Employee Satisfaction and Productivity

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TITLE

Employee satisfaction and productivity.

INTRODUCTION

We will investigate the importance of employee satisfaction on

productivity in the workplace. We will argue that employee satisfaction

strongly influences productivity. We decided to choose this topic

because we found it interesting after finishing the course of

Introduction to Business Organization the previous year, thus we

decided to carry out an investigation concerning these two topics.

QUESTION

What is the importance of employee satisfaction on productivity?

OBJECTIVES

Our aim is to prove that when employees are satisfied with their job,

they become more productive. In other words when employees are

highly motivated, have good morale at work, and work more

efficiently, we expect this to have a positive effect on productivity.

PREVIOUS LITERATURE REVIEW

Job satisfaction has been defined as a pleasurable emotional state

resulting from the appraisal of ones job; an affective reaction to ones

job; and an attitude towards ones job.

Julia Muriel Kimonidou, Maria Michael


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The happier people are within their job, the more satisfied they are

said to be. Job satisfaction is not the same as motivation, although it is

clearly linked. Job design aims to enhance job satisfaction and

performance, methods include job rotation, job enlargement and job

enrichment. Other influences on satisfaction include the management

style and culture, employee involvement, empowerment and

autonomous work groups. Job satisfaction is a very important attribute

which is frequently measured by organizations.

Productivity is a measurement of the efficiency of production, taking

the form of a ratio of the output of goods and services to the input of

factors of production. Labor productivity takes account of inputs of

employee hours worked; capital productivity takes account of inputs of

machines or land; and marginal productivity measures the additional

output gained from an additional unit of input.

Weiss defines job satisfaction is an attitude but points out that

researchers should clearly distinguish the objects of cognitive

evaluation which are affect (emotion), beliefs and behaviors. This

definition suggests that we form attitudes towards our jobs by taking

into account our feelings, our beliefs, and our behaviors.

According to Roger J. Best, successful efforts in increasing employee

satisfaction appear to enhance overall firm productivity, which is

subsequently rewarded by investors through higher equity values.

Ali Ahsan concluded that employee satisfaction serves as a stimulus for

the organizational quality and productivity. His study provides support

for some key factors serving as stimulators for employee satisfaction.

These factors are pay, job interest, leadership (encouragement,



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feedback, and performance appraisal), career growth, working

environment, broadly defined job responsibility, organizational

objectives and trainings. These factors if not provided, result in

dissatisfaction of employees. In addition to this some new factors have

been identified which were not made part of the survey initially but

came across on employees feedback. These factors include

government policies, transport, good innovative projects, company

strength, social and economic values, political instability, natural

disaster, location, vendor management, weather, and family issues.

Campion, Michael A. and Higgs, A. Catherine A concluded that team-

based workforce can increase both productivity and employee

satisfaction. But to realize those gains, organizations must take care in

designing their teams at the outset. Otherwise, they risk alienating

employees, who may view the move to teams as just another passing

management fad.

Personally, we strongly believe that job satisfaction does indeed lead

to a higher productivity.

METHODOLOGY

This research focuses on employee satisfaction which in turn causes

higher productivity, or dissatisfaction that leads to lower productivity.

We are going to prepare a questionnaire with 5 questions for the

employees to answer, which will be quite straightforward and easy to

answer. This questionnaire highlights the factors that are source of

satisfaction. The most common way of measurement is the use of

rating scales where employees report their reactions to their jobs.

Questions relate to rate of the overall satisfaction, work

responsibilities, sense of encouragement and achievement, level of



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support, communication and co-workers. The questionnaire will be

designed to ask to rate satisfaction on 1-5 scale: 5 being "extremely

satisfied". The questions used in the surveying tool, concerns general

level of satisfaction of employees. It is ensured that questions are easy

to understand, short and less time taking. A sample of this

questionnaire is included at the bottom of the methodology as to have

a clearer view of its structure. Before distributing the questionnaires,

each individual is given understanding of the research. We will visit an

organization which is based on promotions and sales, where it will be

easier to measure the productivity of each employee selected for the

sample. To measure the productivity it will be a more difficult task,

we will try to obtain the amount of sales that the employee has made

within the year. It is important to take this information for the whole

year because it will rule out as much as possible any external,

negative, or personal effects that might have affected their

productivity. Therefore the collection of data for the whole year

becomes more reliable. We will go to the organization in the morning

to give out questionnaires when the employees arrive to work and tellthem that after their shift we will return to collect the questionnaires.

Before distributing them, we will ensure employees that the

questionnaires will be anonymous in other words their names,

department and name of the organization will not be shown on our

article. We will visit three departments to give out the questionnaires,

five employees of each department i.e. a total of fifteen

questionnaires. The same afternoon we will go back and collect ourdata after they have of course answered. After collecting our data we

will be using probabilities and statistics to analyze our research. This

should lead us to make our own conclusions on our research question.



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Sample Employee Satisfaction Questionnaire

Choosing 1 means being dissatisfied and 5 being extremely

satisfied.

1. I feel my department gets support and teamwork from other

areas within the Company.

12

34

5

2. Overall I am very satisfied with my job at Company ABC.

1

23

4

5

3. My manager clearly defines my job responsibilities.

12



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34

5

4. My manager/supervisor encourages high achievement by

reducing the fear of failure.

1

2

34

5

5. My manager/supervisor clearly communicates what is

expected of me.

1

23

4

5

REFERENCES

1. Academy of Management Proceedings; 2009, p1-6, 6p

2. Brief, 1998 cited in Weiss, H. M. (2002). Deconstructing job

satisfaction: separating evaluations, beliefs and affective experiences.

3. http://faculty.ucmo.edu/econfinpapers/wpaper/wp0806.pdf

4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job_satisfaction

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job_satisfactionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job_satisfaction


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5. HRMagazine; Oct95, Vol. 40 Issue 10, p101, 4p

6. Human Resource Management Review, 12, 173-194, p. 174

7. Total Quality Management

Vol. 17, No. 10, 12611271, December 2006

8. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence; Dec2006, Vol. 17

Issue 10, p1261-1271, 11p, 3 charts, 2 diagrams


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Employee Satisfaction and Productivity