Employees beliefs in the degree to which they influence

Chapter-3

Learning Objectives

After studying this chapter, you should be able to:

1. 1 Contrast the three components of an attitude.

2. 2 Summarize the relationship between attitudes and behavior.

3. 3 Compare and contrast the major job attitudes.

4. 4 Define job satisfaction and show how we can measure it.

5. 5 Summarize the main causes of job satisfaction.

6. 6 Identify four employee responses to dissatisfaction.

MICRO-ENTREPRENEURS

There are full-time workers, part-timers, contract workers, and now, in the newly minted “distributed workforce,” there’s the person you hired solely to race your contract to a client. Meet the “micro-entrepreneurs,” individuals employed so briefly, and so anonymously, that you may never meet them. How can this happen?

Micro-entrepreneurs use apps they load onto their personal phones (with location capabilities) to view potential jobs and click on the ones they want. Once selected, often based on proximity to the job, they complete their task, and their temporary employers send the agency an electronic payment (plus a 20 percent service fee) with an evaluation of the work done. Originally, these jobs were mainly of the errand and fix-it variety, but intellectual work opportunities are opening up because the business model has potential.

Is the effort worth it?

It depends on whom you ask. According to Brad Stone of Bloomberg Businessweek, who spent three days as a micro-entrepreneur with almost a dozen employers, not really. “My three-day haul won’t feed my family,” he observed in counting his roughly $67/day earnings through TaskRabbit, Postmates, and Cherry. Rob Coneybeer, managing director of Shasta Ventures, which invests in distributed workforce sites, disagrees. He says these sites are trying to establish a market “where people end up getting paid more per hour than they would have otherwise and find it easier to do jobs they are good at.” TaskRabbit founder Leah Busque says thousands of people make up to $60,000 per year through her site, though bloggers report that winning bids to work isn’t always easy. Venture capitalists have invested $38 million in TaskRabbit alone, however, and millions more at similar sites. And according to Google’s chief economist Hal Varian, “Improving the efficiency of finding jobs is a really big deal, even if it’s sporadic work.”

App-based micro work is not limited to the United States. Blogger James McAloon commented, “The local task culture is spreading. I have helped launch Servango in the U.K. and it is proving very popular. People are able to find tasks to complete which are from a variety of sectors. Not to mention we help people advertise their services and skills to the people around them so there is always a great local option. It is about making the local service and talent sharing environment more efficient.”

It remains to be seen whether micro-entrepreneurship is a viable long-term business model or just a backup employment plan during lean economic years. The answer may lie in the attitudes and level of job satisfaction for these workers. Many are happy with the opportunity to work in their desired fields. Blogger Meghan says, “Sure, the tasks are not the most exciting and some task posters do try to mislead you,” she wrote, “but overall my experience as a TaskRabbit has taught me a lot about communication, respect, and hard work. This kind of life might not be glamorous, but I can look back on my work week and feel proud that I found a way to make ends meet. . . . I just hope it’s not forever!”

Sources: Postmates company website, www.postmates.com; K. Ryssdal, “Unemployed or Underemployed? There’s an App for That,” Marketplace Tech (September 12, 2012), www.marketplace.org/; B. Stone, “My Life as a Task Rabbit,” Bloomberg Businessweek (September 13, 2012), www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-09-13/my-life-as-a-taskrabbit#p1; TaskRabbit company website, www.taskrabbit.com; Servango company website, www.servango.com; and WeGoLook company website, www.WeGoLook.com.

As you can see from the opening example, sometimes attitude is everything when it comes to making the most of unique job opportunities such as those that micro-entrepreneurial work apps provide. In this chapter, we look at attitudes, their link to behavior, and how employees’ satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their jobs affects the workplace.

What are your attitudes toward your job? Use the following Self-Assessment Library to determine your level of satisfaction with your current or past jobs.

What Are the Main Components of Attitudes?

Typically, researchers have assumed that attitudes have three components: cognition, affect, and behavior. 1 Let’s look at each.

The statement “My pay is low” is the cognitive component of an attitude—a description of or belief in the way things are. It sets the stage for the more critical part of an attitude—its affective component . Affect is the emotional or feeling segment of an attitude and is reflected in the statement “I am angry over how little I’m paid.” Finally, affect can lead to behavioral outcomes. The behavioral component of an attitude describes an intention to behave in a certain way toward someone or something—to continue the example, “I’m going to look for another job that pays better.”

cognitive component

The opinion or belief segment of an attitude.

affective component

The emotional or feeling segment of an attitude.

behavioral component

An intention to behave in a certain way toward someone or something.

Viewing attitudes as having three components—cognition, affect, and behavior—is helpful in understanding their complexity and the potential relationship between attitudes and behavior. Keep in mind that these components are closely related, and cognition and affect in particular are inseparable in many ways. For example, imagine you realized that someone has just treated you unfairly. Aren’t you likely to have feelings about that, occurring virtually instantaneously with the realization? Thus, cognition and affect are intertwined.

