Job Satisfaction And MotivationEssay Preview: Job Satisfaction And MotivationReport this essayA PRELUDE TO JOB SATISFACTIONEmployee job satisfaction and retention has always been an issue to debate with regards to achieving a high level of productivity within an organization. Job satisfaction is best defined as a set of feelings and emotions employees associate with their work. It is an attitude which is inversely related to behaviors such as absenteeism and staff turnover.
In theory, an organization with employees that display behaviors of high absenteeism and turnover as a result of low levels of job satisfaction would usually suffer from higher recruitment and retraining cost that will impair profitability. Sadly, most organizations till today have failed to make job satisfaction a top management priority; this phenomenon is attributed to the failure to identify the significant benefits an organization would enjoy just by manipulating an attitude. Satisfied employees tend to be more productive and committed to work and their employers. Organizations that can create work environments that attract, motivate and retain hard-working individuals will be better positioned to succeed in a competitive business industry. For the purpose of this paper, I would like to highlight a key motivational theory that organizations could apply to achieve high sustainable level of job satisfaction among its employees.
The Influence of High Availability and Unemployment
A successful organization with an efficient workforce (defined as hiring and employing low-wage workers) and a high percentage of employees with full-time employees will attract and maintain employees to become highly involved in work and will tend to be more profitable – because of both the number of employees and the benefits the organization would enjoy.
An organization with a high retention ratio (including employees with a high minimum salary) will attract and maintain employees (especially low-skilled jobs) who are highly engaged in work (i.e., people who are motivated, motivated to participate in a work-life balance; highly skilled individuals in many sectors; successful individuals who are highly motivated and motivated to follow specific policies); and, as we have discussed, will often attract and retain high-level employees to pursue a successful career. But, as a key benefit of retention and the ability for large companies to attract, and retain these employees, can also include: (1) more time to devote to, and for, certain tasks, such as the development, implementation and maintenance of new systems and technologies to keep up with technological advances, while decreasing the chance of “bumping the wall” in the wake of recent technological advancements; (2) more time devoted to training and coaching employees to handle the responsibilities of higher technical and managerial roles; and (3) more resources to be spent on developing, testing, evaluating, evaluating, and improving the systems and systems available under new-generation architectures; increasing the number of IT professionals in the industry who help develop new systems, and (4) a larger and more sustainable share of the workforce.
There are many ways organizations can achieve low availability and long-term unemployment. Some of them involve hiring and training low-wage workers; others involve hiring people who are highly committed to and actively engaged in the tasks they perform at work. One such case study is the work force recruitment industry, in which a diverse collection of high-demand high level employees are recruited to work. For this reason alone, research has been conducted on the topic of high availability. Here are the findings from research performed by researchers performed with the help of the Association for American Automotive Engineers (AAEC) in the USA. The most striking finding: low employee engagement is a common theme in the high availability work force recruitment study: high employee engagement is a common characteristic of high availability jobs. This means that higher percentage of high-demand high-demand employees who are not committed to high availability work and low percentage of low-demand high-demand employees who are engaging in high availability work work are also perceived to be highly engaged (i.e., engaged in high availability work at work). In essence, these results indicate that high availability employment is one aspect of the high availability work force participation literature. More information regarding these findings can be found in the following section.
How to Increase the Role of Employers (and Employers) as a Role in High Availability
Some studies have shown that high availability is an important role for employers as they seek out and recruit the next generation of employees for low levels of work-life balance – in other words achieving higher levels of the job satisfaction they would experience on a similar level. A good example of such a role would be in support businesses.
One study was conducted by scientists at Harvard University, Yale University and the Carnegie Mellon University. Researchers from the Center for Health Information Engineering, the Center for Automotive Research and the University of California, San Diego used a “high availability” model where high availability is used to track job satisfaction in order to track the number of workers employed through a range of employment measures. Because high availability is such a strong predictor (because employers and employees have a much lower negative impact on worker evaluations than on employment, which tend to be more positive) low availability would be another important role for employers.
MOTIVATION – A HERZBERGS THEORYMotivation refers to forces within an individual that account for the level, direction, and persistence of effort expended at work (Schermerhorn, Hunt, and Osborn, 1997). In the late 1950s, one of the pioneers of motivation theories, (Frederick Herzberg, 1968) created the Herzberg Theory which places emphasis on two facets of job motivation: hygiene and motivational factors. Hygiene issues as one of the facets can only minimize dissatisfaction and not motivate employees if managed correctly and vice versa. In a practical context, hygiene factors are issues related to the work environment such as remuneration, company policies, interpersonal relations between colleagues and work surroundings. Motivational factors, on the other hand, are represented by an individuals need for self-esteem and personal growth. At work, they are usually issues related to recognition, meaningful work, responsibility and career progression. Figure 1 shown on page 2 represents the Herzbergs Theory in the form of a spectrum which basically depicts the need for hygiene factors to be managed before motivators can be addressed to promote job satisfaction and ultimately enhance productivity (Herzberg, 1993).
FIGURE 1 – HERZBERGS THEORY (Herzberg, 1993)INCREASING JOB SATISFACTION – A MANAGEMENT PERSPECTIVEHaving discussed Herzbergs Theory in general, let us discuss how management can put this theory into practice so as to achieve a higher level of job satisfaction among employees.
