Productivity of the Worker and Job Satisfaction of the Employee

Job satisfaction is a sense of satisfaction an individual has on the work itself, which inevitably develops as a driving force to work. It is not concerned with self contentment or happiness but only with the pleasure or enjoyment of the job itself. This term refers to the affinity between the employee and the employer who pays him. It does not require motivation as it is a motivation itself. Research workers describe and illustrate important factors which play an important role in job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction.

Hoppock (1935) defined job satisfaction as ‘any combination of psychological, Physiological and environmental circumstances that causes a person truthfully to say: ‘I Am satisfied with my job.’ Smith Kendall and Hulin state that there are basically five main factors which indicate the most vital features of an employment about which individuals have affective reaction to. They include the task or job itself, the employee witnesses interesting challenges/opportunities for is enrichment and to accept responsibility. The second factor is pay, the amount of money the individual receives and the extent to which it is accepted as equitable, when compared to others in the same organization. Then comes in promotion opportunities, the individuals looks as this as a possibility for progression in the hierarchy pyramid. The fourth factor is Supervision, satisfaction reflects on how the employee feels about his employer including the fact if the boss is nice, competent, good communicator, cooperative and technically capable e.t.c. . Co-workers are a factor here too, the extent to which fellow employees are socially supportive. On the other hand, a complete approach requires that many extra factors be included before a complete understanding of job satisfaction can be obtained. Such factors are health, recreational, desire, temperament, social status, family relations, levels of aspiration inevitably lead to job satisfaction. There are two different views points about the relation between productivity of the worker and job satisfaction of the employee.

The first one describes that a happy employee is also a productive worker and the other point of view is that a happy employee is not automatically a productive worker. Basically the first point of view promotes a direct cause and effect relationship sandwiched between job satisfaction and efficiency, when an employee’s job satisfaction increases, so does his productivity and when his satisfaction drops down so does his productivity level.

The basic idea behind this is that the happier an individual is the more effort he will put in for job performance. But this may not be true for all cases .e.g.: If an employee has low expectations from his job, he might be satisfied but hey may not put in a hundred percent in his efforts just because he has low expectations from his job. Thus this observation does not satisfy the relationship between productivity and job satisfaction. Now we move on to the second point of which, that a pleased employee is not predictably an efficient worker explains the relation between productivity and job satisfaction, there have been studies regarding this which also support this point of view.

The case we which i have presented can be explained in terms of the function of two elements which are effects of job performance on satisfaction of the worker and organisational expectations from employees for job performance. Keeping in mind that job performance ultimately leads to job satisfaction and by any means not vice-versa. For an employee there are rewards which he looks forward to , they can be regarded as intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. The intrinsic rewards are harvested from doing the task/job itself, the rewards have different forms, be it growth potential, challenging job, interesting task e.t.c. This type of satisfaction the employee receives may even help to increase productivity. The extrinsic factors are the rewards which the employee knew about or in other words what an individual knows that is coming his/her way, these include , salary ,bonuses, promotions, it can be something intangible too such as praise and public recognition . A happy worker may not and does not essentially put in to higher efficiency because he might be working under certain technological limitations, thus cannot go beyond a certain output of production .Furthermore ,these limits affects the supervisor’s/organisation’s expectations from the employee, in the shape of accepting the fact that this effort which the employee put in is viable and accepted among the organisation.

Therefore, the working scenario is ‘stuck’ to minimally agree to the level of efficiency and production. A satisfied employee might not lead to increased output but on the other hand a worker who is not satisfied defiantly leads to lower efficiency. Victor Vroom had a theory of his own, known as the “expectancy theory’. His theory stresses on the understanding of how and what the employee will predict what a specific action or change will do. He termed this as ‘valence’. Valence means the emotional orientations people hold within themselves in respect to outcomes (outcomes as in “end rewards’).This relies on extrinsic and intrinsic factors. Extrinsic donates to money , promotion , benefits and holidays/time off work while intrinsic means to accept/undertake a job or assignment and enjoying it while doing it( being totally satisfied and happy with what a worker is doing , while doing it) , while not really caring about the external benefits that might result. Vroom also talked about “expectancy’ , he stated that the employees have different levels of expectations and self confidence at what task they are performing and capable of doing, it’s the employee’s inner belief in him/herself.