Exhibit 3-1 illustrates how the three components of an attitude are related. In this example, an employee didn’t get a promotion he thought he deserved; a co-worker got it instead. The employee’s attitude toward his supervisor is illustrated as follows: The employee thought he deserved the promotion (cognition), he strongly dislikes his supervisor (affect), and he has complained and taken action (behavior). As we’ve noted, although we often think cognition causes affect, which then causes behavior, in reality these components are difficult to separate.

Exhibit 3-1

In organizations, attitudes are important for their behavioral component. If workers believe, for example, that supervisors, auditors, bosses, and time-and-motion engineers are all in conspiracy to make employees work harder for the same or less money, it makes sense to try to understand how these attitudes formed, how they relate to actual job behavior, and how they might be changed.

Does Behavior Always Follow from Attitudes?

2

Summarize the relationship between attitudes and behavior.

Early research on attitudes assumed they were causally related to behavior—that is, the attitudes people hold determine what they do. Common sense, too, suggests a relationship. Isn’t it logical that people watch television programs they like, or that employees try to avoid assignments they find distasteful?

However, in the late 1960s, a review of the research challenged this assumed effect of attitudes on behavior. 2 One researcher—Leon Festinger—argued that attitudes follow behavior. Did you ever notice how people change what they say so it doesn’t contradict what they do? Perhaps a friend of yours consistently argued that the quality of U.S. cars isn’t up to that of imports until his dad gave him a new car made in the United States, and then he argued that U.S. cars have always been just as good. Festinger proposed that cases of attitude following behavior illustrate the effects of cognitive dissonance , 3 any incompatibility an individual might perceive between two or more attitudes or between behavior and attitudes. Festinger argued that any form of inconsistency is uncomfortable and that individuals will therefore attempt to reduce it. They will seek a stable state, which is a minimum of dissonance. Research has generally concluded that people do seek consistency among their attitudes and between their attitudes and their behavior. 4 They either alter the attitudes or the behavior, or they develop a rationalization for the discrepancy. A recent study found, for instance, that the attitudes of employees who had experienced difficult, emotionally challenging work events improved after they talked about their experiences with co-workers. Social sharing helped these workers adjust their attitudes to behavioral expectations. 5

cognitive dissonance

Any incompatibility between two or more attitudes or between behavior and attitudes.

No individual, of course, can completely avoid dissonance. You know cheating on your income tax is wrong, but you fudge the numbers a bit every year and hope you’re not audited. Or you tell your children to floss their teeth, but you don’t do it yourself. Festinger proposed that the desire to reduce dissonance depends on three factors, including the importance of the elements creating it and the degree of influence we believe we have over them. Individuals will be more motivated to reduce dissonance when the attitudes are important or when they believe the dissonance is due to something they can control. The third factor is the rewards of dissonance; high rewards accompanying high dissonance tend to reduce the tension inherent in the dissonance (the dissonance is less distressing if accompanied by something good, such as a higher pay raise than expected).

Photo 3-1Westin Hotels strives for consistency between employee attitudes and behavior through a global wellness program to help employees improve their health. Shown here is Westin’s Executive Chef Frank Tujague, whose cooking demonstrations give employees direct experience with healthy ingredients and cooking techniques. 

Source: Diane Bondareff/Associated Press.

Although Festinger argued that attitudes follow behavior, other researchers asked whether there was any relationship at all. More recent research shows that attitudes predict future behavior and confirmed Festinger’s idea that “moderating variables” can strengthen the link. 6

Moderating Variables

The most powerful moderators of the attitudes relationship are the importance of the attitude, its correspondence to behavior, its accessibility, the presence of social pressures, and whether a person has direct experience with the attitude. 7

Important attitudes reflect our fundamental values, self-interest, or identification with individuals or groups we value. These attitudes tend to show a strong relationship to our behavior.

Specific attitudes tend to predict specific behaviors, whereas general attitudes tend to best predict general behaviors. For instance, asking someone about her intention to stay with an organization for the next six months is likely to better predict turnover for that person than asking her how satisfied she is with her job overall. On the other hand, overall job satisfaction would better predict a general behavior, such as whether the individual was engaged in her work or motivated to contribute to her organization. 8

Attitudes that our memories can easily access are more likely to predict our behavior. Interestingly, you’re more likely to remember attitudes you frequently express. So the more you talk about your attitude on a subject, the more likely you are to remember it, and the more likely it is to shape your behavior. Discrepancies between attitudes and behaviors tend to occur when social pressures to behave in certain ways hold exceptional power, as in most organizations. Finally, the attitude–behavior relationship is likely to be much stronger if an attitude refers to something with which we have direct personal experience.

An Ethical Choice Are Employers Responsible for Workplace Incivilities?

Workplace incivility is sadly commonplace. Research suggests that 86 percent of U.S. employees experience some form of incivility yearly, ranging from a boss who unleashes a string of expletives to a co-worker who scrawls threatening messages in the break room.

