Job Satisfaction

Meaning
Job satisfaction is the extent of positive feelings or attitudes 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 Field Man & Arnold: Job satisfaction will be defined as
the amount of overall positive affect or feelings that individuals have
towards their jobs
It is generally said that Happy employee is a productive employee.
Important dimensions to job
satisfaction
Job satisfaction cannot be seen ,it can only be inferred or incidental. It
relates to ones feelings towards ones job.
Job satisfaction is often determined by how will outcome meet the
expectations or exceed the expectations.
Job satisfaction & job attitudes are typically used inter changeably. Positive
attitudes towards the jobs are equivalent to job satisfaction and negative
attitudes towards the job indicate job dissatisfaction.

FACTORS INFLUENCING JOB
SATISFACTION
Organizational
factors
DETERMINANTS OF JOB SATISFACTION
Work Environmental
Factors
Work itself Personal Factors
Salaries &
wages
Promotion
chances
Company
policies
Supervision
Working
conditions
Work group
Job scope
Variety
Lack of autonomy
and freedom
Role ambiguity
and role conflict

Interesting work
Age &
seniority
Tenure
Personality
Continue.
A. Organizational Factors:
Salaries & wages:
Money is an important instrument in fulfilling ones needs.
It is considered a symbol of achievement since higher pay reflects higher
degree of contribution towards organizational operations.
Non monetary benefits are also important , but they are not as influential
because the employees do not know how much they receiving in benefits.

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Promotion chances:
Promotion indicates an employees worth to the organization which is
highly morale boosting.
Employee takes promotion as the ultimate achievement in his career and
when it is realized, he feels extremely satisfied.
Promotion involves positive changes like higher salary, less supervision,
more freedom, more challenging work assignments, increased
responsibilities , status etc.
Company policies:
Liberal and fair policies usually result in more job satisfaction.
Strict policies will create dissatisfaction among employees because they
feel that they are not being treated fairly.


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B.Work Environmental Factors:
Supervision:
Whenever the supervisor is friendly and supportive of the workers there is
job satisfaction.
The superiors who allow their subordinates to participate in decisions that
affect their own jobs, help in creating environment which is highly
conducive or favorable to job satisfaction.
Working conditions:
People desire that there should be a clean & healthy working environment.
Temperature, ventilation, hours of working etc affect job satisfaction.

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Work group:
A friendly & cooperative 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.
The work group will be even a stronger source of satisfaction when
members have similar attitudes and values.
Smaller groups provide greater opportunity for building mutual trust and
understanding as compared to larger groups.

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C. Work itself:
Job scope:
It provides the amount of responsibility, work pace and feed back.
Higher level of these factors , higher the job scope and higher the level of
satisfaction.

Variety:
Excessive variety produces confusion and stress and a too little variety
causes monotony or boredom and fatigue which dissatisfies the employees.

Lack of autonomy and freedom:
Lack of autonomy or independence and freedom leads to job
dissatisfaction.

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Role ambiguity and role conflict:
It leads to confusion and job dissatisfaction because employees do not
know exactly what their task is and what is expected of them.

Interesting work:
A work which is Interesting , challenging and provides status will provide
satisfaction to the employees as compared to work which is boring.

Personality:
Some of the personality traits which are directly related to job satisfaction
are self assurance, self esteem or self respect , maturity, sense of autonomy,
challenge and responsibility.



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D. Personal Factors:
Age & seniority:
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.

Tenure:
Employees with longer tenure are expected to be highly satisfied with their
jobs.
Tenure assures job security, which is highly satisfactory to employees.

Consequences of job satisfaction
Job satisfaction & Productivity:
If people receive rewards which have both intrinsic and extrinsic value and
they feel that these rewards are equitable, they will be satisfied and this will
lead to greater job performance.
Research indicates that job satisfaction may not necessarily lead to
improvement of individual performance but it does lead to departmental
and organizational level improvement.
Job satisfaction & employee turnover:
Research has concluded a moderate relationship between job satisfaction
and turnover.
Employee turnover is affected by certain other factors like job
commitment, better opportunities of employment.
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Job satisfaction & Absenteeism:
There is an inverse relationship between job satisfaction and absenteeism.
Job satisfaction & Union activities:
Satisfied employees are generally not interested in unions and they do not
perceive them as necessary.
Job satisfaction & Safety:
A satisfied worker will always be careful and attentive towards his job and
the chances of accidents will be less.

Job satisfaction and Productivity
( by Lawler and Porter)
Performance
Rewards
Extrinsic
rewards
Intrinsic
rewards
Satisfaction
Employees
perception
Of their rewards
Job dissatisfaction
Negative feelings towards the job is job dissatisfaction.
If the employees are dissatisfied , it can result in more absenteeism,
turnover and unionism.
A manager should have clear understanding of the factors which can cause
job dissatisfaction .
These factors are:
Low pay or promotion chances
Monotonous and boring work
Feeling of inequity
Unfavorable working environment
Personal attributes of the employees

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Expression of job dissatisfaction: Stephen P.Robbins has expressed four
responses with the help of the following chart.
Active
EXIT
(Leave or Resign)
(1)
VOICE
( Improve Conditions)
(2)
NEGLECT
( Increased Absenteeism)
(3)
LOYALTY
(Wait for the conditions to
improve)
(4)
D
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s
t
r
u
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t
i
v
e

chart
C
o
n
s
t
r
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e

Passive
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Exit:
An employee may simply leave or resign from the organization and look
for a new position in some other organization.
Voice:
An employee can complain and discuss the problems with his superiors.
This is an active and constructive attempt to improve the conditions.
Neglect:
An employee can become indifferent. He may passively allow conditions to
worsen. He will express his dissatisfaction through absenteeism , late
arrival or reduced efforts.
Loyalty:
The employee can passively but optimistically wait for the conditions to
improve. Such employees trust the management to do the right things.

Sample Items from satisfaction
Questionnaire
1= very dissatisfied
2= dissatisfied
3= neutral
4= satisfied
5= very satisfied



Rank Factors
Chances to work alone on the job
( independence)
Chances for advancement on this job
( advancement)
Chance to tell people what to do ( Authority)
Praise get for a good job ( Recognition)
Pay and amount of work do ( compensation)