MEASURING JOB SATISFACTION

INTRODUCTION

All good managers want to build a thriving, happy team.

Yet, many employees are not satisfied. Only 40% of employees
are happy with their job. This is a big problem. High employee
satisfaction leads to lower staff turnover and better job performance. If
you want to get more from your team, you need to make sure they’re
happy with their jobs.

The correlation between employee satisfaction and engagement

When employees are engaged, they’re dedicated to helping their
company achieve its goals. They’re committed and effective at work,
and they constantly look for ways to improve. Employee satisfaction,
on the other hand, is more about whether or not team members feel
happy and fulfilled. Satisfied employees are more likely to stay with
your company for a long time.
It’s possible for some employees to be satisfied with their job without
being highly motivated and engaged.
Think about the type of person who only wants a secure, comfortable
job. They might be highly satisfied with their position and still show
low engagement.
However, you can’t have high engagement with low satisfaction. Very
few people can stay motivated and productive when they’re unhappy.
Improving job satisfaction is one of the first steps towards increasing
engagement.
Even for employees who will never be highly engaged, though, it’s still
important for you to measure and promote employee satisfaction.
Here’s why:

The importance of measuring employee satisfaction

Measuring employee satisfaction correctly tells you how your team
really feels. You can use that information to improve all of these
things:

 Employee retention – It’s hard to keep employees around if they’re

not happy working for you. Satisfied employees are less likely to leave
for a different job.
 Productivity – It makes sense that dissatisfied employees won’t put
in the same effort at work as those who are actually happy with their
job. Satisfied employees tend to be twice as productive compared to
their dissatisfied coworkers.
 Company culture – Dissatisfied employees can become toxic over
time, hurting company culture and creating a bad work environment.
Satisfied employees, on the other hand, are more likely to be
supportive and enthusiastic.

6 methods of measuring employee satisfaction

You might think that your employees are happy with their jobs
because you never hear them complain.
Actually, it’s a warning sign if your team never comes to you with
concerns. They might not trust you enough to be honest about their
feelings towards their job.
That’s why it’s so important to gather feedback the right way.
You’ll get incomplete (or inaccurate) information if you judge
satisfaction by watching the way your team acts.
Asking face-to-face is problematic, too. Your team needs to feel safe
enough to be honest. Even if you have a good relationship with your
team, they may hold back because they don’t want to hurt your
feelings.

Use one of these methods to more accurately measure employee

satisfaction:

1. Conduct employee satisfaction surveys

2. Use the employee satisfaction index (ESI)

3. Use the Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS)

4. Have 1-on-1 meetings

5. Install an employee suggestion box

6. Use specialized software

 Moreover, many organizations face challenges in accurately measuring
job satisfaction, as the definition of satisfaction can differ among
various people within an organization.

Despite widespread belief to the contrary, studies have shown that

high-performing employees do not feel satisfied with their job simply
as a result of high-level titles or increased pay.

This lack of correlation is a significant concern for organizations since

studies also reveal that the implementation of positive HR
practices results in financial gain for the organizations.

A person’s job is more than just the obvious activities of shuffling

papers, writing programming code, waiting on customers, or driving a
truck.

Jobs require interaction with co-workers and bosses, following

organizational rules and policies, meeting performance standards,
living with working conditions that are often less than ideal, and the
like.

This means that an employee’s assessment of how satisfied or

dissatisfied he or she is with his or her job is a complex summation of
several discrete job elements.

Most used approaches to measuring job satisfaction of the

employees are;

1. Single Global Rating.

2. Summation Score.
1. Job Diagnostic Survey.
2. Job Satisfaction Index.
3. Job Satisfaction Survey.
4. Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire.
5. Job Satisfaction Relative to Expectations.
6. Global Job Satisfaction.
7. Job Descriptive Index (JDI).

 Single Global Rating

The single, global rating method is nothing more than asking

individuals to respond to one question such as; all things considered,
how satisfied are you with your job?

 Summation Score

It identifies key elements in a job and asks for the employee’s feelings
about each.
Typical factors that would be included are the nature of the work,
supervision, present pay, promotion opportunities, and relation with
co-workers.

Besides this, in summation score, many researchers used To many

ways of measuring job satisfaction;

 Job Descriptive Index (JDI)

In 1969, this was originally developed by Smith, Kendall, and Hulin.

72 items in this index assess five facets of job satisfaction which
include: work, pay, promotions, supervision, and coworkers.

Through the combination of ratings of satisfaction with the faces, a

composite measure of job satisfaction is determined.

 Global Job Satisfaction

In 1979, Warr, Cook, and Wall developed this measure which includes
15 items to determine overall job satisfaction.

Two subscales are used for extrinsic and intrinsic aspects of the job.
The extrinsic section has eight items and the intrinsic has seven items

 Job Satisfaction Relative to Expectations

Bacharach, Bamberger, and Conley developed this measure. It

assesses the degree of agreement between the perceived quality of
broad aspects of a job and employee expectations.

It is most effective to determine how job stresses role conflicts, or role

ambiguities can hinder an employee from meeting job expectations.

 Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire

The long-form of this survey is made up of 100 questions based on 20

subscales which measure satisfaction with ability, utilization,
achievement, activity, advancement, authority, company policies and
practices, compensation, co-workers, creativity, independence, moral
values, recognition, responsibility, security, social service, social
status, supervision human relations, supervision-technical variety,
and working conditions.

 Job Satisfaction Survey

This was developed by Spector and contains 36 items based on nine
job facets. The job facets include pay, promotion, supervision,
benefits, contingent rewards operating procedures, co-workers, nature
of work and communication.

When it was initially developed, it was specific to job satisfaction in

human service, nonprofit and public organizations.

 Job Satisfaction Index

Schriescheim and Tsue developed this measure. It consists of six

items that form an index that determines overall job satisfaction. The
items are work, supervision, co-workers, pay, promotion
opportunities, and the job in general.

 Job Diagnostic Survey

Hackman and Oldham developed this survey which measures both

overall and specific facets of job satisfaction.

There are three dimensions of overall job satisfaction which include

general satisfaction, internal work motivation, and growth
satisfaction, which are combined into a single measure.

The facets which are measured on the survey include security,

compensation, co-workers, and supervision.

CONCLUSION

Before measuring the job satisfaction of the employees, managers

should get information about the daily contacts and existing data
related to the employee.

Managers should have contact with their employees through constant

interaction and communication.

Generally, there are many indicators already available in the

organization and their collection in the form of reports indicates
the degree of employee satisfaction or dissatisfaction.