Few employees bring such incidents to their human resources departments, though stress can increase their number and incivility can even lead to violence. When people do complain, some employers do nothing, as at Emerson Electric when CEO David Farr’s habitual swearing went unchecked and even his apology was vulgar. Other responses can be limited by applicable law. When female co-workers complained that public notes written by truck driver Kevin Grosso were vulgar, offensive, and threatening, he was dismissed, but later the National Labor Review Board determined the termination was unlawful.

In Europe, bullying claims “seek to redress what are deemed attacks on the dignity of workers and degradation of employees as people,” says attorney Roselyn Sands. Perhaps all countries need tighter guidelines for workplace incivilities, but ethical questions will always remain at the individual and organizational level. And it is true, of course, that a person can be perhaps wrongly accused of incivility for simply expressing disagreement or engaging in a mundane conflict. Each individual must determine the right response to a perceived offense and consider the organizational culture before deciding whether to report the problem. A culture tolerant of workplace incivility may lead a perpetrator to counterproductive work behaviors or violence. An overly vigilant culture will suppress the free expression of ideas and willingness to disagree. The balance lies in between.

The organization that promotes a culture of civility will hear from its employees and react before the situation escalates. The ethical choice for employers is to create a code of conduct fostering respect for employees, recruit on personality traits, test for conflict management styles, initiate role modeling, and train leaders in workplace civility. Organizations need to decide what is uncivil in advance of, rather in reaction to, such episodes.

What Are the Major Job Attitudes?

3

Compare and contrast the major job attitudes.

We each have thousands of attitudes, but OB focuses our attention on a very limited number of work-related attitudes. These tap positive or negative evaluations that employees hold about aspects of their work environments. Most of the research in OB has looked at three attitudes: job satisfaction, job involvement, and organizational commitment. 9 A few other important attitudes are perceived organizational support and employee engagement; we’ll also briefly discuss these.

Job Satisfaction

When people speak of employee attitudes, they usually mean job satisfaction , which describes a positive feeling about a job, resulting from an evaluation of its characteristics. A person with a high level of job satisfaction holds positive feelings about his or her job, while a person with a low level holds negative feelings. Because OB researchers give job satisfaction high importance, we’ll review this attitude in detail later in the chapter.

job satisfaction

A positive feeling about one’s job resulting from an evaluation of its characteristics.

Job Involvement

Related to job satisfaction is job involvement , 10 which measures the degree to which people identify psychologically with their jobs and consider their perceived performance levels important to self-worth. 11 Employees with a high level of job involvement strongly identify with and really care about the kind of work they do. Another closely related concept is psychological empowerment , employees’ beliefs in the degree to which they influence their work environment, their competencies, the meaningfulness of their job, and their perceived autonomy. 12 One study of nursing managers in Singapore found that good leaders empower their employees by fostering their self-perception of competence—through involving them in decisions, making them feel their work is important, and giving them discretion to “do their own thing.” 13 Another study found, however, that for teachers in India, the self-perception of competence does not affect innovative behavior, which would be a desired outcome. This research suggests that empowerment initiatives need to be tailored to the culture and desired behavioral outcomes. 14

job involvement

The degree to which a person identifies with a job, actively participates in it, and considers performance important to self-worth.

psychological empowerment

Employees’ belief in the degree to which they affect their work environment, their competence, the meaningfulness of their job, and their perceived autonomy in their work.

High levels of both job involvement and psychological empowerment are positively related to organizational citizenship (known as OCB, this is discretionary behavior that is not part of an employee’s formal job requirements but contributes to the psychological and social environment of the workplace) and job performance. 15

Organizational Commitment

In organizational commitment , an employee identifies with a particular organization and its goals and wishes to remain a member. Most research has focused on emotional attachment to an organization and belief in its values as the “gold standard” for employee commitment. 16

organizational commitment

The degree to which an employee identifies with a particular organization and its goals and wishes to maintain membership in the organization.

A positive relationship appears to exist between organizational commitment and job productivity, but it is a modest one. 17 A review of 27 studies suggested the relationship between commitment and performance is strongest for new employees and considerably weaker for more experienced employees. 18 Interestingly, research indicates that employees who feel their employers fail to keep promises to them feel less committed, and these reductions in commitment, in turn, lead to lower levels of creative performance. 19 And, as with job involvement, the research evidence demonstrates negative relationships between organizational commitment and both absenteeism and turnover. 20

Theoretical models propose that employees who are committed will be less likely to engage in work withdrawal even if they are dissatisfied because they have a sense of organizational loyalty or attachment. On the other hand, employees who are not committed, who feel less loyal to the organization, will tend to show lower levels of attendance at work across the board. Research confirms this theoretical proposition. 21 It does appear that even if employees are not currently happy with their work, they are willing to make sacrifices for the organization if they are committed enough.

glOBalization! Exodus Phenomenon

The recent Kelly Global Workforce report on 170,000 employees in 30 countries paints a picture of dissatisfied employees everywhere, with two-thirds expressing the intention to leave their companies for other organizations and more than one-third entertaining the idea of quitting. But a closer look at variations from country to country is surprising. In Brazil and Mexico, for instance, 56 percent of respondents to a Mercer survey of 30,000 employees at different companies reported seriously considering leaving their organizations, versus just 28 percent in the Netherlands. The United States was somewhat in between, at 32 percent.

