THE IMPACT OF JOB SATISFACTION AND MOTIVATION AT WORKPLACE

THE IMPACT OF JOB SATISFACTION AND MOTIVATION AT WORKPLACE By: Emad Abdalla Board Member at Re3aya Medical Services, Egypt Procurement& Contract Manager at StarLine, UAE Dubai, 30 November 2015 Page 1 of 14 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The most valuable, yet complex, resource for any organisation is its workforce and that organisation must adopt certain strategies to maximize the strengths and minimize the weakness of its workforce. The aim of this research is to focus on the impact of job satisfaction and motivation at workplace. This research infers that workforce motivation and job satisfaction affect negatively or positively at workplace and the organisation must judge the relevance of the different theories and apply multiple techniques to motivate and enhance the satisfaction level of the employees in order to achieve productive use of resources, increased efficiency & output, achievement of objectives, development of friendly relationship and stability at workforce. The paper has three parts. The first part is about job satisfaction; its definition, factors affecting the level of employee satisfaction and impact of job satisfaction at workplace. The second part of the research is about employees’ motivation at workplace, its importance, and examples of motivational theories that provided different techniques to motivate employees. The third part is about job satisfaction and motivation in practice at a government organisation leading the ICT sector in one of GCC countries. Page 2 of 14 INTRODUCTION “Organisational behaviour is a field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups and structure have on behaviour within organisations, for the purpose of applying such knowledge toward improving an organization’s effectiveness” (Robbins, Judge and Campbell 2010). The organisation’s strategic initiatives always depend on the quality and motivation of its workforces which have positive or negative bearing on the organisation effectiveness and that importance of workforce cannot be overlooked. One of important work-related attitudes is job satisfaction which is of major interest to the field of organisational behaviour. There are different factors affect the level of employee satisfaction at workplace. The job satisfaction levels at any organization either positive or negative reveals a deep impact on the organisations output and productivity. Job satisfaction of employees can be indicative of work behaviour such as level of performance, organisational citizenship Behaviour and withdrawal behaviour such as absenteeism and turnover. In the meantime, motivation is a very important part of understanding workforce behaviour since it has a significant impact on organisation effectiveness. A motivated workforce can be a sign of a successful organisation as top performers of an organization consistently provide high-quality work, maintain a high level of productivity and overcome obstacles or challenges. Helping all employees maintain a high level of motivation can help keep employees committed to working hard and contributing as much value as possible to the organization. While a demotivated workforce can lead to organisation failure towards achievement of its objectives and in worst cases can be disastrous for its success. There are different motivational theories but there doesn’t appear to be one universal applicable theory of motivation, however the different motivational theories provide a framework within which the organisation can adopt relevant multiple techniques to motivate its empoyees to work willingly and effectively and meantime enhance their satisfaction at workplace. This research is thus focus on the impact of job satisfaction and motivation at workplace. Page 3 of 14 ANALYSIS PART I: ATTITUDES AND JOB SATISFACTION Research demonstrates that interrelationships and complexities underlie what would seem to be the simply defined term job attitudes. (Judge and Muller 2012). “Attitudes are evaluative statements—either favorable or unfavorable—concerning objects, people, or events. They reflect how one feels about something” (Robbins and Judge 2013). Typically researches have assumed that attitudes have three components: cognition, affect and behavior (Robbins and Judge 2007). These components are closely related. Figure 1 - Components of Attitude, adapted from Robbins and Judge (2007) Most organisational behaviour researches have been concerned with job satisfaction as one of the major work-related attitudes. Job satisfaction means what are the feelings of different employees about the different dimensions of their jobs (Robbins, 2003). Mullins (2010) “A person with a high level of job satisfaction holds positive feelings about the job, while a person who is dissatisfied holds negative feelings about the job”. Page 4 of 14 THE MAJOR FACTORS LEADING TO JOB SATISFACTION Present Pay is one of the major factors of job satisfaction, absence of this factor leads to job dissatisfaction. Individuals who are dissatisfied with the money they are making, for the job they do, will most likely leave the organization (Education Portal Website). A study has identified some key factors contributing to job dissatisfaction and turnover intent among primary healthcare nurses in rural South Africa, Pay was of most frequently cited as affecting job satisfaction (Journal of Advanced Nursing, 2011). Mullins (2010) argued that “Managers should measure the job attitudes effectively so that they can tell how employees are reacting to their work and should consider that paying employees poorly will likely not attract high-quality employees to the organisation or keep high performers”. Organisation must ensure career growth of its employees, If the organisation