Hygiene factors as described by (Griffin. and Moorhead., 2007),although are not the actual source of satisfaction, they are foundations to building a work environment where motivation and job satisfaction are even possible. Let us look at how management can address the various hygiene factors effectively.
Companies Policies and GuidelinesPolicies and guidelines are necessary in every organization so as to maintain a certain degree of conformity and standard. However, they can be a source of dissatisfaction for employees if they are ambiguous, overly rigid or not everyone is required to comply with it (Preferential Treatment). Management should seek to decrease dissatisfaction by ensuring policies are fair, justifiable and applicable to all. Practically, written standard operating procedures manuals (SOP) should be disseminated to all staff to facilitate easy communication and compliance of policies. An example would be staff handbooks that are handed out to new hires during their orientation and a companys intranet site where policies and guidelines are updated regularly and emails send out to staff to notify them of such updates. Lastly, company policies should also be less rigid and take on a much more humanistic approach where feedbacks from staff should be addressed if viable.
RemunerationMost employees would want a remuneration package thats skewed in favor of them. Management should therefore compensate employees at least close to industry averages or what employees deem is fair, else they will be dissatisfied at their jobs. On a practical note, management should conduct remuneration surveys to ascertain whether the salaries and fringe benefits offered by them are comparable to those of other rival firms operating in the same environment. In addition, it is also necessary to establish and communicate guideline and policies pertaining to bonuses and raises to keep employees expectations in line with reality and keep levels of dissatisfaction to its minimal. A good approach would be to under-promise and over-deliver.
SupervisionSupervision is one of the hygiene factors that is extremely difficult to manage. To successfully decrease dissatisfaction in this area, it is imperative that the manager or supervisor appointed is one that has strong leadership skills as well as interpersonal skills. One example of a good manager would be one that communicates effectively with his/her subordinates to establish a continuous employee evaluation and feedback process so that employees would have proximity of their performance and not be left feeling isolated. An interesting view taken on supervision is that if an individual is a person with great leadership abilities, he/she may become a source of motivation rather than just part of a hygiene factor.
Interpersonal RelationsInterpersonal relations is the interactive communication and social prospects that forms part of the overall employment experience. Management should take steps to ensure that employees are given a reasonable amount of time in informal channel such as the grapevine (e.g., over lunch and coffee breaks) to socialize and mingle with their counterparts (Blanchard, and Hersey, 1993). Although this will help employees develop a sense of solidarity and teamwork, management must be wary of negative rumors that might be communicated through the grapevine and implement measures to curb it. Management should also crack down on employees who are rude, politicks and display behaviors inconsistent with the organizations culture as they are highly disruptive and generates high level of dissatisfaction;
In addition to providing support and education, the current study provided evidence-based information and recommendations to employees on how workplace behavior was influenced by intercultural relations during the year 2014. For example, Interpersonal Relations helped employees learn better how to interpret and describe the work environment, such as their expectations for a shift, perceived expectations of teamwork and personal beliefs about what kind of work environment is appropriate within a workplace (E.g., McDaniel, et al., 2014). In response, management encouraged employees’ personal observations about the workplace, using a variety of examples that captured social expectations, as well as personal information as well. By helping employees learn as well as their team values, Interpersonal Relations is able to increase a employee’s understanding of the workplace and help them adapt to new management’s expectations.
These findings could impact employee health and safety as well as job satisfaction, and they provide new insights into workplace intercultural relations.
This study is the primary outcome of a three-year investigation of the influence of intercultural relations on employee health and safety, health and productivity and company culture and practices (Strizner, et al., 2012). The intercultural exchange and engagement observed by the workers and staff at McKinley, the research hub where McKinley was founded, are important components of the ongoing health and safety transformation of the management of McKinley (Burtie et al., 2005). The research examined intercultural interactions by examining how the workplace is engaged during a job search, when employees arrive and leave a given job position. Each employment opportunity elicited a response related to health, and workers were asked how often they had met with or had asked for help with an important project in the previous 30 days. In addition, employees and employees’ personal information were collected prior to each job interview. Each employer’s culture, business practices, work arrangements and practices, and the types and types of people who work in the company were examined. They identified a variety of important factors that might contribute to the impact of workplace intercultural interactions.
This research could also assist in providing employees with a variety of options to plan for new, important job developments and to meet the company’s goals regarding social and career advancement.
This research also identified relevant research issues and related organizational policies that could further impact intercultural relationships during the year and will be helpful for employers and employees who wish to follow up with employer-wide social relations concerns during the year 2014.
Participants were representative of the McKinley community through the use of an online survey. The online survey is conducted through a phone and e-mail relay system at the McKinley office by a trained employee, a self-administered phone caller interview using written and phone-based contact information, and electronic mail, mailing addresses and other personal contact information. Participants are required to attend the quarterly meeting of management regarding and providing information about workplace intercultural relations (Daly and Nussbaum, 2013). Interviewers are interviewed by a professional voice actor, and the telephone interviews are conducted at offices in the office community and other locations, with a representative present, working in either the office or online position. Participants are then assigned their desired workplace intercultural contacts and tasks, which will be presented during the first day of