If U.S. statistics are indicative, almost a quarter of high-potential employees are taking the next step and actually looking for new jobs, a significant increase over the 13 percent who did so in 2005. Even more distressing, employers are not likely to get an opportunity to address employees’ concerns: more than one-third of the individuals contemplating quitting report they are not likely to tell their employers they are thinking of leaving. For many reasons, especially lack of job engagement, these individuals are likely to contribute to an upward trend in expensive organizational turnover.

Perhaps the most disturbing statistic from an organizational behavior perspective is the one-quarter of workers in each country who don’t plan to quit but who are more negative about their work than the potential quit group. As Pete Foley, a principal at Mercer, says, this “signals to us we have a fairly big group . . . of apathetic, disaffected, [mentally] checked-out employees.” It is the express role of organizational behavior experts to determine what companies can do to alleviate this problem. This chapter offers some suggestions

Perceived Organizational Support

Perceived organizational support (POS) is the degree to which employees believe the organization values their contributions and cares about their well-being. An excellent example has been related often by R&D engineer John Greene. When Greene was diagnosed with leukemia, CEO Marc Benioff and 350 fellow Salesforce.com employees covered all out-of-pocket costs for his care, staying in touch with him throughout his recovery. No doubt stories like this are part of the reason Salesforce.com is on Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For list. 22 Research shows that people perceive their organization as supportive when rewards are deemed fair, when employees have a voice in decisions, and when they see their supervisors as supportive. 23 Employees with strong POS perceptions have been found more likely to have higher levels of organizational citizenship behaviors, lower levels of tardiness, and better customer service. 24 This seems to hold true mainly in countries where the power distance, the degree to which people in a country accept that power in institutions and organizations is distributed unequally, is lower. In these countries, like the United States, people are more likely to view work as an exchange than as a moral obligation. This isn’t to say POS can’t be a predictor anywhere on a situation-specific basis. Though little cross-cultural research has been done, one study found POS predicted only the job performance and citizenship behaviors of untraditional or low power-distance Chinese employees—in short, those more likely to think of work as an exchange rather than a moral obligation. 25

 perceived organizational support (POS)

The degree to which employees believe an organization values their contribution and cares about their well-being.

Photo 3-2Employees waving to guests at Hong Kong Disneyland are committed to the company and its goal of giving visitors a magical and memorable experience. Through careful hiring and extensive training, Disney ensures that employees identify with its priority of pleasing customers by serving them as special guests. 

Source: AP Photo/Hong Kong Disneyland, Matt Stroshane, HO.

Employee Engagement

A new concept is employee engagement , an individual’s involvement with, satisfaction with, and enthusiasm for, the work he or she does. To evaluate this, we might ask employees whether they have access to resources and the opportunities to learn new skills, whether they feel their work is important and meaningful, and whether their interactions with co-workers and supervisors are rewarding. 26 Highly engaged employees have a passion for their work and feel a deep connection to their company; disengaged employees have essentially checked out—putting time but not energy or attention into their work. Engagement becomes a real concern for most organizations because surveys indicate that few employees—between 17 percent and 29 percent—are highly engaged by their work. A study of nearly 8,000 business units in 36 companies found that those whose employees reported high-average levels of engagement produced higher levels of customer satisfaction, were more productive, brought in higher profits, and experienced lower levels of turnover and accidents than at other companies. 27 Molson Coors, for example, found engaged employees were five times less likely to have safety incidents, and when one did occur it was much less serious and less costly for the engaged employee than for a disengaged one ($63 per incident versus $392). Caterpillar set out to increase employee engagement and recorded a resulting 80 percent drop in grievances and a 34 percent increase in highly satisfied customers. 28

employee engagement

An individual’s involvement with, satisfaction with, and enthusiasm for the work he or she does.

Such promising findings have earned employee engagement a following in many business organizations and management consulting firms. However, the concept is relatively new and still generates active debate about its usefulness. Part of the reason for this is the difficulty of identifying what creates job engagement. For instance, the top two reasons for job engagement that participants gave in a recent study were (1) having a good manager they enjoy working for and (2) feeling appreciated by their supervisor. Because both factors relate to a good manager–employee relationship, it would be easy to conclude that “the people make the place” and that this proves the case for job engagement. Yet, in this same study, individuals ranked “liking and respecting my co-workers” lower on the list, below career advancement concerns. 29

One review of the job engagement literature concluded, “The meaning of employee engagement is ambiguous among both academic researchers and among practitioners who use it in conversations with clients.” Another reviewer called engagement “an umbrella term for whatever one wants it to be.” 30 More recent research has set out to clarify the dimensions of employee engagement. For instance, a study in Australia found that emotional intelligence is linked to job satisfaction and well-being, and to employee engagement. 31 Another recent study suggested that engagement fluctuates partially due to daily challenge-seeking and demands. 32 This work has demonstrated that engagement is distinct from job satisfaction and job involvement and incrementally predicts job behaviors after we take these traditional job attitudes into account.

