Job satisfaction can be defined as the contentment that comes with the performance of a certain task. It is impossible to quantify this term with reference to a particular individual.
A number of factors spell if a person can really be contented in a particular task that he undertakes to carry out. This measure also differs from one person to another such that one person may be very comfortable in his work while another will not be in a similar position. A number of factors tend to actually determine if an individual will be satisfied or not. Groups that a person belongs to say a lot when it comes to job satisfaction. His social classes, successful childhood, friends, family, do dictate his or her level of satisfaction. People from wealthy families will derive more satisfaction from jobs with that pay very well as opposed to those paying little amounts of money.
People who have rich friends engage in money making talks making them demand high salaries for their ideal job situation. These people will most likely not be content with low pay in their work places. This sparks dissatisfaction. The culture of a person also defines this. If a person has been brought up within cultures that uphold that a person should work hard and be content with the conditions the task is offering, the person will most likely derive a lot of satisfaction from this job.
People brought up in the Islam culture usually are seen to be calm and contented where they are as opposed to a majority of Christians. Jews are believed to be mean and ambitious thus it is unlikely to find Jew content in his work position. The employees own opinion also dictates if he is content with his job. An individual is guided by his psychology and state of mind and if someone opts to feels not contented with what he is doing it is difficult to change this stand. This opinion is also shaped by the culture of the people. People associating themselves with a certain trait are also likely to be satisfied.
There are people who will feel contented with a job because the employer is a famous company. This is association with the company’s trait of fame. Most people in the United States will most likely love to associate with their president Barrack Obama. Their satisfaction therefore comes in handy with this relationship.
The facet model breaks down individual qualities in a job that dictate a person’s satisfaction. These may include the pay, level of engagement, terms of ervice, fringe benefits, job security, performance appraisal and improvement of workers, presence of paid leaves etcetera. The sum of this and other individual traits add up to maximum satisfaction of an individual. Jobs affect workers in many ways and this makes organizational policies to count a lot to employees as they spell their level of satisfaction.
Organization policies that are rigid, vague, and not straight and which may abuse the rights of workers will most likely cause dissatisfaction. Some job facets are more important than others making it a relative term to define job satisfaction between different individuals. Sex and marital status also define the level of satisfaction in people. Males and females have different levels of satisfaction.
Men are certainly known as being aggressive. They will therefore set high standards which they expect to be met at the work place. For singles, security and compensation might as well count more. This particular group of people does not have much need though ambitious and thus their level of satisfaction differs from that of married couples. The latter have more facets. Herzberg’s motivator hygiene theory has gone two sets of propositions.
He proposes that an employee has both motivator and hygiene needs. Motivator needs deal with how challenging a task itself is while hygiene needs define the psychological and physical needs of this individual. Herzberg therefore proposed that if motivator needs are met, an individual is satisfied and if not the individual is dissatisfied. If hygiene needs are met, an individual is satisfied and if they are not, the individual is dissatisfied. A job may also cause both satisfaction and dissatisfaction. A person may be satisfied because his motivator needs are being met but dissatisfied because his hygiene needs are not being met.
The motivator and hygiene needs are two separate dimensions. The theory of Herzenberg has been tested by researchers some of whom strongly oppose his propositions. The discrepancy model tries to fill this vagueness by proposing that job satisfaction is a comparison between the derivations from a job and a person’s ideal expectations can measure a person’s level of satisfaction. Discrepancy models are actually more useful and some researchers even combine facet and discrepancy models. The steady state theory states that an individual worker has a unique equilibrium level of satisfaction.
The level may move a timees but with time it goes back to the same position. The change however at times is permanent. It is possible to measure levels of satisfaction of an individual. Managers take advantage of these measures to effect important changes since worker satisfaction is important for success of any company.
The Nature of Ability Ability is the intrinsic characteristic that enables an individual to perform particular asks. It takes different forms both physical and mental. People cannot survive without ability since it helps them occupy their ecological niches. Ability may take the form of verbal ability. This refers to the capability to exercise the power of speech to achieve a certain objective.
It involves analyzing information and solving problems using language based reasoning. Verbal tasks may involve concrete or abstract ideas or internalized language-based reasoning. The tasks involve skills to recall spoken information, understanding the meaning of written or spoken information, solving language based problems of a literary, logical or social type. Verbal reasoning is highly required in school work.
Cognitive ability refers to the ability to recognize or identify certain things, pay attention, produce, solve problems, understand language and make decisions. It also takes the form of being able to reason out rationally and sensibly. It is an important contributor to group performance. Ability determines performance of an individual or group. People also differ in physical abilities.
This is the ability required to do tasks that require strength and stamina. The two types of physical ability are motor and physical abilities. Emotional Intelligence- Ability to have feelings and emotions. It is a skill to identify, assess and control the emotions of oneself of others and of groups. This is the type of intelligence that gives a person the ability to control him when he is angry and just about to result into fighting. These dictate the capacity to learn and excel.
Emotional intelligence is associated with virtues such as patience. It goes in handy therefore with the ability to reason in a sane manner. Job fit ability is enhanced when there is a high performance in a particular task. This is in a situation where one is expected to perform a certain task. Fitting in this task requires the intrinsic ability of an individual to actually fit there.
