Job satisfaction is a positive, emotional (affective) reaction to one’s work that results from the meeting or exceeding of individual worker wants (explicit) and needs (implicit). Because job satisfaction is a reaction, it is then the alignment between the person and the circumstance that achieves this positive regard. A work situation that is experienced as satisfying to one person will not necessarily be experienced as satisfying to another person. Not only are the personal psychology and goals of individuals unique, but work situations entail a multitude of factors that impact satisfaction (e.g., norms, goals, values, rewards, involvement, and effort).

Individuals are explicitly aware of the wants they seek to meet through their work. These wants are the circumstances that one talks about and seeks actively during a job search, such as the type of work, responsibility level, compensation, location, and visible conditions. Individuals also have needs of which they are less aware, such as desires for inclusion, autonomy, high regard, control, and security, to mention just a few. The presence of these factors is weighed somewhat during interviews based on what the individual sees and experiences. When a job appears to be somewhat consistent or a good fit with these wants and needs, then the work seems attractive, and there is the hope that it will be satisfying.

Improving Job Satisfaction

Employees and managers are both concerned with ways of improving job satisfaction. For employees, working at a job that is satisfying probably means a better quality of life, better mental and physical health, better performance evaluations, greater job stability, and other benefits. For managers, having an organization of employees with high job satisfaction means greater cooperation, low absenteeism, high retention, greater employee effort, less interpersonal conflict, fewer grievances, and more.

The first step toward improving job satisfaction is determining its causes and effects; however, this task is more difficult than it sounds. Job satisfaction has many contributing factors and resulting effects, and the science-based facts (and our experience) in this regard differ substantially from some widely held misconceptions. One substantial myth is the belief that increasing compensation increases job satisfaction. Another myth is the idea that improving job satisfaction will improve employee performance. A third myth is the suggestion that any one of the many off-the-shelf job-satisfaction surveys—suggesting that job satisfaction is a function of a variety of features of the work environment—will provide accurate direction for improving employee job satisfaction.

In fact, all three are based on overly simplistic interpretations of the complex situation they are trying to explain. Because these approaches seem sensible on the surface and are convenient to believe, they contribute to the persistence of misconceptions concerning job satisfaction and its causes and effects.

Facts about Job Satisfaction

What can be said about job satisfaction is that it is substantially dependent on the individuals involved and the specific work situation, and that generalizations are often misleading. Just a few of the science-based principles for defining the causes and effects of job satisfaction include the following:

• Job satisfaction is determined mostly by intrinsically rewarding work conditions, such as interesting work, challenge, accomplishment, achievement, development, and autonomy.
  
• Though job satisfaction is also determined somewhat by the magnitude of extrinsic rewards, such as pay and security, the direct effect is small and relative to individual perceptions of fairness.
  
• Job satisfaction has no effect on self-rated job performance, though it does influence performance evaluations conducted by superiors.
  
• Job satisfaction cannot be judged in absolute terms, but involves comparison.
  
• The relationship between person and job (and job environment) is interactive, such that the person acts to shape the job, which in turn affects the person.
  
• Job satisfaction can be divided into facets or components, and these facets can be tied to one or more aspects of the work situation and attributed to relatively permanent characteristics of the individual.
  
• For initiatives to improve job satisfaction to be effective, they must be designed with specific knowledge of current job satisfaction, areas of discontent, and recommended improvements, as expressed by the target population.

Our experience working with humaneering technology, and in hundreds of client engagements for which worker satisfaction was a factor, suggests that job satisfaction is a trailing indicator (or summative measure) of the effectiveness of managerial systems and a helpful tool for diagnosing performance problems and directing improvement efforts.

Is the performance of your organization not what you want? Let pepitoneworldwide improve the effectiveness of your managerial systems and maximize the performance of your organization. See Productivity and Performance.