Am I Engaged?

In the Self-Assessment Library (available in MyManagementLab), take assessment IV.B.1 (Am I Engaged?). (Note: If you do not currently have a job, answer the questions for your most recent job.)

Are These Job Attitudes Really All That Distinct?

You might wonder whether the preceding job attitudes are really distinct. If people feel deeply engaged by their job (high job involvement), isn’t it probable they like it, too (high job satisfaction)? Won’t people who think their organization is supportive (high perceived organizational support) also feel committed to it (strong organizational commitment)? Evidence suggests these attitudes are highly related, perhaps to a troubling degree.

There is some distinctiveness among attitudes, but they overlap greatly for various reasons, including the employee’s personality. If you as a manager know someone’s level of job satisfaction, you know most of what you need to know about how that person sees the organization. Recent research suggests that managers tend to identify their employees as belonging to one of four distinct categories: enthusiastic stayers, reluctant stayers, enthusiastic leavers (planning to leave), and reluctant leavers (not planning to leave but should leave). 33

Job Satisfaction

4

Define job satisfaction and show how we can measure it.

We have already discussed job satisfaction briefly. Now let’s dissect the concept more carefully. How do we measure job satisfaction? What causes an employee to have a high level of job satisfaction? How do dissatisfied and satisfied employees affect an organization? Before you answer, a look at the list of worst jobs ( Exhibit 3-2 ) may give you some indications.

Measuring Job Satisfaction

Our definition of job satisfaction—a positive feeling about a job resulting from an evaluation of its characteristics—is clearly broad. Yet that breadth is appropriate. A job is more than just shuffling papers, writing programming code, waiting on customers, or driving a truck. Jobs require interacting with co-workers and bosses, following organizational rules and policies, meeting performance standards, living with less than ideal working conditions, and the like. 34 An employee’s assessment of his satisfaction with the job is thus a complex summation of many discrete elements. How, then, do we measure it?

Two approaches are popular. The single global rating is a response to one question, such as “All things considered, how satisfied are you with your job?” Respondents circle a number between 1 and 5 on a scale from “highly satisfied” to “highly dissatisfied.” The second method, the summation of job facets, is more sophisticated. It identifies key elements in a job such as the nature of the work, supervision, present pay, promotion opportunities, and relationships with co-workers. 35 Respondents rate these on a standardized scale, and researchers add the ratings to create an overall job satisfaction score.

Exhibit 3-2

Worst Jobs of 2013 for Job Satisfaction*

Is one of these approaches superior? Intuitively, summing up responses to a number of job factors seems likely to achieve a more accurate evaluation of job satisfaction. Research, however, doesn’t support the intuition. 36 This is one of those rare instances in which simplicity seems to work as well as complexity, making one method essentially as valid as the other. The best explanation is that the concept of job satisfaction is so broad a single question captures its essence. The summation of job facets may also leave out some important data. Both methods are helpful. The single global rating method isn’t very time consuming, thus freeing time for other tasks, and the summation of job facets helps managers zero in on problems and deal with them faster and more accurately.

How Satisfied Are People in Their Jobs?

Are most people satisfied with their jobs? The answer seems to be a qualified “yes” in the United States and most other developed countries. Independent studies conducted among U.S. workers over the past 30 years generally indicate more workers are satisfied with their jobs than not. Thus it shouldn’t surprise you that recent research found that average job satisfaction levels were consistently high from 1972 to 2006. 37 But a caution is in order. Recent data show a dramatic drop-off in average job satisfaction levels during the economic contraction that started in late 2007, so much so that only about half of workers report being satisfied with their jobs now. 38

Research also shows satisfaction levels vary a lot, depending on which facet of job satisfaction you’re talking about. As shown in Exhibit 3-3 , people have typically been more satisfied with their jobs overall, with the work itself, and with their supervisors and co-workers than they have been with their pay and with promotion opportunities. It’s not really clear why people dislike their pay and promotion possibilities more than other aspects of their jobs. 39

