Measurement of Job Satisfaction Using a Direct Approach
Measurement of Job Satisfaction Using a Direct Approach
Consider the following five types of jobs to choose from, carpentry, fishing, teaching, nursing and plumbing. It would require rational decision making for an individual to arrive at a particular job. Especially when faced with various choices. Some of the objectives that will guide an individual’s decision will be: – the salary expected from the job, the benefits that accompany the said job the location of the work, the commitment hours required by the job, the type of co-workers expected, and lastly the passion that an individual has towards the identified jobs. From the above stated objectives, one can estimate the range of satisfaction that each job would yield upon engagement. For instance, from the amount of money, say in dollars, one would know the level of satisfaction that he/she gets from the said job. In many countries and generations, people have always used the remunerations accrued form a job to gage their job satisfaction. It is almost clear that nowadays people work for an income.
A good salary translates to a higher job satisfaction for most people. This, therefore, means that the more the salary, the higher the satisfaction that an individual gets from a job. Considering the other objectives; also, friendly benefits, a good location, reasonable working hours, good co-workers and a strong passion or the job builds a positive attitude about the job. A general assessment of workers on what they think about their current job reveals that they are either extremely dissatisfied, mostly dissatisfied, neither satisfied nor dissatisfied, mostly satisfied or, very satisfied. This builds a numeric scale of one to five. Five being the highest measure of positive response, and one being the highest measure of negative response, based on common sense as a yard stick of satisfaction. The above model is unitary, easy to understand and cheap/economical to conduct. On the other hand, it has low reliability based on some of its criticism. To illustrate the relationship between job satisfaction and salary (in dollars), consider the graph below-
Salary (in Dollars)
Job Satisfaction (in Utils)
The interpretation of the graph above, it is evident that the higher the salary, the higher the job satisfaction an individual enjoys. This, therefore, means that, better salaries can be incentives to motivate the workforce in any given industry. Employers should be keen to formulate an impressive reward scheme for their employees so as to boost their productivity at work. However, it is wrong to take the assumption that the only determinant of job satisfaction is the amount of salary paid out to employee by the employer. Salary influence thus cannot be looked at in isolation. It is also crucial to note that, there are several employee independent variables that are constant, and they include educational attainment, job industry and federal policy on labor. These independent variables are always in play in one way or another. They will always affect the utility level of an individual in a particular job that he or she engages himself/herself.
References
Labor Department Archives on Job Development, (2009), Retrieved from http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/cde/cdewp/74-2.pdf on 12-12-2012
Blau, P.M. and Duncan O.D (1967), ‘The American Occupational Structure’
Bhornstedt.G. (1970) “Reliability and Validity, Assessment in Attitude Measurement,” in Attitude measurement. (G.F.Summer. Ed), Pp80 – 99, Rand McNally Chicago.
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