What are benefits of Job Satisfaction?

Research has concluded that there is a relationship between job satisfaction and performance of the employees. Thus, job satisfaction or job dissatisfaction is an important concern of the management. High job satisfaction may lead to improved productivity, decreased turnover, and improved attendance, reduced accidents, less job stress and less unionization. Job dissatisfaction produces low morale among workers and low morale at work is highly undesirable. In examining the outcomes of job satisfaction, it is important to break down the analysis into a series of specific subtopics. The following subtopics explain the outcomes of job satisfaction:

1. Job Satisfaction and Productivity: Is there any positive relationship between satisfaction and productivity? This controversy has been there over a number of years. Although, majority of people believe that there is a positive relationship, but research evidence concludes that there is not strong relationship between these two. According to the research findings of VROOM conducted in 1964, the medium correlation between satisfaction and performance is only 0.14. LAWLER and PORTER found that there is more evidence to suggest that job performance leads to job satisfaction and not the other way round. An employee who is a poor performer will get fewer rewards and will be less satisfied with his job experience.

However, the sayings that “A happy worker is a productive worker” are not always wrong. If people receive rewards which have both intrinsic and extrinsic value and they feel that there rewards are equitable, they will be satisfied and this will lead to greater job performance.

Moreover, research also includes that job satisfaction may not necessarily lead to improvement of individual performance but it does lead to departmental and organizational level improvement.

2. Job Satisfaction and Employee Turnover: Unlike the relationship between satisfaction and performance, research has concluded a moderate relationship between job satisfaction and turnover. High employee turnover is a matter of concern for the management as it disrupt the normal operations and continuous replacement of employees who leave the organization is costly and technically undesirable. Managerial concern is mostly for the turnover which arises because of job dissatisfaction. The employees, thus, tries to keep the employees satisfied on their jobs to minimize the turnover. Though, high job satisfaction in itself cannot keep the turnover low but considerable job dissatisfaction will definitely increase the employee turnover.

The employee turnover is affected by certain other factors also, in addition to job satisfaction. Commitment to the organization is one such factor some employees, however dissatisfied they arc with their jobs, they cannot imagine themselves working anywhere else. Another important factor is the better opportunities of employment. Even if the people arc highly satisfied with their jobs, they arc willing to leave if there are better opportunities available anywhere else. If no other opportunities are available, the employees will stay where they arc, irrespective of dissatisfaction.

On the overall basis, we can say that there is an important role played by job satisfaction in employee turnover.

3. Job Satisfaction and Absenteeism: It has been conclusively proved that there is an inverse relationship between job satisfaction and absenteeism. When satisfaction is high, absenteeism is low and when satisfaction is low, absenteeism is high. Less satisfied employees are more likely to be absent from work due to avoidable reasons. This is known as voluntary absenteeism as against unavoidable absenteeism which is due to illness or other emergency reasons. Management must be concerned with voluntary absenteeism, because it is related to job satisfaction. Absenteeism can be modified by certain factors. Research has found that people who believe that their work is important have lower absenteeism as compared to those who do not feel that way. Moreover, it is important to remember that while high job satisfaction will not necessarily result in low absenteeism (because of unavoidable absenteeism), but low job satisfaction will definitely bring about high absenteeism.

4. Job Satisfaction and Union Activities: It has been proved that satisfied employees are generally not interested in unions and they do not perceive them as necessary. Job satisfaction has proved to be the major cause of unionization. The employees join the unions because they feel that individually they are unable to influence changes which would eliminate the causes of job dissatisfaction. The level of union activities is related to the level of job dissatisfaction. Low level of dissatisfaction results in only grievances while higher levels of dissatisfaction will result in employee strikes.

5. Job Satisfaction and Safety: When people are dissatisfied with their jobs, company and supervisors, they are more prone to experience accidents. An underlying reason for this is that dissatisfaction lakes one’s attention away from the task at hand and leads directly to accidents. A satisfied worker will always be careful and attentive towards his job, and the chances of accidents will be less. Here, we are discussing about the avoidable accidents and not the unavoidable ones.

6. Other effects of Job Satisfaction: In addition, there are a number of other effects brought about by high job satisfaction. Highly satisfied employees tend to have better physical and mental health, learn the new job related tasks easily, and have less job stress and unrest. Such employees will become more co¬operative such as helping coworkers, helping customers etc. Such behavior will improve unit performance and organizational effectiveness.

To conclude, we can say that job satisfaction results from the employee’s perception that the job content and context actually provide what an employee values in the work situation. Organizationally speaking, high level of job satisfaction reflects a highly favorable organizational climate resulting in attracting and retaining better workers.