does not afford the employees the opportunity of growth, they will become disenchanted and dissatisfied with job. Several researches share the opinion that job satisfaction has a great connection with its opportunities for promotion (Academia.edu, 2012). Job Compatibility is another element affect the employee satisfaction, most often, the employee fails to meet the expectations of the management since his/her ability and capacity is not suitability fit to position. (Education Portal Website). Robbins (2003) referred to the work itself as “the extent to which the job provides the individual with simulating tasks, opportunities for learning and personal growth and the chance to be responsible and accountable for results”. Supervision has an effect on the employee satisfaction, many researches attested that supervision and job satisfaction has a positive relationship (Academia.edu, 2012). Accomplishing good work is often rewarding in and of itself, most of us like to be recognized by our boss for a job well done (Education Portal). Nature of the work performed by employees has a significant impact on their level of job satisfaction (Luthans, 2006). THE IMPACT OF JOB SATISFACTION AT WORKPLACE “Researches attested that organisations with more satisfied employees tend to be more effective than organisations with fewer satisfied employees” (Robbins and Judge 2007). Page 5 of 14 A review of 300 studies suggested that the correlation is pretty strong between job satisfaction and job performance. (Mullins, 2010). Job satisfaction is negatively correlated to absenteeism, a study done at Sears, Roebuck provides an excellent illustration of how satisfaction directly leads to attendance, since Sears’s policy did not permit employees to be absent from work for avoidable reasons without penalty (Robbins and Judge 2007). Studies showed that the employee’s level of performance is an important moderator of the satisfaction–turnover relationship. (Robbins and Judge 2007). Evidence strongly suggests whatever manager can do to improve employee attitudes will likely result in heightened organisational effectiveness where satisfied and committed employees have lower rates of turnover, absenteeism and withdrawal behaviors (Mullins, 2010). A study on the Interaction of working conditions, job satisfaction, and sickness absences concluded that Firm-level investments in a better working environment and job satisfaction become increasingly important in the coming era of labour shortage in the industrialised countries, because a reduction in sickness absences would provide a considerable increase in the effective labour supply (Social Science & Medicine 2008). Researches attested that Job satisfaction is a major determinant of an employee’s OCB or discretionary behaviors that contribute to organizational effectiveness. Satisfied employees might be more prone to go beyond the call of duty because they want to reciprocate their positive experiences (Mullins, 2010). Researches indicates that satisfied employees increase customer satisfaction and loyalty, especially in service organizations. Dissatisfied employees may adversely affect the customer satisfaction and vice versa. Bruce and Blackburn (1992) argued that "Satisfied employees are more likely to experience high internal work motivation, to give high quality work performance, and to have low absenteeism and turnover". Job dissatisfaction leads to a lot of specific negative behaviors, including unionization attempts, substance abuse, stealing at work, undue socializing, tardiness, etc. If employees do not like work environment, they tend to respond and it is not always easy to forecast exactly how they will respond. If employers want to control the undesirable consequences of job dissatisfaction, they have to realize the root causes for the problem— dissatisfaction—rather than trying to control different responses (Robbins and Judge Page 6 of 14 2007). Mangers should be interested in their employees’ attitudes because attitudes give warning of potential problems and influences behaviour. PART II: MOTIVATION AT WORKPLACE In broad terms, motivation can be considered to comprise an individual’s effort, persistence and the direction of that effort (Brooks, 2006). “The question of work motivation is particularly significant in a global ecinimoic recession, most companies and public sector organisations try to cust costs in a downtime, this means findings ways to motivate employees other than offering more money” (Buchanan and Huczynski 2013). A motivated workforce can be a sign of a successful organisation. Tesco is one of the expanded companies across the world, to support its growth, Tesco motivates its employees by increasing their knowledge, skills and job satisfaction through training and development and providing relevant and timely reward and recognition. Tesco’s growth has resulted in a worldwide workforce of over 468,000 employees. On the other hand a demotivated workforce can lead to organisation failure to achive its goals &objectives and in worst cases can be disastrous. For example, when Apple released the iPad in May 2010, pictures of iPhones were burned in Hong Kong and protestors called for global boycott of Apple products. This allowed a serious of employee suicides at Foxconn, a contract manufacturer which makes products for Apple and other electronic companies at Foxconn city, an industrial park in Shenzen and that Foxconn and other companies had already suffered “bad press” (The Economist, 2010). MOTIVATIONAL THEORIES There are many competing motivational theories that attempt to explain motivation at work and are divided into content and process theories where Content theories place emphasis on what motivates and concerned with identifying people’s needs and the relative strengths and the goals