Job satisfaction and employee contentment

Job satisfaction has become an issue that majority of the organization has not taken seriously because it is assumed that all people are contented with whatever job they do, which might not be the case. Job satisfaction is influenced by several factors such as age, income, and education. According to the survey done nationally representative sample of the employed found that various categories of groups are not very satisfied with their job. Unfavorable working environment deter employees from feeling satisfaction in their jobs.

This analytical report aims at assessing the extent of job satisfaction within various groups of people nationally in bringing forward a number of data as well as trends on job satisfaction. What will be conveyed in the analytical report is the way data regarding job satisfaction is revealed by using national survey while concentrating on the used figures in presenting available data on job satisfaction. The survey will consist of different sections with its set of questionnaires. One of the sections will mainly put its emphasis on the national surveys that deal with job satisfaction more particularly to the age of the targeted working group. The category will fall either on the young, middle age or old.

Another section will focus on job satisfaction particularly on the highest degree of education among the working group. The category will be high school, college or graduate.

Another section will be on job satisfaction focusing on the level of income where the category will be low income, middle class, or the rich.

As investigated by various discipline like sociology, psychology, economics and management science, job satisfaction has been a commonly studied within work and organizational literature. The reason behind this is that most of the experts believe that trends of job satisfaction do affects labor market behavior as well as influencing work effort, work productivity, staff turnover and employee absenteeism, (Syptak, J.M., Marsland, D.W. & Ulmer, D. 1999). In addition, job satisfaction is viewed to be a strong predictor of the general somebody's well being, and somehow the best predictor of decisions or intensions of employees to quit a job.

Apart from its research studies and literature, job satisfaction is as well considered as an important everyday life. Companies or work environments will always have significant effects on its workers and parts of such effects are reflected on the way people feel concerning their work. Therefore job satisfaction proves to be of great significance for employers and employees. Just like the way different studies shows, satisfied employers are beneficial to the employers for this environment faces fewer staff turnover as well as higher productivity in case a high level of satisfaction is experienced by employees, (Nguyen, A.N., Taylor, J. And Bradley, S., 2003). Nevertheless, employees too are to feel happy within their work, considering the time span they have to devote to it maybe as long as he works.

Survey's framework describes job satisfaction to relay on the balance between work-role input like income, age, and education. In case there is increase in work-role outputs relative to work role inputs, there is possibility of increase in job satisfaction.

Some of the theorists have gone ahead to view job satisfaction to be a bi-dimensional concept that is made up of extrinsic and intrinsic satisfaction. Sources of intrinsic satisfaction rely on somebody's characteristics of this fellow, for example, ability of using initiative, the work performed by the person, or relation with the supervisor; all of the mention form the qualitative or symbolic facets of the job, (Long Yun Siang, 2013).

Moreover, extrinsic sources of satisfaction tend to be situational and rely on the environment, for example, promotion, job security, pay; they form financial as well as other material rewards or job advantages,( Nguyen, A.N., Taylor, J. And Bradley, S., 2003). The two (intrinsic and extrinsic) job facets are supposed to be represented more equally in a composite measure of the general job satisfaction.

Literature Review

Education

Difference in education level plays a significant role in Job satisfaction. Among the 1161 interviewed, majority of the high school level people who are working are not satisfied at all with their job as their level do not provide them with the job they desired in life and even the pay. Averagely lower percentage just see the job satisfaction as normal while a higher percentage of the high school level workers are satisfied with their job as compared to employees who are not at all satisfied or consider it normal.

Education level affects the kind of job one can get the higher education one get so is the best job one is capable of getting. As a person goes to the higher level of education, the desire to get a better job increases as well.

Age

Age is a factor that affects the job satisfaction level among the employees. The young are energetic and are less satisfied with their job as they look forward to other better jobs as shown by the survey whereby only 21.5% generally are satisfied with their job. The satisfaction level of the middle age employees is higher for the variable does not affect them much. 67.4% generally are satisfied with their job. They try to minimize change of their job as they feel comfortable with most of the work they do. On the other hand, age affects satisfaction level of the old. Generally their job satisfaction level is low as they have 11.2% of the satisfaction level. In general, job satisfaction as from the survey among different age group is "normal" due to the fact that most figure in terms of the respondents have higher number compared to the respondents who were "very satisfied" and "not at all satisfied.

