Literature Review Of Employee Satisfaction

This passage reveals Santiago’s take on being alive. Indeed, it is living for the present. Santiago doesn’t reminisce about his old shepherd life or even his life back in Spain. He also doesn’t think about the future that often. He only thinks about his life right now in the middle of the desert, and for that, he feels alive. Engaging with the present moment also open up possibilities that can change one’s future, whether predestined or not. Thus, Santiago doesn’t trouble himself with anything but the present, because he knows that it’s more important than anything else.

According to Herzberg two factor theory there are “two issues that play an important role in the workplace experience: hygiene factors and motivational factors”( Fischer and Baack, 2013 ). Hygiene factors contains wages, hours, working conditions and relationships with supervisors. Motivational factors consist of achievements, recognition, actual work or job, responsibility, and the chance for advancement or growth, and relationships with peers. Herzberg states that a person is either satisfied and driven or unfulfilled and

An Organization’s productivity and efficiency depends to a large extent on what employees think or perceive about their organization. It is a well-known concept that “If you keep your employees happy, they will make your customers happy”. So to make them happy or motivated, challenging jobs, tasks, assignments are to be provided along with better or superior environment to excel in. As a result, we can have two benefits; on one hand it will enhance the employees’ job experience and on the other hand organization’s productivity will increase. Turnover and absenteeism will be low, employee commitment will be high. In short, job satisfaction and dissatisfaction play a major role behind overall employee motivation. Herzberg’s Motivator-Hygiene

Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory- a theory that explores factors associated with satisfaction or dissatisfaction in the workplace (Bell et al., 2014).

Maslow’s study of the needs hierarchy led to Frederick Herzberg’s theory, Two-Factor Theory. Herzberg researched focused on employee’s attitudes and motivation. He determined that there are two factors of motivation. The first set (hygiene factors) relates to the employee's need for fair treatment in compensation, supervision, and working conditions (Dictionary of Human Resource Management, 2001). If these are not met, employees feel dissatisfied. Herzberg second set of needs, (motivator factors) identify personal growth and capacity development on the job, (promotion, achievement, responsibility, etc.) must be met for employees to experience job satisfaction. Distinguishing between these two sets of factors is important because it means that different factors are responsible for job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction (Dictionary of Human Resource Management, 2001). Herzberg believed that motivation increases when one combines pay (extrinsic factor) with a motivator such as challenging work (DuBrin, 2007). This theory has led people to understand that money will not always be the best motivation.

According to Herzberg, individuals are not satisfied with lower-order needs at work, for example, those associated with minimum salary levels or safe and pleasant working conditions. Theses individuals look for the gratification of higher-level psychological needs such as achievement, recognition, responsibility, advancement, and the nature of the work itself. Motivation-hygiene theory, based on the presence of one set of job characteristics or incentives lead to worker satisfaction at work, while another and separate set of job characteristics lead to dissatisfaction at work. Moreover he found that job characteristics related to what an individual does is the nature of the work he performs, having the capacity to gratify such needs such as achievement, competency, status, personal worth, and self-realization, leading to satisfaction. However, the absence of such gratifying job characteristics does not lead to dissatisfaction. Instead, dissatisfaction results from unfavorable assessments of such job-related factors as company

Job satisfaction can be defined as psychological state of how an individual feels towards work, in other words, it is people‟s feelings and attitudes about variety of intrinsic and extrinsic elements towards jobs and the organizations they perform their jobs in. The elements of job satisfaction are related to pay, promotion, benefits, work nature, supervision, and relationship with colleagues. Employees‟ satisfaction is considered as all-around module of an organization‟s human resource strategies. According to Simatwa (2011) Job satisfaction means a function which is positively related to the degree to which one‟s personal needs are fulfilled in the job situation. Kuria (2011) argues that employees are the most satisfied and highly productive when their job offers them security from economic strain, recognition of their effort clean policy of grievances, opportunity to contribute ideas and suggestions, participation in decision making and managing the

Managers that are therefore in a position to obtain a shared understanding of issues to do with employee turnover can be in a position to retain their employees and hence achieve a competitive advantage. Turnover is also important for organizations so that they can r4place the old employees in the process of them carrying out business processes (Glebbeek & Bax, 2004). Organizations are in a position to plan for employee replacement in the most convenient manner without necessarily disturbing the existing equilibrium. Decisions about turnover made by the employees have also been seen as an opportunity for employees to carry pout individual improvement. Employees are in a position to carry out an assessment of the current job and bring into perspective the possible alternatives that they can go for in the market.