Exhibit 3-3

Average Job Satisfaction Levels by Facet

Although job satisfaction appears relevant across cultures, that doesn’t mean there are no cultural differences in job satisfaction. Evidence suggests employees in Western cultures have higher levels of job satisfaction than those in Eastern cultures. 40 Exhibit 3-4 provides the results of a global study of job satisfaction levels of workers in 15 countries. As the exhibit shows, the highest levels appear in Mexico and Switzerland. Do employees in these cultures have better jobs? Or are they simply more positive (and less self-critical)? Conversely, the lowest score in the study was for South Korea. There is a lack of autonomy in the South Korean culture and businesses tend to be rigidly hierarchical in structure. Does this make for low job satisfaction? 41 It is difficult to discern all of the factors in the scores, but considering if and how businesses are responding to changes brought on by globalization may give us clues. The South Korean culture, for instance, is in the midst of a clash between traditional and contemporary influences. Businesses that adhere to Confucian values of respect for elders and authority by maintaining centralized decision-making cannot always compete well with the needed decentralized decision-making processes for globalization. 42 Another factor may be the amount of exposure the culture is getting to diverse ways of life. South Korea has the highest percentage of wireless internet broadband subscriptions of any country (100 percent, or 100 subscriptions per every 100 people), which indicates that people have access to worldwide contemporary business practices. South Korean employees may therefore know about autonomy, merit-based rewards, and benefits for workers in other countries that are unavailable to them. In contrast, Mexico, which has one of the highest job satisfaction scores, has the lowest percentage of internet subscriptions (7.7 percent). 43 The higher job satisfaction rate in Mexico could still indicate there are better jobs for their workers, or that employees are more satisfied in lesser jobs because there is not as much opportunity for exposure to outside contemporary influences. As you can see, higher job satisfaction may somewhat reflect employee acceptance of the culture’s business practices, whether the practices are traditional or cutting-edge contemporary. There are also many other potential contributing factors.

Exhibit 3-4

Average Levels of Employee Job Satisfaction by Country

Sources: Based on J. H. Westover, “The Impact of Comparative State-Directed Development on Working Conditions and Employee Satisfaction,” Journal of Management & Organization (July 2012), pp. 537 – 554 .

What Causes Job Satisfaction?

5

Summarize the main causes of job satisfaction.

Think about the best job you’ve ever had. What made it so? Chances are you liked the work you did and the people with whom you worked. Interesting jobs that provide training, variety, independence, and control satisfy most employees. 44 A recent European study indicated that job satisfaction is positively correlated with life satisfaction, in that your attitudes and experiences in life spill over into your job approaches and experiences. 45 Interdependence, feedback, social support, and interaction with co-workers outside the workplace are strongly related to job satisfaction, even after accounting for characteristics of the work itself. 46

You’ve probably noticed that pay comes up often when people discuss job satisfaction. For people who are poor or who live in poor countries, pay does correlate with job satisfaction and overall happiness. But once an individual reaches a level of comfortable living (in the United States, that occurs at about $40,000 a year, depending on the region and family size), the relationship between pay and job satisfaction virtually disappears. People who earn $80,000 are, on average, no happier with their jobs than those who earn closer to $40,000. Take a look at Exhibit 3-5 . It shows the relationship between the average pay for a job and the average level of job satisfaction. As you can see, there isn’t much of a relationship there. One researcher even found no significant difference when he compared the overall well-being of the richest people on the Forbes 400 list with that of Maasai herders in East Africa. 47

Exhibit 3-5

Relationship Between Average Pay in Job and Job Satisfaction of Employees in That Job

Source: T. A. Judge, R. F. Piccolo, N. P. Podsakoff, J. C. Shaw, and B. L. Rich, “Can Happiness Be ‘Earned’? The Relationship Between Pay and Job Satisfaction,” working paper, University of Florida, 2005.

Money does motivate people, as we will discover in Chapter 6 . But what motivates us is not necessarily the same as what makes us happy. A recent study found that people who work for companies with fewer than 100 employees, who supervise others, whose jobs include caregiving, who work in a skilled trade, and who aren’t in their 40s are more likely to be happy in their jobs. 48 Job satisfaction is not just about job conditions. Personality also plays a role. Research has shown that people who have positive core self-evaluations (CSEs) —who believe in their inner worth and basic competence—are more satisfied with their jobs than those with negative core self-evaluations.

core self-evaluations (CSEs)

Bottom-line conclusions individuals have about their capabilities, competence, and worth as a person.

The Impact of Satisfied and Dissatisfied Employees on the Workplace

6

Identify four employee responses to dissatisfaction.

What happens when employees like their jobs, and when they dislike their jobs? One theoretical model—the exit–voice–loyalty–neglect framework—is helpful in understanding the consequences of dissatisfaction. Exhibit 3-6 illustrates the framework’s four responses, which differ along two dimensions: constructive/destructive and active/passive. The responses are as follows:49

Exhibit 3-6

Responses to Dissatisfaction

· Exit. The exit response directs behavior toward leaving the organization, including looking for a new position as well as resigning. Researchers study individual terminations and collective turnover, the total loss to the organization of employee knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics. 50

· Voice. The voice response includes actively and constructively attempting to improve conditions, including suggesting improvements, discussing problems with superiors, and undertaking some forms of union activity.

