Discuss the Proposition That Managers Should Do Everything They Can to Enhance the Job Satisfaction of Their Employees.

Introduction

The notion that employee job satisfaction should be a top priority for managers has been one of much debate. Although managers have many roles in organizations, their most important purpose is to manage their organizations in a way that can maximize profits. Thus, investing time, effort and money in ensuring that employees are satisfied in only worthwhile if it results in higher productivity and profitability for the firm.

Early theorist analyzed that increased profitability should increase with an increase in job satisfaction while later studies emerged to refute the existence of any significant relationship between the two variables. However, various literatures has more recently emerged drawing attention to the appropriate level of analysis that should be undertaken when examining this relationship.

There are many different variations of definitions for job satisfaction, but for the purposes of this topic, the following definition would be more appropriate: "Job satisfaction can be regarded as an evaluation of equitableness of treatments and conditions" (Organ, D.W. 1988).

Job satisfaction analysis

There are two schools of thought on the existence and causes of satisfaction. The first theory states that satisfaction is a fairly stable characteristic in individuals and the second theory states the cause of satisfaction is more situational and indicates that "the climate of the organization, job characteristics, and participation in decision making"(Organ, D.W. 1988) are some of the factors that influence satisfaction in employees. Thus, managers who subscribe to the job satisfaction - performance model (1st theory) can try to enhance workplace performance either through the recruitment of individuals with a predisposition to being satisfied, or alternatively can attempt to create a work environment that facilitate satisfaction though the existence of equal treatment and conditions. Visit coursework bf in bf fo bf for bf more coursework bf Do bf not bf redistribute

Early theorists such as Likert, Mayo, and McGregor theorized that employee satisfaction is related to organizational performance. The common sense logic of this relationship can be explained by viewing the job satisfaction - performance relationship as "a social exchange in which employees that are accorded some manner of social gift would experience satisfaction and feel an obligation to reciprocate perhaps in the form of increased productivity"(Organ). On the flip side of this relationship, it is predicted that dissatisfied workers would be less willing than satisfied workers to give their service whole heartedly to their organization and produce up to their maximum potential, but instead have a tendency work at a minimum acceptable level.

Over the last 40 or so years however, the job satisfaction - performance relationship has come under attack due to its failure to produce strong and unambiguous results in favor of any appreciable relationship between high productivity and job satisfaction.

The conflict arises due to the fact that there is no agree upon definition for productivity. Whereas critics use the traditional definition of productivity, supporters of the performance-job satisfaction model encompass citizen behavior in the definition of performance which also denotes "helpful, constructive gestures exhibited by organizational members and valued or appreciated by officials, but not related directly to individual productivity nor inhering in the enforceable requirements of the individual's role" (Bateman and Organ (1983).

By using citizenship as a measure of performance, various researches have provided significant support for the notion that job satisfaction is related to job performance.

Job satisfaction results in increased commitment, which has positive associations with absenteeism, turnover, job performance, and organizational citizenship behaviour. Commitment has favourable effects on decreasing turnover. This can help improve an organizations performance because the organization can save resources on recruiting to fill vacant positions, while simultaneously allowing them to get more from their investments in training of their current workforce.

However, it should also be noted that not all turnover is bad for performance, as it can also include "resignations from employees who perform poorly or are disruptive. (Hollenbeck and Williams, 1986)." In addition, commitment has also been found to have favourable effects on absenteeism.

Example: studies indicate that employees with strong affective commitment "were less likely than those with weak commitment to miss work for reasons that were under their own control." (Second, Hackett, Bycio, and Hausdorf 1994)