According to Herzberg, the factors leading to job satisfaction are distinctly different from those that lead to job-dissatisfaction. Therefore, the managers who seek to eliminate factors that create job-dissatisfaction can bring about peace at the workplace but cannot motivate the employees. These factors are termed as hygiene factors comprising administration, supervision, working conditions, salary and wages etc. While absence of hygiene factors will lead to dissatisfaction, mere presence of these factors will not satisfy (i.e. motivate) the employees. In order to motivate the employees, managers must resort to ‘motivators’ (those factors that motivate the employees towards better performance) such as recognition, challenging assignment, responsibility, opportunities for growth and self-fulfillment etc.

Herzberg’s two factor theory of motivation at the workplace shows the difference between two factors of motivation. The two factors being satisfiers, which are the main causes for job satisfaction (motivation), from hygiene factors which are the main causes for job dissatisfaction (demotivation to stay in the job). Examples of motivating factors are achievement, recognition, responsibility and the work itself. Hygiene factors include: working conditions, salary, relationship with colleagues, supervision, etc. An organisation needs to influence satisfiers through performance management using range of tools such as: job descriptions, supervision, performance appraisals, continuous development/training, rewards and career development.

The study, as reported in the journal, was using Herzberg’s Hygiene Factors and Motivators to examine (a) what motivates employees in the retail industry and (b) their levels of jobs satisfaction. Tan & Waheed (2011) stated that the survey was done by way of convenient sampling to select sales personnel from women’s clothing stores at Bandar Sunway shopping mall located at Selangor, Malaysia. One hundred and eighty selected sales personnel of heterogeneity were surveyed by a questionnaire written in English. The questionnaire included a series of statements and questions pertaining to determinants of job satisfaction. The survey candidates were requested to indicate their degree of agreement to each. According to the researchers, linear regression analysis was performed to test the relationship between Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory and job satisfaction and further analysis was done evaluating the relationship between money and job satisfaction.

Herzberg’s two-factor theory Psychologist Frederick Herzberg developed a ‘two-factor’ theory for motivation based on ‘motivators’ and ‘hygience factors’. Hygience factors are basic human needs at work. It do not motivate but failure to meet them causes dissatisfaction. The hygience factors

Determinants of job satisfaction are various features of the job environment and which are considered the causes of job satisfaction. These features include characteristics of jobs and job tasks, as well as various aspects of the organization (Spector, 2000). According to Spector (1997), determinants of job satisfaction can be classified into two major categories; First, the job environment itself and factors associated with the job are important influences on job satisfaction. This includes how people are treated, the nature of job tasks, relations with other people in the workplace, and rewards. Second, there are individual factors that the person brings to the job. This includes both personality and prior experiences; both categories of the determinants often work together to influence employee job satisfaction. While Furnham (1992) and Ting (1996, 1997) noted that despite the variety of variables suggested as having a major, minor or moderating effects on job satisfaction, it is possible to divide these factors into three distinct groups (1) Job characteristics, these included five sub variables: supervisory position, skill utilization, satisfaction with pay, satisfaction with the tasks, and satisfaction with working conditions (2) Organizational characteristics, these included two sub

Herzberg’s (1993) ‘Motivation-Hygiene theory’ analyses job attitudes suggesting a two-step approach to understanding employee motivation and satisfaction;

2000 studies have been published on job satisfaction since the 1950’s (Kahn, 1972). Job satisfaction refers to an employee’s feelings towards their job based on the comparison between actual versus desired outcomes (Locke, 1969). Each individual experiences various levels of job satisfaction due to their different expectations towards their job