they pursue in order to satisfy these needs. Main content theories include Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and Herzberg’s theory (Mullins 2010). Process theories place emphasis on the actual process of motivation. They concerned with the relationship among the dynamic variables that make up motivation and with how behaviour is initiated, directed and sustained. Many of the process theories cannot be linked to a single writer but major approach under this heading include expectancy-based models (Mullins, 2010). The different motivational theories provide a framework within which to direct attention to the problem of how best to motivate staff to work willingly and effectively. Page 7 of 14 PART III: JOB SATISFACTION AND MOTIVATION IN PRACTICE A leading government organisation in GCC with a mission to create an advanced knowledge society through ICT infrastructure and skills development, delivery of eservices and the establishment of a regulatory environment that promotes growth and benefits citizens, businesses and government. The organisation adopted multiple techniques to motivate and enhance the satisfaction level of its employees that enable to effective utilization of its workforce, which consequently led to achievement of strategic objectives in ICT Sector, business expansion and establishment of four subsidiaries. MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS In 1943, Maslow published his theory on what motivates people. Maslow argued that people have levels of needs that they seek to meet. The more basic needs, the more motivated a person will be to fulfill it. Basic/physical needs are the most motivating needs are at the bottom of the model, Safety needs are the second level of human needs that held establishing of predictability and wellbeing, Social needs incorporate all human needs to feel a sense of belonging, Self-Esteem needs refer to the ego-status of needs, The Need for self-Actualisation to become more and more oneself and more and more of what we are capable of becoming (MTD Training & bookboon.com 2010). Buchanan and Huczynski (2013) found number of problems relating to Maslow’s theory to the work situation, individual difference means that people place different values on the same need. Some rewards or outcomes at work satisfy more than one need and Maslow viewed satisfaction as the main motivational outcome of behaviour but jobs satisfaction doesn’t necessarily lead to improve work performance. ICT Organisation adopted multiple motivational techniques as per Maslow model. The organisation provides competitive payment comparing with the other organisations in telecommunication sector, rental an office tower strategically located in the heart of the city and equipped with essential facilities such as parking, restaurant, conferences’ rooms and personal offices. The organisation offers life & health insurance scheme for employees and their families, education allowance for employees’ children, car loans, housing, furniture grants and car loans. The organisation encourages career growth by providing advanced career opportunities through Development Plan to enhance the citizens’ skills & knowledge, implementation of e-Learning Portal to enable online training in related work areas, provides in-house training conducted by international institutes and consultancy firms, Promotes team and Page 8 of 14 group working on various levels and arrange group events such as sports-day, nationalday and family day-out. In addition to development of reward system linked with work-performance and annual appraisal. The organisation values self-respect and provides recognition for high performers and long-service award. Figure 2 - What ICT Organisation providdes to its employes, adapted from Buchanan and Huczynski (2013) ICT organisation managed to enhance the levels of employees’ satisfaction which results in increase of job performance, customer satisfaction and organisation loyalty and lower rates of turnover, absenteeism and withdrawal behaviors. EXPECTANCY THEORY This theory is more concerned with the cognitive antecedents that go into motivation and the way relate to each other. Viroom (1964) developed the first expectancy theory of work motivation, based on three concepts: valence, instrumentality and expectancy (Huczynski and Buchanan 2013). Page 9 of 14 Expectancy means that you believe that the effort you put in can affect the performance that you deliver, Instrumentality refers to the belief that your performance will affect the outcome and valence is the importance for an employee. Viroom proposed that motivation is directly linked to the expected outcome of any effort that is expended. Instrumentality and expectancy are both subjective probabilities and the important is what the employee estimates to be likelihood of good performance leading to valued rewards and of effort leading to good performance, respectively (MTD Training & bookboon.com 2010). The ICT Organisation adopted multiple motivational techniques as per expectancy theory. Effort-to-Performance Expectancy: To increase the belief that employees are capable to perform work successfully, organisation retains the services of professional recruitment firms to ensure hiring of highqualified employees especially of the positions that required intellectual ability in order to ensure job Compatibility, initiates Development Plan to mentor fresh graduates and junior staff to enhance their skills & knowledge within workplace, clarify job requirements, implementation of e-Learning Portal, conducting awareness workshops and provides inhouse training conducted by international training institutes so that to help employees to attain high level of performance. Performance-to-Reward Expectancy: To increase the belief that high performance will