Income

Income is a major factor in determining job satisfaction. People work so that at the end of the day they can meet their needs. However, according to the survey done, different category of income has different impact on the employees. Majority with high income tend to be more satisfied with their job. Those who are rich are more satisfied with their jobs as compared to the middle class and the low income employees. However, the middle class income employees are generally dissatisfied with their job as compared to the low income employees. They could be looking forward to move to the best paying job for their gap between the rich is narrow and they feel they can also be rich with a greater income. On the other hand, the low income do not see the hope of advancing to the next level so they become somehow more satisfied generally as compared to the middle class income. The survey shows that average percentage in terms of respondents was: low income 14.3%, middle class 13.3%, the rich 72.4% (Scott Smith, 2013).

Hypotheses

The first hypothesis is that as the degree of education increase to the next level, the extent of job satisfaction goes down. Education is the key for landing in a good paying job with favorable environment, so those who are with degree still looks forward to get better paying job as compared to the college and the high school level employees. The study shows that in average of the satisfaction level (very satisfied, normal, and not at all satisfied) are: 57.2% for high school level; 29.5% for college level; 13.4% for graduates. People feel that when they study more they can get better job with favorable environment therefore they become more and more satisfied as they move to the next level of education.

The second hypothesis is that the middle age employees are more satisfied with their job as compared to the young and the old. Majority of young and the old tend to be less satisfied with their job. The survey shows that the average job satisfaction of: the young is 21.5%; the middle age is 67.4%; and the old is 11.2% (Scott Smith, 2013).

The third hypothesis is that employees with high income are greatly satisfied with their job. The capability of the middle class income employees can be uplifted to the higher levels so their satisfaction level is lower as compared to the rich and the low income employees. According to the survey in average, the low income is 14.3%, the middle class is 13.3%, and the rich is 72.4%. The moment one finds that it is not easy to change their financial status they become contented with what they get as can be seen with the low income employees who becomes satisfied with their position though they look forward that if anything happens they can change their job.

Materials

Quota sampling was applied, basically to make sure that this survey sample become representative of the population with respect to age, income, and education; Interviews were carried out face-to-face at resident of people; The survey population covered individuals who have reached the age of 18 to 69 and had been employed or had worked for a minimum of three months before leaving their current employer. Such requirement of three months was important for the nature of the questions made it necessary for familiarity with working environment.

The time frame was from one month February 1st to February 29th. Single-item questions were used while basing the question in terms of "how satisfied are you with your job?" Three response scales were used: normal, very satisfied, not at all satisfied. The framed question was to measure the independent variables, job satisfaction, based on level of job satisfaction from the time they have spent in their work place, (Scott Smith, 2013).

Several aspects of the work were considered, it covered areas like the workload, conditions of working (noise, heat, light), length of working time, confidence between managers as well as rank -- and file workers, organizational working time, competence of management, wages and rewards, training and requalification, opportunity for promotion, social care benefit, job security, and relationship with direct superior.

Procedure

Single-item question were used such as: How satisfied overall are you with your job? The expected answers are very satisfied, normal and not at all satisfied. There will be as well multi-facet questions, for example how satisfied are you with? How your expert skills are used; how hard the work is; how interesting your work is; interpersonal relationship within the workplace; the physical environment of the workplace and its facilities; how work is organized within the work place; your pay; your superior; the prospects of a pay rise; job security; the prospect of promotion; or how your office takes care of its employees. The three-point response scale is used: very satisfied, normal, or not at all satisfied.

Participants

The survey involved employees of different organization within the city, a total number of 4901 employees were to be covered. The young the middle age and the old were involved. Whether male or female they were categorized as one and their records were to show that they had worked for at least three months before the time of the interview. Selection of the sample was random and proportion to the size of the employees as they were interacted with either at work or at their home. Missing cases were deleted from the data and all variables were recorded to two values to produce contingency tables for the statistical analysis.