· Loyalty. The loyalty response means passively but optimistically waiting for conditions to improve, including speaking up for the organization in the face of external criticism and trusting the organization and its management to “do the right thing.”

· Neglect. The neglect response passively allows conditions to worsen and includes chronic absenteeism or lateness, reduced effort, and increased error rate.

exit

Dissatisfaction expressed through behavior directed toward leaving the organization.

voice

Dissatisfaction expressed through active and constructive attempts to improve conditions.

loyalty

Dissatisfaction expressed by passively waiting for conditions to improve.

neglect

Dissatisfaction expressed through allowing conditions to worsen.

Exit and neglect behaviors encompass our performance variables—productivity, absenteeism, and turnover. But this model expands employee response to include voice and loyalty—constructive behaviors that allow individuals to tolerate unpleasant situations or revive satisfactory working conditions. It helps us understand situations, such as we sometimes find among unionized workers, for whom low job satisfaction is coupled with low turnover. 51 Union members often express dissatisfaction through the grievance procedure or formal contract negotiations. These voice mechanisms allow them to continue in their jobs while convincing themselves they are acting to improve the situation.

As helpful as this framework is, it’s quite general. We now discuss more specific outcomes of job satisfaction and dissatisfaction in the workplace.

Job Satisfaction and Job Performance

As several studies have concluded, happy workers are more likely to be productive workers. Some researchers used to believe the relationship between job satisfaction and job performance was a myth. But a review of 300 studies suggested the correlation is quite strong. 52 As we move from the individual to the organizational level, we also find support for the satisfaction–performance relationship. 53 When we gather satisfaction and productivity data for the organization as a whole, we find organizations with more satisfied employees tend to be more effective than organizations with fewer.

Myth or Science? “Happy Workers Means Happy Profits”

There are exceptions, of course, but this is basically true. A glance at the top 25 of Fortune’s Best Companies to Work For reveals a list of recognizable profit leaders: Google, SAS, Edward Jones, and REI, to name a few. However, all happiness is not created equal.

An employee who is happy because his dog just had puppies isn’t necessarily going to work harder that day, for instance. In the same way, some employer happiness-inducers seem unrelated to profit increases, such as Google’s bowling alley and Irish pub, Facebook’s free chocolate lunches, and Salesforce.com’s off-the-charts parties. Profit is not about the established benefits, either, though they’re important. Employees can appreciate Marriott’s hotel discounts, for example, and research indicates employees highly value paid time off, a defined-contribution retirement plan such as a 401(k), and lower health premiums. But many companies offer their employees these benefits and are nowhere near the Fortune 500.

It turns out that the value of happiness in the profit equation is in the level of employee engagement. As Julie Gebauer, a managing director for Towers Watson, says, “It’s not just about making them happy—that’s not a business issue. Engagement is.” Job engagement “represents employees’ commitment . . . and the level of discretionary effort they are willing to put forth at work,” writes Jack in the Box’s Senior VP Mark Blankenship. Happy employees with higher job engagement are willing to work hard, make customers happy, and stay with the company—three factors that affect the bottom line in a big way with productivity gains and reduced turnover costs. And many of the Best Companies to Work For report great stock performance. A recent review of 300 studies even revealed that turnover rates resulting from poor attitudes or low engagement led to poorer organizational performance.

So the moral of the story seems to be, treat others as we want to be treated. Pass the chocolate.

Job Satisfaction and OCB

It seems logical to assume job satisfaction should be a major determinant of an employee’s organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), discussed in Chapter 1 . 54 Satisfied employees would seem more likely to talk positively about the organization, help others, and go beyond the normal expectations in their job, perhaps because they want to reciprocate their positive experiences. Consistent with this thinking, evidence suggests job satisfaction is moderately correlated with OCB; people who are more satisfied with their jobs are more likely to engage in OCB. 55 Why? Fairness perceptions help explain the relationship. 56 Those who feel their co-workers support them are more likely to engage in helpful behaviors, whereas those who have antagonistic relationships with co-workers are less likely to do so. 57 Individuals with certain personality traits are also more satisfied with their work, which in turn leads them to engage in more OCBs. 58 Finally, research shows that when people are in a good mood, they are more likely to engage in OCBs. 59

Job Satisfaction and Customer Satisfaction

As we noted in Chapter 1 , employees in service jobs often interact with customers. Because service organization managers should be concerned with pleasing those customers, it is reasonable to ask, Is employee satisfaction related to positive customer outcomes? For frontline employees who have regular customer contact, the answer is “yes.” Satisfied employees increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. 60

A number of companies are acting on this evidence. The first core value of online retailer Zappos, “Deliver WOW through service,” seems fairly obvious, but the way in which Zappos does it is not. Employees are encouraged to “create fun and a little weirdness” and are given unusual discretion in making customers satisfied; they are encouraged to use their imaginations, like sending flowers to disgruntled customers. Zappos offers a $2,000 bribe to quit the company after training (to weed out the half-hearted). 61

Photo 3-3Employee engagement is high at Baptist Health of South Florida, where employees share a serious commitment to patient care and are passionate about the work they do. Looking at an EKG readout, hospital employees Yaima Millan and Marvin Rosete feel their work is meaningful and can make a difference in patients’ lives. 