Most importantly he talked about “instrumentality”, it’s the perception of the employees expecting their desires, will they get them or not , even if they have been promised by the organization. The key here is to ensure that the employees know that with harder ,better ,faster work there is definitely going to be a reward , and the rewards depends on the quality of the work ,meeting up with deadlines e.t.c.. In a nutshell Vroom believed that Motivation=Valance Expectancy. This formula can be helpful to predict job satisfaction, ability to grasp upcoming opportunities, continuing the job and the effort one might put in. Vroom always wanted to build such a motivational force that the employees would be happy and satisfied and avoid unnecessary distress. Hertzberg set an example in his two factor theory, where research was done in a factory .He developed two categories, Hygiene factors which included salary, fringe benefits, security and supervision. These were the elements to prevent dissatisfaction, though dissatisfaction results from their absence.

The other category was motivators which included recognition, responsibility, challenging work, advancement e.t.c. If we look at it at a grass root level we can surely distinguish that the “hygiene” factors are the most crucial but when the both factors are combined, this will do wonders for the business and is the best way to satisfy the employees. McGregor made a set of negative assumptions of the human nature which he named as Theory X , he depicted that these were the reasons why there is a limit on the potential growth of many employees. McGregor then presented an alternate set of assumptions which he called the Theory Y , which indicated the positive assumptions about the human nature as it related to the employees. In a nutshell Theory Y was widely read, implicated and adopted as management who adopted Theory Y would witness different, more humanistic and inevitably more effective management styles. Theory X depicts that all employees are inherently lazy and will try to avoid as much as work as they can , thus , they need to be closely monitored and supervised in order to get the job done .According to theory X , the employees will show minimum ambition without an enticing incentive program .Now according to Theory X , all employees are just there for the money and nothing else and they ultimately don’t care what happens to the organization , it’s not their headache ,and the organization has to approach employees with a authoritarian style based on threat of punishment ,which could include pay cuts, demotion , public harassment or in some cases even getting fired.

Theory Y explains how organizations understand and believe that the employees are ambitious, self motivated and anxious (like all humans are in fact!) to accept a bigger challenge and/or a greater responsibility . He stated that employees wanted empowerment , exercise self-control and be in control of the situation rather than a puppet on a stick .He believed that employees enjoyed their mental and physical work duties and when given the chance employees do have the desire to be creative , have forward thinking and the ability to think out of the box. Given the right conditions employees will actually want to do well at work and that the satisfaction of doing a good job is a strong motivation. In 1970s-1980s many US industries lost their marker share to international competitors ,particularly Japanese companies, these concerns led to examine the Japanese management practices for any kind of clues and details on how they managed their success , it was in this atmosphere that the Theory Z was introduced .William Ouchi identified the Theory Z as a management approach. He claimed that the Theory Z management style management could result to better employee job satisfaction, higher quality of products , lower rate of absenteeism and higher overall turnover and financial performance. Theory Z is kind of like a hybrid approach to management it combines the U.S culture with the Japanese management philosophies. It also breaks away from the Theory Y, as Theory Y is focused on the employee-employer relations while Theory Z changes the key analysis to the whole organisation. According to Ouchi theory Z focused on cultural values which included beliefs, objectives and homogeneity of values e.t.c. at the same time theory Z also holds bureaucratic hierarchies, such as work specialization, performance evaluation and formal authority relations.

Theory Z focused on long term employment, which results in the management making ‘life-long’ commitments to their workers and expect loyalty from their employees in return, but obviously the management sets certain conditions to promote and encourage this. This results in stability in the organisation and job security amongst the workers. The organisation which opted for Theory Z emphasize on collaboration , consensus in decision making and most importantly communication ,which also promotes individual decision making of an employee. Management will also adapt to slow promotion and evaluation, rather than rapid promotion of high achievers due to the fact some excellent employees might be slow learners or maybe the high achiever is a job-hopper, so they take their time with evaluating /promoting individuals. Even though there has been some heavy criticism about Theory Z ,some studies show that organizations running with theory Z mind set have better employee satisfaction , commitment ,motivation and also in terms of financial performance ,but at the same time others claim theory Z does not outperform other organisations. To wrap it up human relations is an important tool for a company which can make or break their employees depending on how the employees are dealt with.

One set of rules for the management does not imply for every type of organization who wants committed and satisfied employees. One of the main factor here is at times money is and sometimes money is not the main element which completely satisfy the employees .Would a blue-collar employee and a white collar employee have the same set of elements in their ‘i-need-this-and-that’ box ? One would desire two days off on the week end while the other might desire a new uniform or a better pay or even want to have more opportunities to work overtime in order to make more money .It’s funny how one’s satisfaction lies in having to work less and one extra holiday which he can spend with his family and friends while the other’s satisfaction lies in working more and earning more .Different jobs, different perspective ,different roles in the organizations ,different wants and needs .Its only to the organization to decide which department/group/sector of employees need what kind of need/facilities in order to be satisfied with their jobs .These are just a few examples , the real success is in having you employees satisfied ,motivated and productive.

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