Results

A total number of 664 employees were interviewed, where the survey showed that the high school level employees: very satisfied 54.2%, (284 employees); normal 58.5%, (349 employees); Not at all satisfied 77.5%, (31employees). As compared to high school level employees, the percentage of college level employees regarding job satisfaction is low. The interviewed employees with the college level, lesser percentage were at all not satisfied as compared to those who were satisfied and those who considered it normal. Higher percentage considered dependant variable normal according to the feedback. Among the 342 interviewed workers, 29.4% were satisfied, (154 employees); 30.2% felt it as normal, (180 employees); and 20% were not at all satisfied, (8 workers). As compared to high school and college level employees, the percentages of the graduate are lower.

Majority of the graduates tend to be more satisfied with the job that they do. This is because among the 155 interviewed employees, those who were very satisfied with their job were 86 employees representing 16.4%, those who felt it normal were 64 employees representing 11.4%, and those who not at all satisfied was 1 employee representing 2.5%.The percentages are lower therefore, generally job satisfaction in this level is concentrated on satisfaction point-of-view. There is a significance indication of the chi-square statistical analysis where 0 cells (0.0%) expecting count less than 5, and the minimum expected count is 5.34.based on the realized discrepancy

The level of job satisfaction in the independent variable, age, involved the young, the middle age, and the old. Out of the 248 young who were interviewed 16.3% were very satisfied (85 respondents), 25.1% felt it was normal (149 respondents), and 35.0% were not at all satisfied (14 respondents). The percentage average was 21.6%. Those who were not at all satisfied are more compared to those who were very satisfied and felt it as normal. Among the middle age group that were interviewed were779 employees. Those who were very satisfied were 253 (67.6%); those who felt job satisfaction was normal were 401 employees, (67.5%), while the ones who were not at all satisfied were 25 employees, (62.5%).

This adds to an average percentage of 67.4 meaning that the satisfaction level of the middle age was very high compared to the young. The job satisfaction levels of the old among the 129 interviewed were, 84 very satisfied (16.1%), 44 normal (7.4%), and 1 not at all satisfied (2.5%) averaging to 11.2%. Here almost none of the old is satisfied, though there average satisfaction is low. The chi-square statistical analysis has been reported in terms of significance where 1 cells (11.1%) expecting count less than 5. while the minimum expected count is 4.46.This is in terms of the existing discrepancy.

The survey based on the independent variable, income, involved the low income, the middle class and the rich. Among 1161 interviewed, 166 were young (representing 14.3%), 70 were very satisfied (13.4%), 87 felt it normal (14.6%), 9 were not at all satisfied (22.5%). Satisfaction level of the low income respondents is very low. Those who were interviewed in the middle class were 154 respondents. Out of this 55 were very satisfied (10.5%), 86 felt it was normal (14.4%), while 13 were not at all satisfied (32.5%) and the average percentage for these was 13.5. This still shows that the satisfaction level is low even as compared to the average percentage of the low income respondents. On the other hand there was higher level of satisfaction among the rich.

Those who were interviewed were 841, out of this 399 were very satisfied (76.1%), and those who felt it normal were 424 (71.0%) while those who were not at all satisfied were 18 (45.0%). The average percentage is 72.4. Majority of the rich respondents were very satisfied. The chi-square statistical analysis has been reported in terms of significance where 0 cells (0.0%) expecting count less than 5. while the minimum expected count is 5.31.in correcting the existing discrepancy.

Discussion

Due to the fact that in terms of income, degree of education and age are the three major factors that affect job satisfaction, employers and organizations are supposed to realize this to avoid frequent transfer of jobs by employees that lowers the end up lowering their production level and loosing potential expertise. They should connect the factors where ranks in the work place should be increases depending on how an employee has furthered his/her studies, moreover the income/salary can be increased for them to feel more satisfied. Conducive work environment at the workplace where despite the age, each employee feels a necessary part of the organization helps boost the morale of employees thus higher job satisfaction (Namrata Ekka, 2013).