Source: AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee.

Job Satisfaction and Absenteeism

We find a consistent negative relationship between satisfaction and absenteeism, but it is moderate to weak. 62 While it certainly makes sense that dissatisfied employees are more likely to miss work, other factors affect the relationship. Organizations that provide liberal sick leave benefits are encouraging all their employees—including those who are highly satisfied—to take days off. You can find work satisfying yet still want to enjoy a 3-day weekend if those days come free with no penalties. When numerous alternative jobs are available, dissatisfied employees have high absence rates, but when there are few they have the same (low) rate of absence as satisfied employees. 63

Job Satisfaction and Turnover

The relationship between job satisfaction and turnover is stronger than between satisfaction and absenteeism. 64 Recent research suggests that managers looking to determine who might be likely to leave should focus on employees’ job satisfaction levels over time, because levels do change. A pattern of lowered job satisfaction is a predictor of possible intent to leave. Job satisfaction has an environmental connection too. If the climate within an employee’s immediate workplace is one of low job satisfaction, there will be a “contagion effect.” This research suggests managers should consider the job satisfaction patterns of co-workers when assigning new workers to a new area for this reason. 65

The satisfaction–turnover relationship also is affected by alternative job prospects. If an employee is presented with an unsolicited job offer, job dissatisfaction is less predictive of turnover because the employee is more likely leaving in response to “pull” (the lure of the other job) than “push” (the unattractiveness of the current job). Similarly, job dissatisfaction is more likely to translate into turnover when employment opportunities are plentiful because employees perceive it is easy to move. Also, when employees have high “human capital” (high education, high ability), job dissatisfaction is more likely to translate into turnover because they have, or perceive, many available alternatives. 66 Finally, employees’ embeddedness in their jobs and communities can help lower the probability of turnover, particularly in collectivist cultures. 67

Photo 3-4Service firms like Air Canada understand that satisfied employees increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. As frontline employees who have regular customer contact, the airline’s ticket agents are friendly, upbeat, and responsive while greeting passengers and helping them with luggage check-in and seat assignments. 

Source: Bloomberg via Getty Images.

Job Satisfaction and Workplace Deviance

Job dissatisfaction and antagonistic relationships with co-workers predict a variety of behaviors organizations find undesirable, including unionization attempts, substance abuse, stealing at work, undue socializing, and tardiness. Researchers argue these behaviors are indicators of a broader syndrome called deviant behavior in the workplace (or counterproductive behavior or employee withdrawal). 68 If employees don’t like their work environment, they’ll respond somehow, though it is not always easy to forecast exactly how. One worker might quit. Another might use work time to surf the Internet or take work supplies home for personal use. In short, workers who don’t like their jobs “get even” in various ways—and because those ways can be quite creative, controlling only one behavior, such as with an absence control policy, leaves the root cause untouched. To effectively control the undesirable consequences of job dissatisfaction, employers should attack the source of the problem—the dissatisfaction—rather than try to control the different responses.

Managers Often “Don’t Get It”

Given the evidence we’ve just reviewed, it should come as no surprise that job satisfaction can affect the bottom line. One study by a management consulting firm separated large organizations into high morale (more than 70 percent of employees expressed overall job satisfaction) and medium or low morale (fewer than 70 percent). The stock prices of companies in the high-morale group grew 19.4 percent, compared with 10 percent for the medium- or low-morale group. Despite these results, many managers are unconcerned about employee job satisfaction. Still others overestimate how satisfied employees are with their jobs, so they don’t think there’s a problem when there is. In one study of 262 large employers, 86 percent of senior managers believed their organization treated its employees well, but only 55 percent of employees agreed. Another study found 55 percent of managers thought morale was good in their organization, compared to only 38 percent of employees. 69

Regular surveys can reduce gaps between what managers think employees feel and what they really feel. This can impact the bottom line in small franchise sites as well as in large companies. For instance, Jonathan McDaniel, manager of a KFC restaurant in Houston, surveys his employees every 3 months. Some results led him to make changes, such as giving employees greater say about which workdays they have off. However, McDaniel believes the process itself is valuable. “They really love giving their opinions,” he says. “That’s the most important part of it—that they have a voice and that they’re heard.” Surveys are no panacea, but if job attitudes are as important as we believe, organizations need to find out where they can be improved. 70

Summary

Managers should be interested in their employees’ attitudes because attitudes give warnings of potential problems and influence behavior. Creating a satisfied workforce is hardly a guarantee of successful organizational performance, but evidence strongly suggests that whatever managers can do to improve employee attitudes will likely result in heightened organizational effectiveness all the way to high customer satisfaction—and profits.