually equivalent to job satisfaction and negative attitudes towards the job indicate job dissatisfaction.

Even though these two terms are used interchangeably, but there are differences between the two. Job satisfaction is a specific subset of attitudes. Attitudes reflect one’s feeling toward individual’s organizations and objects.

But job satisfaction refers to one’s attitude towards a job. Attitudes refer to predisposition to respond but satisfaction relates to the performance factors. Attitudes are long lasting, but satisfaction is dynamic and it keeps on changing. It can decline even more quickly than it developed. Thus, managers need to pay attention to job satisfaction constantly.

Factors Influencing Job Satisfaction

There are a number of factors that influence job satisfaction. A number of research studies have been conducted in order to establish some of the causes that result in job satisfaction. These studies have revealed consistent correlation of certain variables with the job satisfaction.

These factors can be explained with the help of the following chart given below:

1. Organizational Factors

Some of the organizational factors which affect job satisfaction are:

(a) Salaries and Wages: Wages and salaries play a significant role in influencing job satisfaction. This is basically because of a few basic reasons. Firstly, money is an important instrument in fulfilling one’s needs.

Money also satisfies the first level needs of Maslow’s model of satisfaction. Secondly, employees often see money as a reflection of the management’s concern for them. Thirdly, it is considered a symbol of achievement since higher pay reflects higher degree of contribution towards organisational operations.

Non-monetary benefits are also important, but they are not as influential. One reason for that that is that most of the employees do not even know how much they are receiving in benefits. Moreover, a few tend to under value their benefits because they do not realise their monetary value. The employees, generally, want a pay system which is simple, fair and in line with their expectations.

(b) Promotion Chances: Promotional chances considerably affect the job satisfaction because of the following reasons:

Firstly, Promotion indicates an employee’s worth to the organization which is highly morale boosting. This is particularly true in case of high level jobs.

Secondly, Employee takes promotion as the ultimate achievement in his career and when it is realised, he feels extremely satisfied.

Thirdly, Promotion involves positive changes e.g. higher salary, less supervision, more freedom, more challenging work assignments, increased responsibilities, status and like.

(c) Company Policies: Organizational structure and policies also play an important role in affecting the job satisfaction of employees. An autocratic and highly authoritative structure causes resentment among the employees as compared to a structure which is more open and democratic in nature.

Organizational policies also govern the human behaviour in the organizations. These policies can generate positive or negative feelings towards the organization. Liberal and fair policies usually result in more job satisfaction. Strict policies will create dissatisfaction among the employees because they feel that they are not being treated fairly and may feel constrained.

Thus, a democratic organizational structure with fair and liberal policies is associated with high job satisfaction.

2. Work Environmental Factors

The work environmental factors include the following important factors:

(a) Supervision: Supervision is a moderately important source of job satisfaction.

There are two dimensions of supervisory styles which affect the job satisfaction:

First is Employee Centeredness. Whenever the supervisor is friendly and supportive of the workers there is job satisfaction. In this style, the supervisor takes personal interest in employee’s welfare.

Second is Participation. The superiors who allow their subordinates to participate in decisions that affect their own jobs, help in creating an environment which is highly conducive to job satisfaction.

Thus, the supervisors who establish a supportive personal relationship with subordinates and take personal interest in them contribute to the employees satisfaction.

(b) Work Group: The nature of the work group or team will have effect on job satisfaction in the following ways:

• A friendly and co-operative group provides opportunities to the group members to interact with each other. It serves as a source of support, comfort, advice and assistance to the individual group members. If on the other hand, the people are difficult to get along with, the work group will have a negative impact on job satisfaction.
• The work group will be even a stronger source of satisfaction when members have similar attitudes and values. In such a group, there will less friction on day to day basis.
• Smaller groups provide greater opportunity for building mutual trust and understanding as compared to larger groups.

Thus, the group size and quality of interpersonal relations within the group play a significant role in worker’s satisfaction.

(c) Working Conditions: Good working conditions are desirable by the employees, as they lead to more physical comfort. People desire that there should be a clean and healthy working environment. Temperature, humidity, ventilation, lighting and noise, hours of work, cleanliness of the work place and adequate tools and equipment are the features which affect job satisfaction.

While the desirable working conditions are taken for granted and may not contribute heavily towards job satisfaction, poor working conditions do become a source of job dissatisfaction, simply because they lead to physical discomfort and physical danger.

Moreover, all the employees are not satisfied or dissatisfied by favourable or unfavourable work environment as shown in the figure.

As shown in the figure, all the four employees are dissatisfied when the working conditions are unfavourable. However, as the working conditions start becoming favourable, the job satisfaction of employee A and B increases sharply while employees C and D have only minor increase in satisfaction.

3. Work Itself

The content of the work itself plays a major role in determining the level of job satisfaction.

Some of the aspects of the work which affect job satisfaction are:

(a) Job Scope: It provides the amount of responsibility, work pace and feedback. The higher the level of these factors, higher the job scope and higher the level of satisfaction.

(b) Variety: A moderate amount of variety is very effective. Excessive variety produces confusion and stress and a too little variety causes monotony and fatigue which are dissatisfies.

(c) Lack of Autonomy and Freedom: Lack of autonomy and freedom over work methods and work pace can create helplessness and dissatisfaction. Employees do not like it when their every step and every action is determined by their supervisor.

(d) Role Ambiguity and Role Conflict: Role ambiguity and role conflict also lead to confusion and job dissatisfaction because employees do not know exactly what their task is and what is expected of them.

(e) Interesting Work: A work which is very interesting and challenging and gives status, provides satisfaction to the employees as compared to work which is boring and monotonous.

4. Personal Factors

Personal attributes of the individuals also play a very important role as to whether they are satisfied at the job or not. Pessimists and people with negative attitudes will complain about everything including the job. They will always find something wrong in every job to complain about.

Some of the important personal factors are:

(a) Age and Seniority: With age, people become more mature and realistic and less idealistic so that they are willing to accept available resources and rewards and be satisfied about the situation. With the passage of time, people move into more challenging and responsible positions. People who do not move up at all with time are more likely to be dissatisfied with their jobs.

(b) Tenure: Employees with longer tenure are expected to be highly satisfied with their jobs. Tenure assures job security, which is highly satisfactory to employees. They can easily plan for their future without any fear of losing their jobs.

(c) Personality: Some of the personality traits which are directly related to job satisfaction are self-assurance, self-esteem, maturity, decisiveness, sense of autonomy, challenge and responsibility. Higher the person is on Maslow’s needs hierarchy, the higher is the job satisfaction. This type of satisfaction comes from within the person and is a function of his personality.

Accordingly, in addition to providing a healthy work environment management must ensure that the employee is happy with himself and has a positive outlook on life.