result in valued rewards, the organisation conducted benchmark study for job evaluation and ICT program review, establish procedure for performance evaluation and set up criteria for rewards based on performance appraisal. Valence of Reward: To increase the expected value of reward resulting from desired performance, the organisation distributes rewards based on the performance appraisal, recognition for good performance, salary increment, promotion within organisation and its subsidiaries. Page 10 of 14 Figure 3 - How ICT Organisation motivates its employees, adapted from Buchanan and Huczynski (2013) ICT organisation succeeded to motivate most of the employees that enabled to increase of job performance and consequently lead to SMART goals’ achievements, valued rewards and employees’ satisfaction at workplace. Page 11 of 14 CONCLUSION The job satisfaction levels at any organization either positive or negative reveals a deep impact in the organisations output and productivity. The management should monitor the work environment regularly and performance evaluative measures and corrective actions should be taken seriously to boost the morale and performance of the employees to have a more professional and better result oriented team (Perceived Organizational Support) and a charming workplace. Job satisfaction can be indicative of work behaviour such as organisational citizenship and withdrawal behaviour such as absenteeism and turnover. Increasing job satisfaction is potentially good strategy for reducing absenteeism and turnover intentions. The correlation is pretty strong between job satisfaction and job performance. A motivated employees will and they keen provide high-quality work, maintain a high level of productivity and overcome obstacles or challengesand show greater loyalty to the organisation and have less absenteeism, turnover withdrawal behaviour. A demotivated workforce can lead to failure on the part of the organization to achieve its objectives, and in worst cases can be disastrous for its success. There are different motivational theories, but there doesn’t appear to be one universal applicable theory of motivation, however the different motivational theories provide a framework within which the organisation can adopt relevant multiple techniques to motivate and enhance the satisfaction level of its employees in a way to ensure high productive use of resources, increased efficiency & output, achievement of objectives, development of friendly relationship and stability at workforce – in other words organizational success. Page 12 of 14 REFERENCES           Academia.edu. Evaluation of Employees’ Job Satisfaction and Role of Gender Difference an Empirical Study at Airline Industry in Iran. Academia.edu [online]. Available from: https://www.academia.edu/1471852/Evaluation_of_Employees_Job_Satisfaction_and_Rol e_of_Gender_Difference_An_Empirical_Study_at_Airline_Industry_in_Iran (accessed 5th March 2014). Bruce, W. M. & Blackburn, J. W. (1992). Balancing job satisfaction and performance. Westport, CT: Quorum Books. Buchanan, D. and Huczynski A. (2013). Organisational Behaviour. 8th ed. Pearson Education Limited. Education Portal. Job Dissatisfaction: Causes, Reasons and Employee Responses. Education Portal [online]. Available from: https://educationportal.com/academy/lesson/job-dissatisfaction-causes-reasons-and-employeeresponses.html#lesson (accessed 20th February 2014). Graham, G.H. (1982). Understanding human relations. The individual, organisations, and management. Science Research Associates, Chicago Inc. Ian Brooks (2006). Organisational behaviour, Individuals, Groups and Organisations. 3rd ed. Pearson Education Limited. Journal of Advanced Nursing (2011). Job satisfaction and turnover intent of primary healthcare nurses in rural South Africa: a questionnaire survey. Journal of Advanced Nursing [online]. Available from: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.ezproxy.northampton.ac.uk/doi/10.1111/j.13652648.2010.05496.x/references (accessed 3rd March 2014) Judge T. and Muller J. (2012). Job Attitude. Annual Review of Psychology. Timothyjudge.com [online]. Available from: https://www.timothyjudge.com/documents/Jobattitudes.pdf Laurie J. Mullins (2010). Management & Organisational Behaviour. 9th ed. Pearson Education Limited. Luthans, F. (2006). Organizational Behavior. 11th ed. Irwin: McGraw-Hill. Page 13 of 14        MTD Training & bookboon.com (2010). Motivation Skills eBook. 1st ed. Bookboon [online]. Available from: https://bookboon.com/en/motivation-skills-ebook (accessed 15th February 2014) Robbins, Judge and Campbell 2010. Organisational Behaviour. 9th ed. Pearson Education Limited. Robbins, S. and Judge, T. (2007). Essentials of Organizational Behavior. 9th ed. Prentice Hall PTR. Robbins, S. and Judge, T. (2013). Organizational Behavior. 15th ed. Pearson Education Limited. Social Science & Medicine (2008). Interaction of working conditions, job satisfaction, and sickness absences: Evidence from a representative sample of employees. Social Science & Medicine [online]. Available from: https://ac.elscdn.com.ezproxy.northampton.ac.uk/S0277953608002128/1-s2.0-S0277953608002128main.pdf?_tid=23f20204-a3bf-11e3-b50500000aacb35f&acdnat=1393952888_797d9aa6ca2a6193c24cf1994e7576e4 (accessed 3rd March 2014). The Economist. Suicides at Foxconn. A series of deaths expose a big computer-maker to unaccustomed scrutiny. May 27th 2010. The Economist [online]. Available from: https://www.economist.com/node/16231588 (accessed 28th February, 2014). The Times 100 Business Case Studies. Motivational theory in practice at Tesco. The times 100 [online]. Available from: https://businesscasestudies.co.uk/tesco/motivational-theoryin-practice-at-tesco/introduction.html#axzz2u5UnhjeI (accessed 15th February 2014). Page 14 of 14